While many artists who in a past life sat on top of the world try to recapture their ever fading glory, it seems that some come to grips eventually with the notion that permanence is indeed fleeting and impermanent.
Billy Corgan has filled many an hour of my life with his themes for Generation X’s early slacker MTV non-chalance and later overworking ethic and indeed to this day I’m still a massive fan of his music and his workings. In recent times, he reformed the band that he broke up in 2000 with a new album and a string of dates. It was, as not uncommon in these modern times of ever changing flavours, colours, the next shiny ‘reality’ thing for our amusement and cynicism, received well by critics, perhaps as much as they felt they had to pan it for what it was, as it was not their strongest album. Stongest it was not, granted, but it was still an excellent album. Perhaps nothing new, but excellent none the same.
Tonight though, I read an interview with an impassioned, slightly maniacal and perhaps deranged Billy with regards to his take on the now and the future. To a certain extent I think he’s hit the nail on the head. He’s indicated that the band will be focusing more on releasing singles than full albums because people just don’t have the attention span for albums anymore.
From a main stream perspective, the music industry as a whole is teetering on a revolution. The generational change brought about by instant downloads and random playlists will ultimately sound the death of the album. There will always be people making albums, but it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see an album with similar sales to that of the likes of Brothers In Arms, or Dark Side of the Moon; the format as a whole is hooked up to the life support machine. Yes, there will always be people making albums, but not in the same volume as say, 10 years ago, when album was still king.
This was in some ways reinforced for me recently at The Panics gig at Metro Fremantle. When I’d seen the Panics earlier this year they had saved ‘hit single’ Don’t Fight It right until the end of the encore with the rapturous crowd, more subdued for the bulk of the proceedings, singing along and regaling their friends while snapping their photobucket facebook profile photos as the band toiled away on the labor of their love.
At the recent gig in November, though, the band played a wonderful selection of their back catalogue and honed in on many tracks from their first EPs and albums. They played almost the entire track listing of Cruel Guards before playing Don’t Fight It second to last before the encore; the contents of which were strong and wonderfully delivered.
Much to my surprise and chagrin, though, I estimate at least 50 people left the venue upon the conclusion of Don’t Fight It. These were the same people who didn’t seem to know or could sing along to any song for the entire evening until Don’t Fight It was played.
Here is a group of people who are prepared to pay full price of admission to simply see the one song that they feel connected to the band with. Sure, it’s their right to do so and their money, but what does this trend say about us as a whole? It seems to me to indicate the the quick fix culture is slowly but surely in part unravelling the true appreciation of art. The visual equivalent would be only selecting to look at Mona Lisa’s smile or focusing on a single panel of a Whiteley. Yes, they are beautiful in their own right, but it’s more the sum of the parts that is the greater experience.
Mainstream music is well and truly a modern commodity, traded in bulk by internet music stores and to a lesser extent CD stores and whored out by commercial radio stations who thrive on the banal to drive the same 15 songs every four hours down the aural cavities of drones who sing along to advertisements. Listen to commercial radio some time and note how every ‘hit’ has a repetitious simplistic chorus or hook, be it someone repeating ‘na na na’ or the same word or phrase over and over, smoothed out by autotune. It’s the simplest, cheapest way to catch people’s subconscious attention and lure them into liking and buying the single.
And it works.
It is simply about creating a brand that will shift units and give a known return for a fixed outlay. No longer is the mainstream about the creation of art. There will always be a niche of independent artists doing it for the love and not necessarily the money just as there is currently organic farmers doing it because they believe it’s the right way, not because they have a bulk commodity to shift. That said though, only a small amount of time must pass before big music grabs a hold of niche music and tries to endear it to the masses (MGMT anyone?). Given the spare time I would love to sit down and chart the last five years of number 1 songs on the mainstream charts and plot how many of those artists had repeat hits. Simply, I think less than a dozen would have many repeat hits, and those that did would be an established brand that has continued to shift units. One hit wonders are the modern modus operandi, no longer a daggy novelty.
The music industry, and maybe the global way of doing things, is likely to implode in itself in the coming years. If there’s one saving grace it’s that most large music corporations are run and geared like any large corporation and any faltering market condition will often bring them to their knees. The old business models of screwing the customer are ultimately being routed by the modern technology that could be utilised to reach a new audience but which instead people are being persecuted for embracing. Maybe in two years time we’ll see a big four record company approach US congress for a bailout!
I’ll be interesting to see what rises from the ashes. In the meantime, I’m going to keep appreciating the holistic experience that is music, and musing some at the ramblings of the occasional warped genius. Keep up the good work Billy.
