Maybe, kinda, if I have to think about it, in a way...ya. I have to say ya, music as an industry as we used to know it has let the future down at least.
Maybe my perspective has a little lack of colour coming from Canada and all but I am wired into the globe as much as anyone in North America is. If you don't l know what I mean, Canada is known as the "Indie" country for artists. Without a long-winded summary of how that happens let's focus on the now and the fact that there is little encouragement or support for the arts and big businesses all moved to the US, being 10 times the size of us from that perspective makes sense, I guess. But what's business got to do with it? Arts is supposed to be about being creative and having somewhere to put your work to be appreciated.
Yes, honour what came before us but fresh and new is essential. Yet we are raising our generations on 20-year-old music goodness. 90s music is a strategic anthem but it comes so naturally that it just makes sense to listen to it even if trends changed from 2020s to the present day. The music industry by the way is one of the few that can actually perpetually make money on royalties by playing the same music decades later, which also creates a bigger competition. So, don't poopoo your nose at the new digital music coming out, and for that matter how many musicians have made careers playing cover songs that never paid licensing fees? But listening to music is all in fun right.
That's what is perpetuated in the great machine of things. So, fine, who's complaining? I for one like new music. I would in fact rather listen to the radio and new pop than go online and listen to old music or hear cover tunes. I don't like nostalgia so much but that's just me.
This current generation doesn't care because it's not accessible anymore. The last generation of musicians maxed out at the same time the economy was starting to degenerate. The industry is now closer to being elitist than ever. Being discovered on MySpace or getting a major contract from a record made at home in your bedroom is not a one-in-a-hundred chance, it's a one-in-a-billion chance. But there are alternatives, thankfully. As for the big power industry, it seems not possible to work your way up and in anymore, they made it almost impenetrable. Plus arts and music are taught less and less in schools, if at all. Devices are accessible and affordable. Like it or not the future is electronic, digital. Be open minded.
Realistically, where are the albums from the musicians of the 1920, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s or 70s going to be found? How will the new generation know to look for it? In 10-15 years old music will be archived and even newer sounds will come forward. I don't know if it is progress or not but it will be perpetually different. Unless satellites crash and people start banging sticks together again for rhythm or reinventing instruments that's the way it is going. You can't blame this generation or the next. It's what the generation that came before left them to work with.
When I think of all the money that went into supporting musicians by all their fans over decades, our heroes, our anthem makers and rebels, I have to wonder with all those millions and billions no one thought of maybe creating a franchise across North America of private art schools and giving them a load of instruments? No? I guess no one thought of investing in the future.
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