I’ve been looking over my more recent vinyl purchases, turns out one’s from 1982, one from 1986 and the third from 1991.
The three albums in question are Thomas Dolby’s Golden age of wireless, The The’s Infected and Pearl Jam’s Ten. Very different artists, very different sounds but one massive common point.. All 3 are over 30 years old but to me still hold a huge advantage over the more recent musical offerings that get force fed to the unfortunate ears of the newer listening generation.
Now, my actual point is this.. In my humble opinion, the music industry has become so overloaded with any old fucker and his, or her dog trying to create the next big thing and in many cases, with the use of social media, succeeding in the seduction of a screen obsessed generation, how much of this success is down to actual musical ability and how much is about the ability to manipulate the visual over the audible.
Don’t get me wrong here, there is genuine talent producing outstanding work. Artists and bands the likes of Radiohead, Muse, Raye and Ren.. just a few off the top of my head, and so many more that seem to get overshadowed by the mass produced and A.I. generated sounds of now. The unfortunate fact is this, your favourite song right now, might not have anyone on it, it might not have any actual musical input at all, the artist doesn’t exist outside of a computer programme. The entire content, lyrics and backing track put together by A.I. Kinda disconcerting.. Isn’t it?
I recently bought an album called Is this what we want? A various artist album based around how real music will end up if we’re not careful. Each track is the sound of an actual artist in the studio producing nothing, just the ambient sounds in the background. The track listing is as follows. A1. The 2. British 3. Government 4. Must 5. Not 6. Legalise B1. Music 2. Theft 3. To 4. Benefit 5. A.I. 6. Companies. Plus a bonus track by Paul Mc Cartney.
The sad reality is that this is a mere gesture, as genuine as it is it’ll probably have very little influence on the greed culture surrounding the whole sorry state of affairs, I’ve actually got no idea who stands to benefit from all of this although someone ultimately will to the detriment of the people who’ve actually taken the time to hone a genuine talent.
I find myself linked more to bands and artists based around the 70’s and 80’s than the more recent offerings, obviously in part down to my age but I feel that this was genuinely a better time for music, given the fact that if you heard it, it meant someone had played it, if you wanted to see them play it, you had to go somewhere and watch them play it in person. A much simpler time I think, and a lot more satisfying, well for me anyway.
Check out the stories behind the Albums.
Until next time.
