Monday, August 30, 2010

The Trouble with Music

I wrote this letter and sent it out. Let's see what would happen.

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First, let’s define what is music. As dictionary.com defines it, it is ‘an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.‘

Before talking about the reality, let’s put our eyes back say, 20 years in the United States. Music was something that was done out of passion, love, and respect for the art. Even when labels sign on some of these musicians, they still had control over their music, their image. Let’s not take anyone too exotic. Let’s talk about Guns ‘N Roses. They started playing small shows, in clubs and all. Eventually when they were signed to a label called Geffen Records, they still retained their sound and continued doing what they did before being signed.

At that time, music did not lie. What they played was music written by them. It represented the their energy and passion, their definition to music. It was the same for most other musician then. Every musician were writing their own passion, their love. The listeners agreed to the music that was coming from the bands. If they don’t agree, they don’t listen to them. But there was respect. Respect between the audience and the bands, the respect between the bands and the labels, and most importantly, respect between the labels and the audience.Labels were respectful of the audience’s ears. They were respectful of the art, which we all call music.
Where did that respect go?

Let’s look at 20 years later, today. Music is as popular and as relevant today as it was 20 years ago. That fact remains unchanged. What has changed, is the kind of music is that coming out from the new generation artist. I’m not talking about 80’s, 90’s musicians, such as Green Day, Metallica, U2, releasing new albums. I’m talking about mainstream artists such as Akon, Justin Biber, Sean Kingston.

On the surface level, there is nothing really wrong with what they are doing. They make music. People buy them. What is so wrong, is what goes on behind. Some of these musicians are pretty much ‘products’ fabricated by some of these labels, who are there out to earn money. They force their artist under their wing to carry a certain image, to appeal to a group of audience, for the money factor. When people like these artists, people will buy their CDs, people will buy their merchandise, people will go to their concert. Labels earn the money.

It’s not the artist’s fault. I would not blame it entirely on the labels too. It’s not totally audience or media’s fault too. Everyone is to be blamed.

Let’s break it down in a logical way. Labels mean business. They want to earn money. There’s nothing wrong with earning money, except that it never stops. To make the money pot even shinier, the labels fabricate these artists, and their sound, to appeal to the general audience. To them, it does not matter if there is any meaning to the music released. Even if they repeat a line over and over again in a song, it does not matter if it earns them money.

Media influences people. Whenever any artists have any gossips, their image gets affect, and so will the sales of their cds/merchandises. Therefore, in order to keep their money pot nice and shiny, labels have no choice but to keep up with the public’s expectations on their artists. In order to do that, they are extremely careful with what their artist can, or cannot do.

Finally, it’s the people’s fault to be so easily swayed by the media. Once a gossip comes out, people start judging, and an artist can be affected by one simple gossip, or so-called hot news.

It’s a cruel circle between the media, labels and the people. So cruel that labels are capable of anything just to earn money. In this process trying to earn money, trying to keep the media off their backs, trying to appeal to audience, something beautiful was forgotten. Music.

What used to be a beautiful art is now simply a tool to make money. I’m not saying that there are no good musicians and artists now. Artists such as Lily Allen, Rob Thomas, Marilyn Manson and Linkin Park; they are still true to what they write. But how many artist can be like them, getting their music heard and still have control over what they write.

Let’s push the scope back to Singapore. In Singapore, there are no lack of good bands, good musicians. What they lack are supportive labels who are able to trust and put faith these bands, labels who wants something more than simply money. Some good example of musicians who are capable of making it with enough support would be bands such as Astroninja, The Great Spy Experiments. Astroninja even gathered their own fanbase all the way to the States, because they have great music, without even being signed to any labels. Just as a YouTube artist, David Choi has said, he would not consider getting signed to a major label, because there is a lack of control.

There are no issues with staying indie, staying independent, except that, chances are these musicians, artists are not going to be heard. Musicians, who aspire to be heard, would not want to be signed due to the lack of control.

Take a good listen to the music that’s on your iTunes now. They might sound catchy or funky, but is it really music that you relate to? Is it really music that expresses ideas or emotions, or is it music that makes labels money and nothing else. Personally I hold a firm belief that music is the heart and soul of a person, and it should not be fabricated to earn money.

I urge everyone to start supporting artists who are really good at what they do, but not getting the deserved attention at the same time. 20 years down the road, when we ponder about the standard of music that ‘musicians’ are bringing to you, do not be surprised when you realize it’s our own fault all along.

Posted by trey at 1:41 PM