Industry Music, Does it Matter?

[Cyber]

Like many of my peers I was caught up in the craze in my teens of having favourite bands/musicians. It defined my identity and I would buy albums and go to concerts By the time I was 21 I realised while I still liked listening to music, I actually wasn't invested in the musicians anymore. I found having a "favourite" band or musician quite fake. I actually only got into certain music because of friends. But actually If I was being honest I liked all music types and genres.

I got the concept that music was an artform. Buying albums and going to concerts was like patronising an artist. But what are people listening to? Aren't literally all popular music basically created by teams of industry writers and music studios nowadays?

From the days of Elvis Presley and the Beatles weren't popular musicians and their music basically curated by image stylists, writers, marketing people and Studios? Aren't music fans just supporting giant industries and is becoming a "fan" healthy? given many become obsessed with musicians as celebrity icons rather than artists? Do they just like being part of a fandom screaming brainlessly at country, pop or metal concerts sand not care if the music is authentic or not, or just a joint effort by an industry studio team designed to appeal to fans?

One example is Taylor Swift, she has millions of young female fans around the world who form what is known as "Swifties". Since her new album "Diary of a Showgirl" accusations have been levelled her music is quite toxic and her fans have been known to attack anyone online and people in the media who say anything negative about Taylor. But she and her music are largely industry driven, infact her father who is in banking largely bankrolled her.

My question, is it healthy to be so invested in a popular musician if their music is not "authentic" and they might just be industry creations tapping into a particular genre to access pockets of a fandom who spend money, not only on music but also merchandise. Does it matter our culture and music is being created for us in corporate boardrooms?

 

[velociraptor]

If I like it, I listen to it. If I don't like it, I don't listen to it. I don't really pay much attention to the artists themselves and I've never purchased merchandise related to them.

 

[Judge]

Does it matter our culture and music is being created for us in corporate boardrooms?

Nothing new about that. Bob Rafelson would have and did wear it like a badge of honor.

Monday nights, 7:30pm 1967 on ABC:

And later in 1985, listen to Jefferson Starship sing about it:

Bottom line: More about bu$iness than the art of music.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Yes it absolutely matters.

Overproduced music that was written by focus groups and engineered with an algorithm to maximize profits is nothing but soulless disco.

It means nothing. It's sung by phonies who perform live with autotune and a recorded backing track. It's nothing. It means nothing. It is nothing.

Three friends who can't read music and can barely play, who learn to play music together- that's where magic happens. In the poetry written at rock bottom, sung with a voice that shakes from the grief of remembrance- that's art.

Don't waste your time or your energy on posers. Look to the artists who actually believe what they say in the music. Who have lived the song. Who sat in a dim room late at night figuring out chords and scratching out lyrics, cleansing their soul.

Give me the guy with the big back pack, pants protected with a butt flap. Wearing a patched jacket, messy hair, and playing his heart out on a sidewalk, pouring out his soul.

That's real art, where magic is made, where relatability happens. Everything else is just a modern version of disco or hair metal. Nonsense.

 

[NB79]

What is 'mainstream' music today, those 'artists' that get billions of reproductions, are garbage for me,
i don't know why they are so popular.

 

[tkcartoonist]

I grew up with rock radio, and I stopped caring about it 20 years ago when I realized it either played the same few songs and artists over and over again, or on the off-chance they played newer stuff, it was awful (I still have an aversion to pop-punk and post-grunge to this day because of that).

I started exploring other music by lurking around the internet, and I found so much that I never looked back.

These days, if I bother listening to FM radio of any kind, I prefer a freeform college station format, as I like the idea of hearing something different depending on who's running the board.