I was going to make some late-to-the-party comments on this subject to the DIY thread but there are now so many nested comments on the part of the thread that I wanted to get stuck into, that no more comments are possible.
This is not a complaint about that. It just struck me that for certain generations in certain parts of the world, music assumed a huge significance and now appears to be less important to the great mass of humanity than it did in the last 3/4 of the 20th century, from when it first became industrialised to when the wheels started falling off the music industry juggernaut.
Prior to this it was something ordinary people enjoyed without thinking much about it. There were
1) a few hardy souls who took a precarious living from making it, with varying degrees of success and 2) some practitioners who made it for their own and their friends and neighbours’ pleasure while making their livings in other spheres.
And that was about it, really.
Currently in the sphere of music there are
1) practitioners like those I’ve just mentioned
2) a dwindling coterie of “music stars” who still do very well financially making music as part of the dying industrial model
3) a sizeable but shrinking contingent under the delusion that they too can become rich “music stars” 4) another contingent who take a precarious living from making music but have no faith or much interest in “The Industry”.
“Appreciation” of music has always been a minority activity. To the majority of society, it has never been more than a mere diversion. The minority of “Appreciators” grew with the industrialisation of music and is now fast shrinking back to it’s pre-industrial proportion, as the industry that promoted it shrinks, having been absorbed into the general “Entertainment” industrial complex as just one of many “Revenue Streams”.
I still love it, in the forms I prefer. I expect youse lot do too, otherwise WTF are you doing here reading this rubbish?
I have to read this as a condition of my community service..
P.S. A bit vague on the “appreciators” idea. I would have thought pretty much everyone enjoys music just as they do alcohol, sloppy kisses and sunsheeeeiiiiine..
“Appreciate” as in taking the stuff seriously, accumulating knowledge about it an’ that.
I wouldn’t say that. I think many young people that are obsessed with music in the same way I was. With streaming services they are also listening to stuff that I don’t “get” – and that’s really how it should be. I’m sure my impressive post-punk singles collection mystified my dad too. “Interestingly”….he was the only person in my large family that never expressed any interest in any music at all. Never played an instrument, tapped a toe or hummed a discernable tune – although he did whistle and hum tunelessly. It is possible I think to allow all music to pass you by.
I think we fanpersons and practitioners have a naturally distorted view of music’s significance.
Yes there are many people in all generations who love it, just like us, but we are still just a minority.
To the majority of society, music is just part of life’s background. They may buy the odd CD or download the odd track but it’s not IMPORTANT to them. Even though it is more ubiquitous than it’s ever been in history, it doesn’t hold their attention and they’d be hard pressed to name many non-famous musicians, if any.
Pop music is not more ubiquitous than it was in the 60s.
Oh I disagree with that.
Shops and supermarkets play music all the time.
People have it on their vehicle radios/stereos right from the moment they switch on the ignition to the moment they switch it off again at their destination.
Cyclists, joggers and people just walking along the pavement or sitting on the bus have earplugs in or earphones on, with music playing on their phones while they text or tweet or check their social media status.
In the ’60s music was confined pretty much to the home, or possibly the workplace if you were “blue collar”. Car radios were by no means common before the end of that decade. Most people didn’t actually own cars then. The portable transistor radio was only just coming into common use.
Also, pop music is in almost every kind of TV show now. Not to mention the adverts.
My local supermarket was playing Abbey Road all the way through the other day. Decades ago it would have played muzak, or a soundalike version perhaps
Pale Blue Eyes by VU in Cafe Nero. (also on my restos playlists, as are Zappa and Beefheart)
…..you’d think then there would be a market for, in no particular order:
Top of the Pops.
Weekly music papers.
Music shops…..anywhere….just one’ll do.
A pop chart.
Regional TV music programmes.
‘A Hard Day’s Night’-type films for the latest pop craze.
‘Beatles Monthly’-type mags for the latest pop craze.
Not at all, since for most people music isn’t a pursuit as such, just a background to their lives, or an occasional interest.
You must have missed Spiceworld’, deram. ‘The Citizen Kane of pop movies’, I believe.
Hmmm an egomaniac – tick
A woman who CANNOT sing – tick
A dabble in politics (Mrs T was the first Spice Girl) – tick
For Xanadu read Beckingham Palace – tick
Rosebud? That’s what I caught a glimpse of when Geri wore that ultra-short Union Jack Dress..
About 10 years ago in my late 30s I was in the supermarket and noticed the songs being played tended to be 80s classics and thought that was a good thing, reflecting that good music is timeless. Then I realised that I was the ideal demographic for the customers they want to attract – so it makes sense to play music that people my age would deem “timeless classics”.
I think that going back music was a mass cultural model back into the nineteenth century if not earlier. Sheet music was a vast industry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and if songwriters then did not earn the fortunes that Goffin and King have, that’s because it was so much easier to pirate (sound familiar?). Most middle-class homes owned a piano and music-making around it was a central pastime.
Music Hall was the dominant form of popular entertainment from the early nineteenth-century until the mass consumption of film. Of course many music halls became cinemas.
Music-making has been a central part of almost every culture since history began. It’s only music consumption with a broadcast model (1 artist reaching millions of audience) that has been a relatively recent phenomenon.
Sheet music was only bought by people wealthy enough to own musical instruments. Poor people had no use for it. The urban hoi-polloi enjoyed a sing-song down the pub or at the music hall, when they had a bit of brass to spend, but it was just an accompaniment to a night out and not a thing in itself. Of course a lot more people sang in church in those days. A few urban poor might own cheap portable instruments.
Country people sang in the pub (males pretty much exclusively) or else in church. Some might have instruments to play, that had been handed down or were home-made. Generally they were too poor to buy instruments.
I suppose my main point in starting this debate is my opinion that although almost everyone everywhere enjoys a good tune, the significance of music in people’s lives was vastly over-inflated (for reasons of commerce) during the pop era (mid ’50s to late ’90s) and has since been settling down back towards it’s previous status as an interest for the few and a diversion for the rest.
Music provided an identity and lifestyle for the mid-late 20th Century western youth baby boom who had more income and autonomy than previous generations, and this mixed with subcultures that modelled a freedom from the responsibilities that adult world didn’t allow. Truth is, it never was that important to everyone, and supermarket CD collections underline this; but it was part of our identities, and this is why it is meaningful to us. Popular music of the late 20th century is as time-specific to us as the music hall or the golden age of Hollywood to those a generation or two older.
What Vincent said…
During the period 65-75, pop music was part of a wider culture. It represented, and was part of, something bigger and more important – a genuinely sincere attempt at an alternative society. Today, this seems risible. The idea of a bunch of stoned hippies changing society has a quaint charm to it we can all smirk at, knowing what we know. What we know is that it very definitely was not the dawning of the age of Aquarius, that the dream mostly failed to result in societal change. But the belief that we didn’t have to be our fathers (let alone our Grandpappys) was deep and inspirational and seeped into every area of our lives, including music, books (how we all read!), art and politics. Music was the spearhead of a peaceful revolution (holds up studio audience LAUGH card). It formed bonds and defined the sense of us and them. There was a feeling of positive progression and excitement, of the world opening up, and the soundtrack was the ISB or the Beatles or any of the hundreds of young talented acts creating an artform out of disposable popular entertainment. My Dad could never understand the importance of music for me and my friends, and neither can Today’s Kids.
The Revolution is over. Music, whatever it is, no longer represents or partakes of a “youth movement” at odds with society. It’s still enjoyed and made, but that huge beautiful wave it surfed into our lives on has become … a swipe and a tap on a smartphone. Here’s me at Glasto LOL!
I think you have nailed why people want to debate and discuss this question @h-p-saucecraft. Compare and contrast with the other great mass cultural industries of the C20 and C21: film/television and gaming. The latter never specifically targeted young people, it was an adult medium with young people as just a segment. Gaming vice-versa. Neither have ever been linked to any ideas about social change, pitching themselves as the exciting bits of the status quo, or even distractions from it, rather than change.
What HP said in spades…
“Film/television … as the exciting bits of the status quo, or even distractions from it, rather than change.” Nicely put.
Todays infotainment culture is centred, as you say, on the principle of distraction. The internet is fuelled by it. There is nothing more distracting than a smartphone. It will always take precedence over everything else, and once you’re in, you’re happy to click about, ignoring the physical world around you (and the physical people). Get bored? Click to something else, LOL.
The question of what we’re being distracted from is very interesting, but the answer won’t be found by Googling.
Spot on analysis.
Music did have a voice/meaning many years ago in terms of being part of cultural and political change but those days are gone.
I love music and its importance has never waned for me nor do I expect it too in the future. However the conditions for success have changed and it is down to the artists or their management to put into play practises that will reap massive rewards easily equal to what was seen in the ‘heyday’.
Let me give you an example. Kate Bush shuns the limelight, doesn’t tour for donkey’s years and then announces a 22 day stint in London that sells out instantly. If she was touring every other year she wouldn’t have a cat in hells chance of doing that.
Tom Waits rarely tours these shores – his last tour I think had 3 or 4 dates tops. Couldn’t get tickets for love nor money.
One of my favourites Costello tours repeatedly and now his ticket sales are starting to wane. He announces limited dates showcasing Imperial Bedroom which will no doubt sell out quickly as it is a new slant on his shows.
In a nutshell the artists have enormous responsibility to reap their own success through looking at things differently. In a saturated leisure market customers have small attention span. Therwe needs to be a creative response.
I think it’s no longer viable to become a properly creative artist within the corporate industrial entertainment biz.
A limited number of malleable performers can still make their fortunes and the current stars can remain if they are smart and still able to produce what the punters will pay for, but the majority of aspiring performers will scrape a living at best.
Compare with food and foodies. Some folk have the “food is fuel” curse and don’t give a toss much about what goes in as long as it does the job, some insisting on a peak performance high octane input, others whatever is cheapest at the pumps. Whereas yer foodie reads and researches tastes, flavours and ideas, buying up food magazines, knowing the back story of all the chefs, and having intimate knowledge of the critical slings and arrows. With music many happy just to have the radio on and might have a few CDs, presents and supermarket impulses. Whereas we……….
It’s a fecking curse more than a gift.
I agree with Mike H on all of his points. Very well put, Mike. I’ve long thought of a period within the latter half of the 20th century (maybe from Beatlemania onwards) as the ‘rock era’ and the present century, maybe even from mid 90s, as the ‘information era’ – by those broad brush strokes I just mean eras where the mainstream popular culture is largely defined by those things.
Pop music’s not alone.
So it’s unlikely that a piece of music is going to have advance orders of 2,000,000 (‘Can’t Buy Me Love’), but then who is going to attract a TV audience of over 20,000,000 like Morecambe & Wise?
However the advance numbers for games are staggering. GTA V for example:
The game broke industry sales records and became the fastest-selling entertainment product in history, earning US $800 million in its first day and US $1 billion in its first three days.
That’s because the games market isn’t fragmented in the same way the music market is, and there isn’t anything like the same amount of product to choose from. I’d love to see an analysis of GTA sales vs install base. I bet a massive percentage of active console owners bought GTA, whereas even a blockbuster like Adele is a drop in the ocean of total music sales.
and, while I don’t deny in any way the massiveness of GTA*, let’s not forget those numbers come from an item whose retail price is around five times as much as an album or cinema ticket.
But music is now historically very cheap. In 1977 we were paying about £3 – £3.50 for an album which, in real terms equates to around £25 today (taking wages and inflation into account). When CDs took off in the late 80s, they were at least £10 a pop. That’s over £30 in today’s terms. I would expect to buy a new album three or for times a month. I assume games players don’t do that so they probably spend less on games in real terms than a music fan between 1975 and 1990 would have spent on music.
Couple all this with the savings they’ve already made on their hardware, my 1984 “games machine”, a Sinclar Spectrum cost the equivalent of about £500 with no games at all!
As I posted on an earlier thread, in 1967 an imported US LP cost around £5.00 which converts to an eye-watering £84 today.
That compares to the 1967 price of a regular locally made LP at £1.50 which still works out at a not inconsiderable £25.
You can see why LPs were usually reserved for birthdays and Christmas. Hard to believe now in a world where all the music ever recorded is available free.
Yeah but conversely I and I am sure many others are buying a lot more albums due to their sheer affordability. The 3 or 4 albums per month I was buying 10 or 15 years ago is now more like 8 or 9. Some of this is down to more disposable income but if this is replicated by others you would think it would show a significant increase in physical sales – the fact that it doesn’t suggests that the shift away from physical has increased. Although downloads are still not major sales so there is a hope that we will still be able to buy our shiny discs from the tax dodgers for a little longer yet.
It’s almost like Sony and Microsoft looked at the music industry in the 90s and went ‘you know let’s not do that’ – have everything on your proprietary hardware, control the flow of product to maximise revenue, control all the IP, ensure that the digital product is an expensive as the physical version…they even had a go at trying to make hardware that wouldn’t play second hand games.
And of course giving away the hardware to install and lock in your customer base for the software is as old as the free razorblade.
One thing missing from this discussion is the role of Dance. The rise of popular music went hand in hand with dance halls (40’s 50’s 60’s) into disco (70’s) raves (80’s 90’s). Music went from Live through to Recordings but it was music none the less. Alongside these trends were more minority dance activities (Line Dance, Ball Room, Ceilidh etc).
Don’t have stats to prove this but I suspect people going out to “Dance” is far less common and certainly not part of the gig culture (mosh pits notwithstanding).
If dance was a component part of the musical experience as was then, its absence has a knock on effect.
Who needs dancing in the age of Tinder…
Two unintended consequences of the rise of screen culture:
Less ‘boredom’ crime – esp burglary – as apps keep everyone occupied
Half the nightclubs opened in 2000 have shut down – there’s Tinder, Netflix and chill to sort out. And young people have masses less disposable income.
What a deeply depressing thought, Locust.
Instead of He’s the Greatest Dancer, it’s now He’s the Greatest Swiper.
The Afterword: Musings on the baseness of popular culture.
Most people I know, of all ages, use music as background. I’d like to say I never use music as background (especially from roughly 1965 to 1995 when I could Bore For Britain re “just listen to the drumming on this track” or “wait till the pedal steel kicks in at 3.35”) but these days I mostly listen when cooking (breakfast, lunch and evening meal). I still think ‘proper serious’ music deserves full attention but who the hell (apart from possibly Tigger) has the time or even inclination to do so when there is just too much other stuff everywhere? Thus popular music will never IMHO have the importance it once had to all but a minority (or impressionable teenagers who think this one is just for them,).
My kids (all early twenty somethings) listen to music all the time, and always have. They listen to stuff I generally have never heard of, although, unlike my own parents, I’m interested in hearing them say what they like about it.
That to me is the huge difference between the yoof of today and when I were a lad
How do they listen to it, Mousey?
Exclusively on iPhone or laptop. When my son was at home he’d occasionally play something through the new-fangled bluetooth box thing in the kitchen if he wanted me to hear it. Similarly my youngest daughter liked to play me her current favourite song in the car.
Why don’t you cajole/coerce/beat them into contributing to the blog, Mousey? I’m serious about this. I’d love to read what yer actual Young People are actually listening to, and why.
Go on!
People who have absolutely no interest in music fascinate me. Years ago I worked in an industrial dump that piped Radio 1 onto the factory floor. Throughout the shift my work mates and I would casually comment on the records played ,the ones we liked, the ones we hated. It helped dilute the tedium of the day. Everyone had an opinion of some sort except one dour middle aged colleague who claimed never to have bought a record, had no favourite singer and couldn’t name a band or genre of music he liked. Fair enough…Until one day during Simon Bates Golden Hour, mouth frothing with excitement, he franticly sought me out to tell me that the record Bates was playing was the one tune in his life that he loved and that never failed to move him. The song Car 67 by Driver 67. Weird
That is one long con. Respect!
As I mentally pack for next weeks now annual trip to Shrewsbury Folkfest, I actually question some of the reasoning, even mine, made above. OK, disregarding the fact that folk festivals are preaching largely to the converted demographic of AW (average 54 years), and against recent years shroud waving of the end of music festivals, actually there seem more than ever, to pander to each and any taste, as well as several yet to be defined. Presumably some of the attending revellers (cos its always revellers) listen to the odd bit of music? Even if some go as part of some rite of passage, a ticked box on a bucket list, surely there must be at least a flicker of the importance of the music bit to the whole experience. Or is it just the AWistas on a permanent rotation between all these rainy fields?
It’s all to do with drugs, innit.
In the 40s and 50s there was coffee and alcohol, especially when rationing stopped. Rock & Roll!
In the 60s and 70s, cannabis, LSD and magic mushrooms deluded some people into thinking music could change the world. Only a minority actually thought this and some of them (bless) write prolifically on this blog. The reality is that the hippy trail was actually a dead end. I guess Rastas still manage to combine ganja, religion and reggae into a tenable lifestyle.
Then, there was speed and heroin driving Punk & New Wave, followed by all sorts of mixtures/combinations. (Here’s a question for you: who changed the world more, punks or hippies? The answer is neither, it is Soul. Soul is music to make love to. Soul makes babies.) The last big change was the arrival of ecstasy, coinciding with digitally produced ‘music’.
The music business really began in the late fifties and became hugely corporate in 1971. It strikes me that it continues to do well on the whole. There is a lot of money being made across the world. ‘Sales’ seem to be holding up, albeit counted differently. As has already been said, buying an album at peak vinyl in the seventies was a special event. Not any more. The numbers of new releases are exponentially higher than they used to be. They don’t release albums with the intention of losing money (even if, these days, they often use an album to promote a tour, whereas they used to tour to promote an album).
Almost all of this has been for the kids. However, as rockers, punks, folkies, northern soulers, jazzers, disco dancers get older, the music lives on in enthusiastic pockets all over the place. Then, of course, the music of Africa, Asia, South America is reaching a wider audience.
In the 21st Century, as all Afterworders know, Pop music doesn’t involve guitars and is, therefore, disqualified. In addition, Hip Hop is merely fast talking and has no musical value whatsoever.
As for ‘importance’, I can’t speak for individuals but ‘music’ is played wherever I go across the world and is enjoyed by as many, if not more, people than when the guitar was king.
“In the 21st Century, as all Afterworders know, Pop music doesn’t involve guitars and is, therefore, disqualified. In addition, Hip Hop is merely fast talking and has no musical value whatsoever.”
This is the most sense you’ve ever made. Good to see you coming round!
He’s trying to provoke you into starting the “20 Great Non-Guitar Albums” thread, Tiggs. Do you call his bluff?
What drugs are you taking today, H.P.?
The ancient Celtic Perpetual Choirs kept a permanent ritual involving specific sacred sites for the maintenance of the higher spiritual health of the larger community. This was taken seriously, and joyously. What occurred in the cultural explosion that began with Rock and Roll and flowered in the 1960s for so many, regardless of the larger un-attuned many, was a glorious echo of that truly deep spiritual aspect of music, an act of collective folk magic, freed from obligatory pews and taken further and deeper than a balm. Indian Ragas over ages have and still do channel this, as does much classical music, but others not always with such exquisite freedom of soul. Pop/Rock in that Western musical Golden Age, for that is exactly what it was, tapped a deep primal need in those that were open to it. It doesn’t matter at all in the grand Karmic scheme that the dream as planned didn’t happen in the end. It expressed itself gloriously, and it is not over, just on pause, sleeping perhaps, for now. The Dragon always awakes in many forms. Glorious teeth were planted once more.
“The dragon always awakes in many forms” is the romantic press release for another repackage reissue definitive collection remastered at half speed by that bloke, you know the one on extra fine vinyl shined on the thighs of boho chicks with an additional 200 page booklet of old photos and some poorly thought out cack by a journalist whose only source of income these days is this sh*t..
Unfortunately, there is that element. Pandering to Vegan Jacketeers, proud belt buckle festo loosening people carrier arsers or their emaciated aged counterparts, usually toothless and called ‘Legendary Mystic Kev’ and who have a cat named Thor or Bruce, as well as the scruffy unwashed dogs on string Sacred Site Litteraties.
I stand alone. It’s a wavelength thing. A Gentleman Head does not piss cheap cider in sacred places as a form of sacrament. That sacred Earth regards these things.
I say, Sewbot, that’s a bit harsh on our Col.
Cheeky! There are honourable exceptions, of course…
My view: music is extremely important (it’s everywhere), but individual musicians or even songs, not really. It’s a commodity.
I basically see it as technology-driven, and where you come in defines how you deal with it. And maybe where you get stuck! In my own case, it was singles on a mono record player, then LPs on a stereo, then LPs/CDs /cassetes on proper hifi (me) or still-acceptable convenient portable packages based on MP3s (others). People like music and the industry will continue to find ways of sating our appetites.
My kids are also music lovers, in different ways. The younger is a typical thumb generation phone user who also likes pop radio. She doesn’t buy music but spots any good tunes around – by the time I’ll have heard it on the radio, I already know her version from her singing it. She also knows and loves the Beatles, Abba, Michael Jackson. The elder is well-grounded in classic pop and also loves the dance aspect: she’s been to a couple of hardcore dance festivals this Summer, 200 Euros a ticket. Also loves The Beatles, Motown, Soul.
So the revolution we thought was coming didn’t actually materialise. I got stuck on high-quality reproduction in a room but it’s the best I’ve ever had. Sure there are many other distractions and options , for everyone. There’s a snippet of “I’m a Man” on some TV ad, which led to me playing the Spencer Davis Group for my kids, yesterday, then Traffic, finally John Barleycorn. They were truly gobsmacked by this 300-year-old tune. That’s the wonder of music that keeps us all coming back.