Re: <nettime> THE CAPITALIST MUSIC INDUSTRY IS OBSOLETE (fwd)

[nettimes_digestive_system <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>]

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Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1999 13:15:33 +0000
Subject: Re: <nettime> THE CAPITALIST MUSIC INDUSTRY IS OBSOLETE (fwd)
From: "Peter Lunenfeld" <peterl@artcenter.edu>
To: nettime <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>

>today's revolutionary youth culture

Does anyone really believe that youth culture is inherently
revolutionary anymore? I'm all for more and better music (not to mention
the incarceration of A&R executives), but think the above statement
through. From the flappers and dadaists to the hippies and punks, we¹ve
counted on youth culture to rupture bourgeois entertainments. As the Sex
Pistols once shouted, "anger is an energy." What¹s happened in the past
two decades though, was corporate subversion of adolescent enthusiasm
through niche marketing: "anger is a demographic." Nostalgia for an
inherently "revolutionary" youth culture may have its appeal, but it
plays directly into consumerism's exploitative traps. 

Peter Lunenfeld

[mod note: minor correction - 'anger is an energy' is from the Public
Image Limited song 'Rise', not the Sex Pistols]

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Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 16:32:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Mandl <dmandl@panix.com>
To: { brad brace } <bbrace@ncal.verio.com>
Cc: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
Subject: Re: <nettime> THE CAPITALIST MUSIC INDUSTRY IS OBSOLETE (fwd)

> THE CAPITALIST MUSIC INDUSTRY IS OBSOLETE: WHAT CAN TAKE ITS PLACE?

There are at least a couple of pretty dubious claims here, including:

> From its beginnings in the mid-1980s, the current wave of music
> censorship has been orchestrated from the highest levels of power,
> led by politicians who receive strong music industry support. For
> example, in 1986 a secret meeting was held in the Maryland
> countryside to discuss the danger music presents to the ruling
> class.

"Orchestrated from the highest levels of power" seems like a bit of an
exaggeration.  The "ruling class" had very little to do with this.  I
can't see how they'd feel threatened by some goofy heavy metal band,
or concerned if a record with a bunch of dirty words or "satanic"
references is sold in malls.  This was an effort led by a bunch of
silly American bible-thumpers and goody-goody "concerned parents"
(albeit powerful ones, like Tipper Gore).  I think the music industry,
scummy as they are, would rather not have to deal with the hassle and
expense of sticking warning labels on records to protect little
Johnny.  They don't care what they sell as long as billions of kids
buy it at an obscene markup.  What they are is spinelesss; this is
just like the detergent corporations who pull ads from a TV show that
is attacked by religious nuts for being too liberal or sexually
explicit.

> Even payola--the payment of bribes by the record companies to get
> records played on the radio--had a positive aspect. Payola helped 
> to breakdown many of the barriers in the broadcast industry, 
> allowing the music of Southern blacks and whites to break out and
> become the raw material of an emerging culture.

How can a staunch anti-capitalist defend payola??  People with money
get records played on the radio, and people without don't!  Not a
great thing.

Most of the criticisms made here (obsession with the bottom line,
oligopoly, lowest-common-denominator junk) apply to capitalism in
general, not just the music business.  But it's true that the music
biz is a particularly bad one.

I have no problem avoiding mainstream musical product because most of
it sucks so bad.

    --Dave.

--
Dave Mandl
dmandl@panix.com
davem@wfmu.org
http://www.wfmu.org/~davem

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