smoe.org mailing lists
ivan@stellysee.de
| From | matty karas <mkaras@mindspring.com> |
| Subject | Re: What it Takes |
| Date | Tue, 15 Jul 2003 01:35:58 -0500 |
[Part 1 text/plain us-ascii (2.3 kilobytes)]
(View Text in a separate window)
adam wrote:
> I hope, though, since you were responding to what I wrote, that this wasn't
> meant as a lecture to me about DIY touring and devoting your life to music. I
> wasn't exactly posting from the standpoint of someone who never leaves the
> house.
i know you weren't, and i didn't mean to! i hate lectures as much as frank bango
hates panel discussions. i was simply trying to point out that there are as many
bands selling 5,000 to 100,000 records and making some kind of living at it today
as there were five or 10 or 20 years ago. and aol time sony universal clear
channel kazaa can do nothing more to stop them than time warner sony matsushita and
mob-controlled radio programmers could do to stop them in the '90s. i salute your
devotion to the road and wish you well.
wendie wrote:
> The problem is that because of the changes in
> the "above-the-radar" biz, there's now a limit to their career
> trajectory, which I don't think has ever existed before.
well, there's a limit to everybody in the world's career trajectory right now
because of the sucky economy. britney spears and justin timberlake have a dimmer
future than they did just a couple years ago, and radiohead's gonna be hard pressed
to produce the kind of numbers that r.e.m. produced in their heyday. they may have
to settle for 2 million instead of 4 million. i weep for them.
on the other hand, norah jones, who was playing gigs at the tiny living room in nyc
just a couple years ago -- there's a score of bands posting regularly to this list
who play bigger gigs right now -- was somehow able to sell 6 million copies of a
jazz-influenced adult pop album in the past 12 months. saves the day and thursday
are selling hundreds of thousands of copies of screaming, grass-roots punk-inspired
albums with no commercial radio play and no coverage in rolling stone. and they're
just one catchy three-minute single away from going platinum like jimmy eat world,
and there ain't a damn thing clear channel or any major label can do to stop 'em.
'cause if clear channel doesn't play 'em, someone, somewhere, will. that's what
they used to mean by "alternative." it wasn't a style of music. it was, simply, a
will to keep good music alive. and, with occasional third-world exceptions, there
ain't nobody who can legislate or buy that will out of existence.
matty
For assistance, please contact
the smoe.org administrators.