Comercialisation of music

[FLAOFEI]

I need some material for a school project on the comercialisation of music.
Any of you have any articles on the topic?

Otherwise: Discuss

As a musician Im very against it. It narrows what the public is exposed to down to a select few artists and genres, which is booring for obvious reasons. Its harder for smaller artists to get by and we dont get as much variation in music.

As a listener I a bit more ok with it. The music is easily accessable and its going to have a high standard (atleast on technical stuff like mixing, mastering, soundquality) since they hire people with both the education and experience to do it, and do it good.
Still, the diversity. You only get a narrow view off what media choses to expose, and less popular music is forgoten. You just cant generalise like that, everyone dosnt have the same music taste and media can not pleas everybody with the same music.

[the4thImpulse]

If people don't want to search for new music themselves and stick with the top40 radio stuff, then that's their choice. The media executives work in ways far more complex than "they choose the music we listen too", think of how dubstep sounds have made its way into mainstream music.

It creates more jobs and gives artists a chance to make money off of music, some people abuse the system (like people do every other 'system' in the world) and that gives the system a bad rep. Its not perfect but it could be a whole lot worse.

For smaller artists they just need to find the right crowds, if they want to experiment and be uniquely artistic with their music than they know they won't be commercial successes. They will find their way for money and they will be happy making the music they want to make.

That's kinda my thoughts in a nutshell

[Friv]

It creates more jobs and gives artists a chance to make money off of music

gives artists a chance to make money off of music

artists ... make money off of music

haha that's funny

[Nine Volt]

Plenty of artists make a living off their music. Or are you saying that the producers of pop tracks don't make nearly as much money as the singers?

[MYCUTIEMARKISAGUN]

Blame Capitalism, comrade. I've been in the radio industry literally since I was a sperm in my dad's sack, and I can tell you unequivocally that all we try to do in the radio industry is give you people what you want.

"Request Lines are OPEN!" You know what you fuckers always request? The exact same cotdamn songs we're already shoving down your throats every 80 minutes. Seriously. Any radio vet will tell you its always been that way.

The real thing that FUCKS UP music imo is the internal politics of major record labels. Hip-Hop has suffered terribly from this. Its the reason why a guy spitting some of the greatest lyrics ever will see his album relegated to Development Hell status while that other wick-wick-wack MC will release 3 heavily promoted albums in 20 months.

[Random111223]

It's the nature of capitalism. The big record labels are dominating the market and that's why the "mainstream" genre is so narrow. I have nothing against it, capitalism is a good system despite the flaws. People can always search for new music instead of the top40 radio shit like 4th said

An interesting topic i'd cover in the project is the system i've been seing major record labels do alot lately:

1. Get a hot young teenage singer. Doesn't matter if he's bad at singing, autotuning and professional mixing/mastering will do the work.
2. Make a song, quality doesn't matter.
3. Spend shitloads of cash to make a good music video.
4. Hype hype hype hype hype MORE HYPE
5. The release will get popular no matter what. People will still buy it even if 75% of the listeners think it sucks
6. ???
7. Profit. Future life of singer ruined.

[HMage]

Commercialisation of music happened in 50's. Nothing changed for decades.

With bandcamp and internet it's slowly changing, but quality of independent noncommercial music is generally a lot worse.

Getting backed by a label also means less now — they don't nurture artists like they did before in 50's, you'll have to renegotiate every track or album.

Labels also do less now.
Mixing engineer? Nah, let the artist handle that.
Mastering engineer? Send to the cheapest online mastering studio.
Bonus: Recording engineer? What's that? You need to _record_ something? Most of pop music never left the box except singing. Sample libraries dominate.

With a very big amount of submitted music to them, labels can be very picky now. Why choose an expensive venture of hiring all these studios and engineers if you can find a submission that is already mixed, already mastered and already recorded well enough. And with these contract terms they're perfectly okay with dumping the artist and choosing next one.

That doesn't mean there are no "proper" labels with their own recording/mixing/mastering studios. They do exist, but they're increasingly rare.

Almost every subgenre label you know is a subdivision of EMI/Universal/Sony/Warner. Skrillex's OWSLA is Warner. Deadmau5 mau5trap is Sony.

[MYCUTIEMARKISAGUN]

Almost every subgenre label you know is a subdivision of EMI/Universal/Sony/Warner. Skrillex's OWSLA is Warner. Deadmau5 mau5trap is Sony.

Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All is Sony.

Stone's Throw Records is Universal, Rhymesayers is Warner. That's right, all your indie hip-hop gods are frauds!

Its only a matter of time before Immortal Technique sells his soul.

[HMage]

Does your post mean you don't believe me?