Has it all become about marketability???

[Alex]

So I was looking at some of the new musicians coming out and realised it stopped being about the music. Current musicians are essentially around to make money (shocker I know) and nothing else.

They all are by general standards they have to have a particular 'look' and can cater towards a particular market (teenage girls, young men etc) and most of these songs are essentially party tunes, the lyrics revolve around partying and/or getting the girl/guy.

I know people are going to mention bands like Linkin Park and others but even bands like them who sing about 'struggles' and such don't really care because they are catering toward the akward demographic e.g. Emo and when they're singing there's no emotion in it, the words are coming out but there's nothing else.

E.g. would a band like Rolling Stones or Queen be big noe as they were when they came out??? None of the members could be seen as 'marketable' and they didn't cater toward a particular market so could they be as big if they had come out now than when they did??

 

[Nitafrong]

While I certainly agree with you that there are certain musical acts who like to produce popular music and make lots of money- you really can't say that all modern musicians are like that. There are so much choice when it comes to music- with acts of varying size spread across the whole world- its really difficult to say anything definite about all of them. You have to be more specific in your criticism- certain genre's or areas that concentrate on marketing themselves.

There have been a number of really good albums released in the last couple of weeks. One of these- MGMT brought out Congratulations- an album almost diametrically opposed to the kind of music that had made them popular. It has in fact been so hard to market that many of the cds are being recalled (at least where I work anyway). Instead of producing something easy- they made the music they wanted to and I give them credit for doing that.

Also in the last week or so there has been the release of Olafur Arnalds new album and the new Foals album- neither which feature particularly marketable people or musical styles (Olafur makes modern classical instrumental music). Last year Muse and the Arctic Monkeys made albums which weren't as popular as the albums which had gone before them but continued their musical evolution for good or for bad. It will probably be a couple of years before the next Radiohead album- but I am assured that it will include neither marketable musicians or generally popular music.

Your overall point does have some merit- there are a lot of radio friendly bands and musicians at the moment who it could be argued have sacrificed their artistic integrity and the X-Factor/Singstar/ Someone has got talent/ Faceless and Bland Idol- phenomenon is still continuing with the winners and runners up seemingly been guaranteed a hit album or two.

But overall there is still a healthy music industry existing today- and just as it has always been- you have to look below the surface to find some of the really good music. The Rolling Stones and Queen would probably play slightly different music today but they were still talented musicians and I still think they would do well. We can't really say if they would be quite as big- sometimes an artist has to be making the right kind of music at the right time. The New York Dolls sound almost identical to the Sex Pistols and yet weren't as big despite predating their sound by a couple of years. A certain image was important back then as it is now.

 

[TwistofRKO]

All labeled music has to have a certain mainstream appeal about them or they'd never sell anything, rendering their label irrelevant.

Other than that, there's a lot of good music still being produced. The stuff that gets shoved down your throat is crap, but there is some good music that strays from the generic "I love her, let's have sex" lyrics catered by bland music. There's plenty of real stuff out there, definitely containing a sense of originality, that get good marketing as well as generic garbage.

 

[Alex]

It's interesting one of the musicians I listen to (Akira The Don) had released a album on a particular label but they dropped him because they didn't like the content (talking about politics, corruption etc) so he releases his other stuff on an independent label. This does show that there is still good music but it also shows that some labels don't wish to push the boundaries anymore.

 

[TwistofRKO]

It's interesting one of the musicians I listen to (Akira The Don) had released a album on a particular label but they dropped him because they didn't like the content (talking about politics, corruption etc) so he releases his other stuff on an independent label. This does show that there is still good music but it also shows that some labels don't wish to push the boundaries anymore.

American Idiot, both the song and album, was heavy on political criticisms.

It depends how you push the limits. The song itself was very blatant, but Holiday off of the same album, for example, was also very critical, but was more of a hidden message. Green Day has been successful doing both, even in their collaboration with U2, which was a major slap to the government's face.

Just like you said in the first post, its about money. If you push the envelope and make money for the label they won't care.

 

[Via Armbar]

The thing is that what is marketable is always going to change. It's always going to be something else. What looks and sounds cool is going to evolve forever because that's how people are. We grow, we learn and we change. So to fit our lives we expect the same from other parts of our live. You can't market a new band by dressing them up as the Beatles. You can't have a band dress all in dirty flannel shirts and write depressing songs because somebody did it twenty years ago and it's just not what people want right now.

What's new will ultimately become old and vice versa. What is marketable isn't a question with a real answer. Sure good looking singers, male or female, are going to have it easier. It works the same with television and movies. There will always be a chord stricken with a different crowd though. There will always be a certain something about a musician or band that is new. Whatever it is they had, it will be marketed. Other people will emulate it and eventually it won't be marketable again.

So of course it's about marketability. The bigger question is how do you find what's marketable and can you change it?

 

[Alex]

American Idiot, both the song and album, was heavy on political criticisms.

It depends how you push the limits. The song itself was very blatant, but Holiday off of the same album, for example, was also very critical, but was more of a hidden message. Green Day has been successful doing both, even in their collaboration with U2, which was a major slap to the government's face.

Just like you said in the first post, its about money. If you push the envelope and make money for the label they won't care.

However Green Day had been around a while and in a way they could get away with it, if it was a up and coming musician they'd have a much harder time doing it. It seems if you've been around for a while the labels are a bit more lax on you.

I will admit Armbar's right marketability does change, this is why there will always be musicians from a particular decade that will not be remembered or be remembered as 'that band from that point in time'

 

[Via Armbar]

American Idiot, both the song and album, was heavy on political criticisms.

It depends how you push the limits. The song itself was very blatant, but Holiday off of the same album, for example, was also very critical, but was more of a hidden message. Green Day has been successful doing both, even in their collaboration with U2, which was a major slap to the government's face.

Just like you said in the first post, its about money. If you push the envelope and make money for the label they won't care.

The funny thing about that album is that it was a gimmick album. I'm not going to say people should hate it or the band, but really at it's core they took advantage of a current and extremely heated topic. It was marketable. I guarantee that album if named anything differently and written about subjects other than war and the government wouldn't have done half as well as it did. They took advantage of the time and the mood of the people. They never mentioned politics before this album. It's marketing 101.

 

[TwistofRKO]

Probably, but they weren't at their peak going into that album. They tried a new style and it kind of tanked, and took 4 years off. They weren't really in the spotlight. I agree their previous punk moniker helped get them over, and most new bands couldn't get away with it, but then again they were successful, whether or not you like them, doing a different type of thing before, so it can be attributed to their talent. Which kind of shows talent, or freshness, can get you over.

The previous album Warning, and the title song was a little along a political line. However, this is the album that tanked that I previously mentioned.