|
April 14, 2002 Part one of a special two part series.
Pop quiz: What is most of today's white middle class suburban youth listening to? If you said pop, rock, alternative, country, redneck or any other "whitey music", you are way off. Believe it or not, today's biggest music consumer is listening to R&B Hip Hop, a product of the African American music culture. It is done. Hip hop music has infilitrated the mainstream and taken over. If you do not beleive it, wait six months. How did hip hop music culture rise from the urban underground and take over with no radio play and little mainstream media exposure (hip hop ignored during last Grammy show)? In this article, we will explore how hip hop put "whitey music" out of its misery, never to be heard from again. |
|
Who is to blame for the death of rock pop music and the overwhelming popularity of hip hop? Is it the greedy labels, paid off rock musicians or hip hop's powerful underground appeal? Apparently, all three have contributed in one way or another in shifting the balance of power in the industry. The majority of the blame for the death of rock music has to be attributed to the labels. After several decades of worrying about profit margains, instead of releasing quality music, the labels' one sided business approach has finally caught up with them. For over 15 years now, the labels have concentrated on manufacturing artists and over-producing music for the sole purpose of turning a quick buck. |
|
|
They went away from the effective indy and small label practice of harnessing and developing quality talent for the future. Like a baseball team that trades away all of its young developing minor league talent for washed up and overpaid players, the labels are now staring at many seasons in the cellar. The labels jumped on the boy band - girl band - manufactured band craze and totally abandoned the established artists. While retaining their older talent on the roster, the labels let most of them die a slow death by failing to properly promote them online and offline. One example is the failure of the labels to provide incentive to internet webcasters to promote the music. Instead, the labels remained greedy and requested unrealistically high licensing payments and absurd reporting requirements from webcasters. The end result: no promotion on the internet. This plan backfired in a big way since the major labels music catalogue currently has little or no value and most knowledgeable webcasters now want no part of it. Why pay to play music that will literally turn off your listeners? |
|
While today's youth has an apetite for hip hop that is insatiable, they want nothing to do with pop rock. It is just not their music and will never be their music. As for the rock pop artists the labels did stay with, they effectively turned most of them into commercialized traveling side shows - complete with singing clowns. The music fan who is going to lay down bucks today does not want to see the modern day version of the Partridge family, instead they want quality music - like hip hop. How about the older rock fans you ask? Most of them are dead or have lost their hearing due to old age. Due to incompetency and complacency, the labels have kept the music out of the loop for so long, even the original fans abandoned it. |
|
Now that the blame for whitey music's death has been effectively pinned on the labels, let us turn to their co-conspirators - the rich and big headed rock stars. We are talking about the big money label guys here, not the starving little guy. Many of these artists originated from indy label roots and grew into mega stars. After selling out and signing with major labels, these artists started shitting on their fans and the music. Instead of taking care of their fans and the music, stock options and cheesy publicity stunts became top priority. Recently, David Bowie left EMI and started his own label, stating he was tired of butting heads with corporate structure. Several months later, Bowie goes back to butting heads with the suits and ties by signing with Columbia (part of Sony). For Bowie's sake, he can only hope that Sony does a better job of marketing him than they recently did with another big name artist, Michael Jackson (what corporate jackass decided to put MJ at NASDAQ)? Either way, it probably does not matter since today's youth have absolutely no interest in David Bowie - new or old. Thus, an artist of Bowie's magnitude is forced to tour with and ride the coattails of Moby, a pseudo-techno artist of marginal quality. Hopefully, David grabbed a few bucks from the Columbia deal to sooth the pain of nobody caring about his music anymore. In addition to Bowie, many other rock pop stars are planning new albums and tours which are of little or no interest to today's music fan. Chances are, many of these tours will either play to low audience numbers or be canceled outright. Do not expect any big sales numbers either, since the labels' promotion of the new material will continue to be weak and ineffective (just ask MJ). After all these years of fighting for their valuable "whitey music", the labels dropped the ball and lost out to hip hop in the end. As it turns out, the fighting was for music of little or no value. After all, how valuable can music be if no one wants to listen to it? Oh well. In part two, we will examine the history of hip hop and how it grew from the urban ghetto to worldwide domination. Sphinx |
|
|
 |
Copyright 1999-2002 SphinxMontreal | Sphinx Club Schedule | Sphinx Photos |
