2007 - Dawg Follow Up
Bruce Warila
2 Comments
This is a follow up to my post titled "Is Old The New Sexy Or Have New Artists Gone To The Dawgs?"
What I want to say can be said better with these two YouTube videos.
THE WAY MUSIC WAS CREATED.
I choose Paulina Porizkova because I believe most of these shots are pre-PhotoShop. I realize that everything else was done to make her look perfect; however, you only have to look at Paulina now in 2007 to know that she's the real thing.
THE WAY MUSIC IS CREATED NOW.
This second video by Dove has been watched almost 5,000,000 times. This video is also a great example of how to create something that is both commercial and viral. I believe you will understand the analogy between this video and modern music after watching the video.
CONCLUSION
If you get aroused looking at avatars you probably won't get my point. A lot of modern music doesn't sound so great after you get it home and play with it for a while. For some reason we get tired of it quickly. How long have Rick Ocasek and Paulina Porizkova been married (no jokes please)?
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Reader Comments (2)
Bruce,
While I completely agree with your analysis of today's "photoshopped" music industry, I disagree with where you are placing the blame. No one can deny music these days is copied & pasted, produced up, and auto-tuned to death.. And as a result, a lesser talented pool of artists are able to make it into the lime light, with the right team of people propping them up.
Who's fault is this though? While a vocalist may burn his voice out on the last chorus and occasionally yell to the engineer "just copy and paste the 1st chorus" The majority of these technology-aided shortcuts are spearheaded by the guys paying the bills. Why pay producers, engineers, musicians, etc. to sit around and wait for a vocalist to nail the last chorus when you can just copy and paste the first? That is the record label / business mentality. Why pay artists to write music when you can pay a professional songwriter to write radio-friendly "hits" at a break-neck pace for a fraction of the price? The artists' mentality is to write, record, and perform music over and over again until it has been perfected; sometimes to a fault. You can't grow a fan base and make money if you can't get anything out the door to consumers.
The result of this music industry approach is a bunch of watered-down, zero shelf life, flavor of the week, one hit wonders. Their music is devoid of human emotion and audiences don't form attachments with these "artists". Record labels aren't as dumb as we think. They do actually realize that these artists have a higher turnover rate. So they compensate by raising the album price on artists who have loyal fan bases; like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead. Well, we all know how that turned out for them.
There is always going to be that ying and yang balance of art and business. However, right now the business guys in the mainstream music industry have taken it too far and it is biting them in the ass.
Ross Lucivero (Bassist, theWANDAS)
Who's fault is it?
The hairdresser does not make you get a whiffle.
The cosmetic surgeon does not make you get a set of bolt-ons.
The cook does not make you eat.
The trainer does not make you lift weights.
The limo driver does not make you go to the party.
And, the engineer does not make you skip practice or public performances prior to making your next album.