My $.02 on the Trying Times in the Music Business

I’ve been making music for some time. I consider myself not only to be a talent, but I am also a fan of music. By that I mean I have the capacity to appreciate what is good about any form of music I hear simply because I actually have an appreciation for the craft and the work that goes into making good music – no matter the type of music it is. I think most music – at its core – has redeeming values that dial into some base part of who we are. A good punk song is going to insight the same feeling in you as a head-banging hardcore rap song simply because – well, in the technical sense I think the tones and vibrations are the same. But I digress. Ultimately I like a lot of music and would run a radio station if I thought people would listen to it.

So here we are nearing 2008 and folks are getting laid off left and right. The industry is I a frenzy trying to figure out how to catch up with the world wide inter-web and how to get sales to keep flowing so that folks can stay in business. The funny thing is that everyone is crying about piracy. Everyone is trying to run internet radio out of business. Everyone is blaming this that or the other. But I take a step back and I look at it all based on how it relates to me.

See I never sold platinum status. I never had a million dollar budget for this that or the other. As far back as I can remember I have been recording in my house. I mean, this goes back to the days or Tony and I on a 4-track Tascam or whatever. I have been in a few studios, but even those were at someone’s house with Protools or Digital Performer set ups. The one time I went into a full on studio with an SSL board to track anything was when Brian called me and my band at the time to come in so that he could teach the kids at the Art Institute how to record. So we received free recordings from it while they got to play assistant engineers. Now the one things that hasn’t changed over the years was the ability to write songs.

The project at the time was a rock/ rap thing I was doing. This is pre-Limp Bizkit and all that stuff. This is way before Cop Killer and all that stuff. I just wanted to work with a band so we did a fusion of jazz and rock. It was pretty interesting. The band was called Brink. Give me a shout and I will shoot you an mp3 or something.

Today I turn on Soulja Boy and whatever else is on the radio. I can see the appeal for kids. I won’t lie. Regardless of the misogynistic context I can see where they might like it. But the main reason is that they have no clue what it means to “Superman a hoe.” But that is another story.

The problem is that record labels make songs for kids nowadays. Not adults. By that I mean that the entire disposable income world is fashioned around kids. I asked my daughter just this past Thanksgiving holiday if she had Mims in her iPod still and she said no. I asked her if she has Backstreet or Britney Spears and she said she wasn’t into them anymore.

She played the Travis Barker remix of Crank That and I asked her if she had heard of Travis Barker and knew the band he was I and she said no. I found this all to be a bit confusing because I remember that whenever Prince put out a record or worked on a project my friends and I could recite to you every detail of what he did and when he produced and wrote for the Bangles and we could tell you that the singer for the Family was also the keyboardist for the Time. We could tell you everything you wanted to know about the new album and when it was coming out and all this stuff. We knew the six degrees of separation and we knew who was on tour where and what European versions or dance versions of a song were out and who produced it and what engineer worked on that album. And all that was because we were into it. It wasn’t the flavor of the month. So not only do labels promote one song by an artist, but they do noting to build the artists career these days.

But I went a step further and told my daughter how the Rolling Stones made Satisfaction and not Britney Spears. I told my daughter how the song she likes no in her iPod was a rip from a Led Zepplin song. I explained to her that Fergie was using stuff from JJ Fad and Afrorican. I recently told a friend of mine how Will.I.Am’s song is a sample of Save a Prayer from Duran Duran. And it hit me.

My daughter doesn’t listen to my music the way I listened to my parents. I listened to what they played because I had no choice. I had to know Rick James, Bohannon, Parliament, Prince, etc. I had no choice because I didn’t own my own iPod. We shared a stereo and from time to time they would let me play my little records. But in the meantime I got some richness and history when hearing the Commodores and watching my parents act a fool.

See, when I got older their Prince was not my Prince. Michael Jackson was mine and we both could have the Jackson Five. When Phil Collins remade You Can’t Hurry Love I knew it was the Supremes. Parris doesn’t have that luxury, as most kids don’t. They are missing out on richness of musical history and culture because they turn on the radio and Clear Channel says they are going to play and “ol’ school joint” and its’ Tupac from 2001. That’s’ old school?

Labels suffer because they market music to the whims of children. They market it to adolescents who have such major life-changing things occur daily such as whether or not they like the kid in the homeroom class. These are who you think the tastemakers are?

I say do what they did when I was a kid: sell records to the adults and the kids will follow suit. I did. And I know that everyone 30 and under who longs for “the ol’ days” did as well. The artists that appeal to us are the ones that remind us of ourselves. I simply can’t relate to “getting’ tipsy in da club.” And the funny thing is that I can’t think of a 15 year old girl or boy who can either – see they aren’t in the clubs to begin with.

Songs about life. Songs about being real people. Those were the songs that had the back of every white girl in America plaster their doorframes with Steve Perry from Journey. Young and old could relate to Faithfully. But I simply can’t get down with being “in love with a stripper” and I don’t know how my nieces can either.

Now don’t get me wrong, they love the beat. They love it because it’s on the radio everyday. But even to that I add what happened to falling in love with the song and its meaning. When the music because more important that the words we are in a world of trouble. A series of blips and bleeps are replacing chords and music. And don’t call me an elitist. there is room for all of it. But what happened to people communicating with words? What happened to expressing emotions and just being real? When you take that from a society and leave the next generation with no way to connect you destroy that society. Simple and plain. At this rate we leave behind no culture.

Aliens will come to Earth and say that we were a people with no culture. Judging by the news, radio and television all we do is party and fuck.

Sit your children down and let them hear what you are listening to. Oh, they can still have theirs. But not having the choice is a crime.

A “producer” simply should not be the highlight of a song. When Nile Rodgers worked with David Bowie and Duran Duran they worked together. When Quincy worked with Michael it was a perfect marriage. Don’t talk to me about a “hot beat” when you can’t even notice the vocal performer. That’s what Jan Hammer is for.

So if a exorbitant severance package executive wants to really fix the business that he is in instead of jumping from label to label wasting more money and ruining more careers they should start there. Also cut back on $900,000 studio albums (Bob Brockman told a panel of people one that Biggie’s Ready To Die cost that to record). Let musicians make music and let the business be separate.

I have argued that if Interscope Records wanted to put $1 million behind a record of me belching they could make it sell. So why not do that for good songs? Why not stop wasting money and then crying when nothing comes back in return? Seems smart enough business to me.

Now I just gotta figure out how to get my daughter and the rest of the world to care more about me that when some dude “Spiderman that hoe.”

(Man, I could do this blogging thing all day long, Adam!)