Curious about the music industry? Find out stuff.
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Do you really need me for that? Don't all the media players have some kind of "if you like A, you might like B" functionality in them these days?CannibalRobots said:
I'm old enough to remember when Live first appeared. My initial thoughts were:
* What kind of a band name is that. Do their posters for gigs say "live, live"?
* They sound like a more middle-of-the-road REM.
So I suppose you could check out REM if you haven't. Surely everyone knows REM though.
Been some time 
I spoke to people in my area about busking, they told me there's very little money in it and its pretty pointless cause the population of my area simply don't want my kind of music
from everything I've read here, I'm questioning wether it's worth writing a couple of albums since it seems like it can only amount to sentimental value for myself, you've heard one demo from me and that wasn't very good itself...
anyway, questions I have are - is there a higher percentage of assholes in the music industry than others, if so, why?
I have noticed a strange attitude people take toward people they know who want to become musicians, they are much more critical to someone they know than another musician playing the same gig, with mainstream music being easily autotuned or edited heavily down to the syllable then is it wise to hold someone you know to that standard who doesn't have access to such studio equipment (obviously not but there have to have been many talents brought down but such harsh untalented people)
I spoke to people in my area about busking, they told me there's very little money in it and its pretty pointless cause the population of my area simply don't want my kind of music
from everything I've read here, I'm questioning wether it's worth writing a couple of albums since it seems like it can only amount to sentimental value for myself, you've heard one demo from me and that wasn't very good itself...
anyway, questions I have are - is there a higher percentage of assholes in the music industry than others, if so, why?
I have noticed a strange attitude people take toward people they know who want to become musicians, they are much more critical to someone they know than another musician playing the same gig, with mainstream music being easily autotuned or edited heavily down to the syllable then is it wise to hold someone you know to that standard who doesn't have access to such studio equipment (obviously not but there have to have been many talents brought down but such harsh untalented people)
I apologise if this has been asked already. I've quickly checked the last few pages and saw nothing.
What's your opinion on OFWGKTA and how well do you think they'll be able to succeed commercially?
What's your opinion on OFWGKTA and how well do you think they'll be able to succeed commercially?
Yes people are often assholes. The music industry doesn't tend to attract conscientious, hard-working, friendly, cheerful, responsible people. It tends to attract people who don't want to work for a living and see the music industry as some kind of escape from the 9-5 drudgery. Of course, if anything to get anywhere in the music biz requires even more work than a regular career, but most people are way too thick to realise this until they've wasted a few decades pottering around doing fuck all and waiting for fame and fortune to be handed to them on a silver platter just because they can sing and play guitar a bit, in the meantime wondering why other harder-working musicians are getting somewhere when they're not. Then they start getting really jealous. If you're in the music industry you basically fall into two camps:Shivarage said:Been some time
I spoke to people in my area about busking, they told me there's very little money in it and its pretty pointless cause the population of my area simply don't want my kind of music
from everything I've read here, I'm questioning wether it's worth writing a couple of albums since it seems like it can only amount to sentimental value for myself, you've heard one demo from me and that wasn't very good itself...
anyway, questions I have are - is there a higher percentage of assholes in the music industry than others, if so, why?
I have noticed a strange attitude people take toward people they know who want to become musicians, they are much more critical to someone they know than another musician playing the same gig, with mainstream music being easily autotuned or edited heavily down to the syllable then is it wise to hold someone you know to that standard who doesn't have access to such studio equipment (obviously not but there have to have been many talents brought down but such harsh untalented people)
1. One of these guys
2. Someone who has to constantly deal with guys like these
Either way, if you're not an asshole when you start, you probably will be one soon enough.
Auto-tune and micro-editing are these days easily accessible even for musicians on a budget. I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say with your last paragraph. Can you rephrase?
I did answer part of this question previously, here's a cut and paste from my response:I Am Pigeon said:
Further to that I don't think they've got any more or less chance of commercial success than any other bunch of rappers. Rap is certainly where a lot of the money is in the US right now. Given that they've turned up in this thread twice I guess their chances of success seem reasonable.me said:
Bascally, do you think someone you know would be more critical about your music skill than a stranger?BonsaiK said:
I noticed earlier about the Brokencyde song you thought was good and may be looked back on as great influencial music of this time, I disagree D: (or you said the record label assumed they would be)
my objection there is that the difference between Brokencyde and the great music we look back on right now (led zeppelin, nirvana, bob dylan, jimi hendrix etc) is that brokencyde have no layers in their lyrics, no poetry to add any metaphor to give any kind of fresh perspective when we look back in years to come, I actually think Brokencyde and 99% of music today is just a fast food system of music - today people will buy their music, tomorrow they will be thrown out when their target audience is finished with them and have matured either by listening to poetic musical geniuses and realizing music can be so much more than mere loud, obnoxious noises or just actually start listening to what is being said in Brokencyde's song and asking "what IS this?!" (in which case of people not maturing, they would just follow the crowd to the next fad)
Rebecca Black's "friday" (and please, whoever reads this - DO NOT MENTION THIS PERSON EVER AGAIN AND DO NOT LISTEN TO ANY OF HER MUSIC) is a perfect example of a perfectly in-tune pop song that most people call "bad" purely because of the lyrics being boring and lacking in any thought, nobody ever mentions the mediocre melody or does the badness of the lyrics overshadow that? :/
It's not actually comparable, at least, not in the examples that would come to mind for most people. The difference is that with Auto-tune, everybody knows that it's being used - The photoshopping that goes on in magazines etc is a lot harder to detect. When you think about the artists that are notorious for Auto-tune, they're not trying to hide its use - quite the opposite, they're flaunting the fact that Auto-tune is there. They're using it as an effect to get that robotic sound that comes from the note being snapped between pitches, in the same manner that a guitarist steps on a flanger or phaser pedal to get an electronic kind of sound. It's not like Photoshop where people use it to try and cover something up. Of course, because it IS so easily detectable, every armchair critic now thinks they're a fucking expert in Auto-tune and whines about how it's "killing music" or whatever, all complete bullshit of course. That's like saying the flanger pedal killed guitar.Shivarage said:
Auto-tune can of course also be used as a pitch-corrector to subtly hide bum notes, in the same way Photoshop can be used to wipe out those freckles or enhance a bustline - but here's the kicker - when it's used in THAT way, just like Photoshop, nobody can tell. So in other words, it's the artists who seem like they don't use Auto-tune that are in fact, more likely to be using it to hide a bum note. (So all those people running around saying "Ke$ha sucks because she's Auto-tuned, I listen to [incredibly hip band x] who don't have that yucky Auto-tune sound" - those people are probably listening to Auto-tune anyway but they might not know it. At least Ke$ha is honest about it.) Although Auto-tune as a mistake-hider does happen, it's rarer than you might think. It's easier usually to just get the vocalist to redo the passage. Or, even more likely, cut and paste a better vocal performance from somewhere else. Say a singer does three choruses in a song but fucks up the second one, you might cut and paste a correct version of the bit she fucked up from the first chorus and whack it in the second chorus. This is so common that it's basically standard procedure. Listen to some of the choruses on your favourite records with this in mind, you'll be amazed how often the chorus vocals sound exactly the same each time. Anyone worried about Auto-tune dumbing down vocal technique is uneducated, sure, it's one method, but it's not the one you'd reach for if you really wanted to genuinely convince someone that an untalented singer could in fact sing. And even a pop singer usually still has to pass auditions - they can't use Auto-tune there.
Of course the general public is very, very uneducated about things like this, but good luck getting any of them to admit that they don't know what they're talking about. Because so many people love music they all want to think they're experts when they're not, just like a car enthusiast will try and impress others with their car knowledge or whatever. You're going to encounter weird and often misinformed attitudes but then that's just part and parcel of being a musician, you'll get used to it.
Sorry, I edited my post while you were replying ^^'
I noticed earlier about the Brokencyde song you thought was good and may be looked back on as great influencial music of this time, I disagree D: (or you said the record label assumed they would be)
my objection there is that the difference between Brokencyde and the great music we look back on right now (led zeppelin, nirvana, bob dylan, jimi hendrix etc) is that brokencyde have no layers in their lyrics, no poetry to add any metaphor to give any kind of fresh perspective when we look back in years to come, I actually think Brokencyde and 99% of music today is just a fast food system of music - today people will buy their music, tomorrow they will be thrown out when their target audience is finished with them and have matured either by listening to poetic musical geniuses and realizing music can be so much more than mere loud, obnoxious noises or just actually start listening to what is being said in Brokencyde's song and asking "what IS this?!" (in which case of people not maturing, they would just follow the crowd to the next fad)
Rebecca Black's "friday" (and please, whoever reads this - DO NOT MENTION THIS PERSON EVER AGAIN AND DO NOT LISTEN TO ANY OF HER MUSIC) is a perfect example of a perfectly in-tune pop song that most people call "bad" purely because of the lyrics being boring and lacking in any thought, nobody ever mentions the mediocre melody or does the badness of the lyrics overshadow that? :/
I noticed earlier about the Brokencyde song you thought was good and may be looked back on as great influencial music of this time, I disagree D: (or you said the record label assumed they would be)
my objection there is that the difference between Brokencyde and the great music we look back on right now (led zeppelin, nirvana, bob dylan, jimi hendrix etc) is that brokencyde have no layers in their lyrics, no poetry to add any metaphor to give any kind of fresh perspective when we look back in years to come, I actually think Brokencyde and 99% of music today is just a fast food system of music - today people will buy their music, tomorrow they will be thrown out when their target audience is finished with them and have matured either by listening to poetic musical geniuses and realizing music can be so much more than mere loud, obnoxious noises or just actually start listening to what is being said in Brokencyde's song and asking "what IS this?!" (in which case of people not maturing, they would just follow the crowd to the next fad)
Rebecca Black's "friday" (and please, whoever reads this - DO NOT MENTION THIS PERSON EVER AGAIN AND DO NOT LISTEN TO ANY OF HER MUSIC) is a perfect example of a perfectly in-tune pop song that most people call "bad" purely because of the lyrics being boring and lacking in any thought, nobody ever mentions the mediocre melody or does the badness of the lyrics overshadow that? :/
Not BonsaiK, but maybe you are interested in my opinion, too:
I hate Brokencyde as much as you do, but I totally disagree with that most people will mature or whatever and I do not think it is a bad thing. I do not get why people are so fixated on that it is wrong to listen to "simple" music or whatever.
I listen mostly to progressive music (Between the Buried and Me, Tool, Sikth, Scale the Summit, Rishloo) so I enjoy sophisticated music a lot. However, I also absolutely love Limp Bizkit and while it is not fashionable to hate Limp Bizkit anymore, you could hear from everyone who thinks that they know "good" music exactly the same stuff you are saying about brokencyde in the past. And you know what? I do not care. I do not care how sophisticated Limp Bizkit is, I do not care how immature their lyrics are, I do not care about that they are not changing odd time signatures 100 times a second, because I still think they are fun to listen to, make me move and make me happy. And no, I did not mature in that regard and hopefully never will, I also do not have the need to justify listening to "bad" music that is just my taste.
As far as why nobody criticizes Friday's melody: It is harder. I play piano and started with guitar and have some knowledge about music theory and I could probably come up with some reasons why the melody is so awful, however, probably not that spontaneously in a conversation. Now, most do not even have little knowledge about music theory so why do you expect more comments on the melody, except that it is bad?
I hate Brokencyde as much as you do, but I totally disagree with that most people will mature or whatever and I do not think it is a bad thing. I do not get why people are so fixated on that it is wrong to listen to "simple" music or whatever.
I listen mostly to progressive music (Between the Buried and Me, Tool, Sikth, Scale the Summit, Rishloo) so I enjoy sophisticated music a lot. However, I also absolutely love Limp Bizkit and while it is not fashionable to hate Limp Bizkit anymore, you could hear from everyone who thinks that they know "good" music exactly the same stuff you are saying about brokencyde in the past. And you know what? I do not care. I do not care how sophisticated Limp Bizkit is, I do not care how immature their lyrics are, I do not care about that they are not changing odd time signatures 100 times a second, because I still think they are fun to listen to, make me move and make me happy. And no, I did not mature in that regard and hopefully never will, I also do not have the need to justify listening to "bad" music that is just my taste.
As far as why nobody criticizes Friday's melody: It is harder. I play piano and started with guitar and have some knowledge about music theory and I could probably come up with some reasons why the melody is so awful, however, probably not that spontaneously in a conversation. Now, most do not even have little knowledge about music theory so why do you expect more comments on the melody, except that it is bad?
I didn't actually say that they would be influential or ever considered "classic" or whatever, however it's not beyond the realms of possibility. Brokencyde, as the first Crunkcore group, have broken genuinely new ground musically (something the Pixies-copying Nirvana never did, a fact Kurt readily acknolwedged) and actually have already been influential. There's now a whole bunch of this type of stuff out there, and guess where they all got the idea from?Shivarage said:
Every single criticism that you just levelled at Brokencyde was also levelled at this song when it first appeared:
...and it's now considered a classic, one of the defining songs of the late 1980s. The music is just a single drone and a drumbeat lifted off someone else's record, scorned at the time for requiring no actual musical ability to create, nowadays Dr. Dre is considered one of the best and most influential producers in rap music. The lyrics were considered the epitome of shallow, superficial and irresponsible junk at the time by everybody except the band and their diehard fans, people were listening to the lyrics, going "what IS this?" just like they are with Brokencyde now - then the LA riots happened, and people found out exactly what it was. Now people are writing their university thesis on early rap music and wondering how society could have not even noticed the incredible social insight these bands gave... note one of the Brokencyde members in that video I linked a couple pages ago wearing a Dr. Dre t-shirt. Coincidence? Probably not.
Let's talk about Rebecca Black for a bit - again. Firstly, lyrics, and it's time to play "spot the difference":
Yeah. Nearly fucking identical, and certainly just as shallow and insipid. Okay, the Easybeats weren't huge outside Australia and England, but where was the hate for The Cure when that song came out? Nowhere, because people are hypocrites, and it's more fun for them to pick on a 13-year old girl with her first single than a band with an established career spanning decades and tons of fans. The "hey the weekend is coming up let's have a good time" song has been a staple of pop music for as long as the school/work weekly schedule has been a reality in western society.
Damn right it's harder. I dare anyone to give me a valid technical reason why that melody is any worse than any other pop song melody out there. You can't, because it isn't, and I'd in fact argue the opposite. Sure the thing sure gets in your head and stays there - that's the sign of a good pop music melody, not a bad one! That's what pop music is supposed to do - be catchy. That's it's job, if it doesn't do that it's not a very good pop song melody. Love it or hate it, you all have one thing in common - you know how the melody to Friday goes.xedi said:
Thanks for the replyxedi said:
I really didn't mean to sound "elitist" about music, I have no problems with anybody liking Brokencyde, I just didn't think they could be looked back on as great due to my opinion of the lyrics but as Bonsiak pointed out, they already have been very influencial so I was wrong there.
thanks for explaining the melody thing, I never thought of it that way, very interesting...
Ah... you linked the Cure ^^' very well playedBonsaiK said:
I'm sorry if I irritated you... I didn't mean any harm to Rebecca Black and you're right... I don't have anything objective to say about the melody
One last question - Do you think a personal friend would be any more critical of your music than a stranger?
I'm not irritated at all, sorry if I come across like that. Maybe I just have a very forceful way of making my point, I certainly swear a lot (comes with the music biz actually) but I'm not pissed off or anything like that. In fact I quite enjoy explaining this stuff or I wouldn't do it.Shivarage said:
A personal friend is usually less likely to be critical of your music, because they know how much your music means to you and they don't want to upset you. Whereas a stranger at a gig may not care.
Fun stuff ^_^ I just didn't want to sound a jealous ***** just cause a 13 year old is making money from something I would love to be doing (at least I think she is)BonsaiK said:
I asked that cause my dad is very musical and tells me I can't sing when I barely miss a single note while my friend tells me i sound fine... of course when I sing live, I don't even notice the audience is there
I would love to be gigging more but I havn't even had a job and without connections with someone who can just give me a job, fuck >_<
that leads me to my next question, is it true that employers see a person with a qualification in performing arts as "unpredictable" or what?
Rebecca Black will be a millionaire at the end of the year if current trends continue.Shivarage said:Fun stuff ^_^ I just didn't want to sound a jealous ***** just cause a 13 year old is making money from something I would love to be doing (at least I think she is)BonsaiK said:
I asked that cause my dad is very musical and tells me I can't sing when I barely miss a single note while my friend tells me i sound fine... of course when I sing live, I don't even notice the audience is there
I would love to be gigging more but I havn't even had a job and without connections with someone who can just give me a job, fuck >_<
that leads me to my next question, is it true that employers see a person with a qualification in performing arts as "unpredictable" or what?
I know you've posted demos in my demo thread but I couldn't find one with vocals on it. If you record me some vocals and put it in the demo thread I'll promise to give you an honest assessment of your voice.
Getting a job: don't sweat it. Usual common sense things apply. The more qualifications the better, but what any employer, in any business, is really concerned about is:
* Is this person capable of the task I'm paying them for? Qualifications are just a way of proving 'yes, I can do this particular task'. That's all they're for. If there's no qualifications, do they have experience? If there's no experience, do they have good school results, some good work experience, volunteer work or anything that shows that they might be able to do good at the job I'm paying them for? Try and relate any experience that you do have to the job at hand. You can do it if you're creative. If you're going for a job stacking shelves in a supermarket and you've never stepped foot in a supermarket (just to give a really lowbrow example), then maybe you stacked shelves in your school library once, so you can tell them that you've got "shelf stacking" experience, and you can tell them how quickly you can do it, that you're good with ladders and heights or whatever. What about a job in a store, but you've never worked in retail? Well, maybe there was one time where you collected money for a charity as part of school or something - ahhh, now you can tell them you've got "cash handling" experience. Etc etc. Don't actually fabricate or make anything up (because liars tend to get busted) but just think outside the square a little.
* Will they actually do the task diligently and not waste time/cost me money? Is there something about hiring this person that could potentially cost me more money in the long term than hiring some other person? This comes down to your character. A performing arts qualification shows, if nothing else, that you've got the ability to do something and stick it through to the end. That's a quality employers like, it shows that you're willing to work at something and succeed in it. Sure, they'd like it if the qualification was relevant to their job, because then that also shows you might be able to do that job, but even if it isn't, it's still a positive point. Maybe there's a few employers who see a performing arts degree as a negative thing, but do you really want to work for such a non-understanding employer anyway? Think about how they'll react down the track if you get the job, when you need some time off work for your band to go on tour. Remember that going for a job isn't a one-way street - the job just isn't auditioning you, you're also auditioning them, and making sure this is a job you really want to do.
* Will myself and the other employees be able to get along with this person, will they be a good 'fit' for the business? This comes down to personality, you'll either fit or you won't. Sometimes the best, most qualified person doesn't get the job and this is often why - they just didn't 'fit' the culture of the business. Nothing you can do about this, just put your best foot forward.
Sorry, that wasn't very music-industry related, but then in a way it is, because you'll need a job in the 'straight world' anyway, at least for starters. Some well-known musos who've been around for decades still have day jobs. Did you know Bruce Dickinson is a qualified commercial airline pilot?
Holy shitBonsaiK said:
a millionairre?! Is a cover demo okay since my lyric writing isn't great?
Thanks for all the info
from my experience, I don't know anybody who didn't get their first job through connections, wether their parents friend took them on or a friend gave a good word... this is confirmed in my first job interview, the first thing an employer said to me was "do you not know anybody who can just give you a job?" yeah, I'm a little stuck financially thanks to the nepotism that rules in my area... also, I knew performing arts is much better proof for my abilities than just sitting in a room and writing >_>