The Crisis in Music

Mentions how the US economy has grown dramatically since the 1930s, but how we have less venues, and the artistic crisis.. He also mentions technology and economy; and how people don't spend money on music. "It's on YouTube" and he says a majority of the material on YouTube is there illegally.

Artistically, he mentions how people mention views, subscribers, and all the non-music stuff - not how great an album is. I read this guy, but didn't know he made videos until someone else posted it.

Even before getting to the music challenges, he throws some questions to the audience.
"Give me the name of a living poet"
"Give me the name of one dance choreographer"
"Give me the name of a living jazz saxophonist" and chances are most won't know it.

__________________
https://www.youtube.com/c/LoyalOpposition

I'd say it's thanks to youtube why music has become so much more accessible. A lot of the music I listen to I discovered on youtube because you can't really find it elsewhere. He's just being dramatic and pompous.

The deal our masters struck with us was access to media in exchange for our data. And since, like our soul, it does not seem that our data even does anything for us in the drudgery of our day-to-day lives, we gladly took this devil's bargain. Our tech overlords have turned a blind eye to us not paying for media (especially music) in exchange for our metadata.

If you're a musician, you have to get by on touring and merch and maybe your publishing, but your recordings will be absorbed and distributed everywhere. That's just the way it is, Bruce Hornsby. But were things that much better when less music was being made and the only music that made it to the radio was controlled by big record companies who ripped off their artists? And to be perfectly honest, no one would've have been able to name a choreographer or poet thirty-years ago in the pre-internet world.

The speaker is right that the music business has been especially screwed. Part of it is the hatred people have for the music industry and the perpetually weak bargaining position of actual musicians (who are basically screwed in the same way screenwriters are screwed). The Goliath of the music industry fell in in a desperate to stop the internet from happening. Remember all those lawsuits? Remember when they were suing single moms because their 12-year-old kid put a few MP3s on a personal website? They were too busy trying to stop it from happening than to stop and think about how to how to make money with it, leaving tiny David, the musician, to be robbed by big tech companies. The public was happy with the arrangement because they were getting their music for "free." Moreover, we'd become accustomed to "free" music on the radio and with our legal right to record songs from the radio and to copy albums onto cassette tapes. This industry was basically positioned to get screwed the hardest in our brave new world.

Bob Dylan
Twyla Tharp
Wynton Marsalis

__________________
I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

I'll let him know!

Heh, heh. BTW Wynton Marsalis is a trumpet player.

I haven't spent money on actual physical music... I can listen to any version, rare, demo, on YouTube for free.... However, because of that, I'll be spending (and have spent) money on concerts, for example. Also, if you're downloading from someone, chances are that they're already making money, so maybe that's not it.

You’re right. I meant Branford, but I bet Wynton can play sax too.

With a title like that, you instantly know who made the thread...

There's an argument to be made about how overexposure to music actually lessens the importance of a single album to us, and it might be, to some extent, true for average albums. But this is easily debunked by looking at anybody who had listened to thousands of albums and seeing how much they care for their favorites.

I think the wide accessibility might make us treat every album as less a sacred treasure, but the trade-off is thousands and thousands of different obscure masterpieces within our reach.

And sure, YouTube, like any commercial platform, does care about money, and the music channels do, too. So, people talk about subscribers and views in terms of how popular something is. But I would hope nobody has ever seriously contemplated looking at views and likes on YouTube as a barometer of the songs' merits. Music companies look for ways to make a buck, and that's why all the view & like ballyhoo is here in the first place. But for every dozen-million-views mainstream pop song you have a treasure trove of thousands of brilliant songs, albums, compilations, cassettes, and whatnot. So it is there illegally. But if it hadn't, you probably wouldn't have found that obscure Burmese cassette from the 80s that totally changed the way you look at music.

Sure, I can't name any living dance choreographer (or any dance choreographer, for that matter) but I can name 10 brilliant obscure artists none of you ever heard about. And while YouTube is not my main source of music, some of those artists' work is available there, just one click away. And it's a blessing more than a curse.

__________________
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.