Why cant the music business have more to do with music, and less POLITICS?

[SHAMELECTOR]

Hey,
This is my first time exploring the backstage---VERY interesting. So I was reading this post about should someone go pop for the money and I started thinking. Im both a writer and producer and engineer and I do all my own graphic art stuff.-----If theres one thing that gets undre my skin its knowing that half of these jackasses in the music industry dont really have a clue(both artists and producers), but since the other jackasses that own labels, that are influenced by the bigger corperation jackasses that are looking at units being sold and dont care about the true quality of the music being pumped into the kids ears--are scared because its not safe to market anything that isnt POP.
I do my own stuff on purpose cuz Im a perfectionist-and Ill be damned if some white collar suit is going to tell me what to write and how to sound.

But whats the alternative , starting your own label and marketing yourself is just not in the cards for a normal hard working person who doesnt have a financial backer---and signing with a label(if offered the opportunity) means playing by someone elses rules.

Its seems like a no win situation! Ill give credit where credit is due ---some big name people have worked tirlessly to achieve there goals, but we all know the dirty little secrets of this industry-----alot of well known people dont know or dO s@#*T.

We.ve all heard of or worked with so called producers that tell other people how to produce but havent touched the boards in years---and the Puff Daddies of the world that re-make old songs gambling that the younger crowd wont know where it really came from------BS!

I could go on forever but Im late for my crappy part-time job----just had to vent some frustration.......

CAN I GET A WITNESS!!!!!!

SHAME

[juppu]

Politics?

It's money, mate, economics... http://www.audioforums.com/forums/smile.gif Somebody discovered at some point in the fifties that gee, we can actually make plenty of money without doing more than a bit of logistics and a bit more (I won't go to detail, but you know what I mean).

I've been thinking about that a lot lately. At the moment, I've been asked to engineer and co-produce a major-affiliated (Universal owns about half of the company) release. The band asked me to do it, because we've worked together before and it's a very good working relationship. Record company goes "Guys, the studio you wanna go to isn't ok for our ponsy arses, so we're going to put you in this one" In that particular studio, the owner refuses to let anybody else touch anything, and I have to say he's not the best engineer on the planet either... The lead singer of the band is the producer of the album, A&R act as executive producers... And they happily walk over his decision - I actually suspect that they have a kickback-deal with the studio - they pay the studio more, the studio pays a bit back on their personal accounts, budget looks OK, but in reality, the record company guys are getting fatter and fatter all the time.

Obviously, this makes me - as the person who was originally asked to do it for purely artistic reasons - QUITE pissed off. One of my little sad stories again... http://www.audioforums.com/forums/wink.gif

The problem is that stuff like this happens all the time, again and again. And obviously at the artist's, producer/engineer's expense. It's a rotten business, indeed, but seriously it's like fighting windmills trying to swim against the stream if you wanna make a living out of the business.

I mean, I could go to the record company guys and kick off at them, but the only two things they're going to do are 1) ignore and despise me 2) never give me ANY work. What are my chances? Struggle along and hope to get some damn idiot convinced enough that I'm the right person to do this and that. [and they go, OK, show us what you can do - oh, BTW, we're not going to pay you a penny...]

Or what can the band do? Go do the same as me in the previous scenario, kick off... What are they going to do? Drop the band. The label has truckloads of new groups, they don't mind losing one of them - and nobody else would want a dropped-before-debut-band...

So, yes, we (the people who want their living out of the music business) are being in a situation where a guy in a suit tells you what to do, what to wear, how to sound like etc. Indie labels are better in the whole freedom, but the money is not going to be good enough to get something on the bread other than your upper lip.

It's sad. Look up my Hunter S. Thompson quote in some other thread about the music business... Good men die like dogs.

Juppu