In the first two minutes of this video, FZ explains how and why the music industry began to lose its way. Long before CDs or MP3s or file sharing someone said; “Let’s Get A Hippie In Here”, and things went south.
The last couple of minutes are Zappa discussing other issues (behavior modification, sex, safe sex, the P.M.R.C.). This video is from a show called “The Cutting Edge” and, sometime in the ’80s.
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Tags: cutting edge, file sharing, fz, Hippie, Music, music industry, P.M.R.C, Zappa
J wrote,
Wow; –during that clip I didn’t really follow his reasoning that well. Is it the corporate decision-making process or risk-analysis that is to blame?
J’s last blog post..Cesar Millan and the Music Business.
Link | April 2nd, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Pribek wrote,
Well J, I think we are at a disadvantage because we didn’t hear the question.
And, Zappa, I’ve seen and heard him interviewed a lot. I always got the impression that he talked off the cuff-not rehearsed. So, when he says stuff, it’s not a “bit”. So, it’s also never flawless.
I think he is saying that, at the heart, it was risk-analysis that was to blame. But, I’m sure you could make a good, “fish rots from the head”, argument as well.
I think that there is weight to what he said here. That, at some point, there became arbiters of what was going to sell rather than, “go ahead and record it, let’s put it out. If it sells it sells.”
At some point the rewards became higher and risks weren’t being taken. That attitude festered and permeated.
About five years ago, I was managing a young guy, a country singer. Real good guy but, he needed a chance to develop. Now, I as manager, I know that I, at some point, am going to walk into somebody’s office down in Nashville, with this kid’s CD in my hands and, my job is to sell this person on this singer. Actually, what I’m really doing though, is trying to convince this person that they should spend a couple of million dollars on this kid because, that’s what they do when they break an artist. They aren’t going to spend that kind of dough on anything risky.
Therefore, every decision along the way, is tainted by the knowledge that we can’t get this done unless, this singer is a sure bet.
Nothing gets a chance to develop organically.
So, I can see FZ’s point that we were better off with the guys with the cigars. They were just throwing stuff out there sometimes, instead of spending millions to promote.
You know, “the next big thing”, a lot of times it just came out of left field. I think Sam Phillips probably thought he was on to something with Elvis but, I don’t think he had a clue of what kind of impact he Elvis would have. If he did, he wouldn’t have sold that contract to RCA for $30,000.
The whole idea of risk-analysis takes the wild card out of the deck.
The problem is, music is something that people react to on an emotional level. If their is risk-analysis at every step, you limit the audiences options to react emotionally.
Link | April 2nd, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Sans Direction wrote,
But could Sam Phillips and Sun Records have broken Elvis big worldwide like RCA did? Gotten him onto Ed Sullivan, etc.?
Sans Direction’s last blog post..Man Capable of Reason
Link | April 3rd, 2008 at 4:54 am
Pribek wrote,
Who Knows, Sans? But, thank God Sam didn’t have some young A&R guy in a cardigan sweater saying; “We shouldn’t release this, it’s not like Perry Como or Eddie Fisher”.
Link | April 3rd, 2008 at 8:00 am
Sans Direction wrote,
Got a point there.
On MusicThing.blogspot.com, there’s a post on why all music sounds the same, including links to Maroon 5 and their producer sitting in the studio, bashing at the song that would later become their hit single, saying how there’s no song there and that they’re sick of it. I don’t think there’s a song there and I’m sick of it, and I’ve heard the thing maybe a dozen times tops. Anyway, there was a point about how today, things like Al Kooper’s organ work on “Like A Rolling Stone” would be digitally fixed to be in line.
A few links later, there’s a bit on a stupendous piece of tech that allows you to take a recording, tear it apart into distinct tones, and treat everything like a MIDI sequencer. Take a C7 chord and turn it into a Gsus4 arpeggio and other crazy stuff.
What struck me was that, in 1965, if it was a Sinatra session instead of a Dylan deal, Al Kooper would be out the door after the first take, which wouldn’t have finished. And things like the bassist losing the beat in “Tombstone Blues” are hooks to people like Beck.
Which is to say that I don’t really know if Zappa’s really right there anymore. I used to think so. I don’t know anymore. If you’re just going by “major labels aren’t putting out things like Weasels Ripped My Flesh or Trout Mask Replica or even the White Album anymore”, well, there’s a lot of technological and cultural change there. 1966, you had AM radio, 4-track studios and 45s. By 1972, you have FM radio (but not really people knowing how to make money on it yet, so they squatted on 93.5 like people squat on http://www.sex.com now), 32 track boards and albums. Listen to the music in Forrest Gump and you can hear it open up when they get to “Running on Empty”. You had a wide expansion of what you could do with sound, taking all politics out of it, and nobody knew what to do with it, that’s when they called in the hippies that Zappa hates. But “We’ll give these kids access to the 32-track and see if we can get another Are You Experienced?” (I know, Experienced? was done on a four-track) is like “We’ll let the rappers have a sampler and an 808 and see what they can do with it” in the 80s. But they got a flapper involved in the 1920s, a zoot-suit in the 1930s, hipsters like Tom Dowd recording jazz in the 50s, etc. The cigar-chomping suits knew that Frankie and the Nelson Riddle Orchestra and a little bit of the reverb tank in the Capitol Records basement would sell.
As much as I like Zappa, Beefheart, etc., it’s the experimentation that puts a “Soul Finger” next to “Over and Over” next to “Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress” next to “Bernadette” next to “96 Tears” next to something some a bunch of kids put together in a garage in San Berdo before the drummer goes off to college but has this great lick that goes like … is as important, or more so.
Sans Direction’s last blog post..Man Capable of Reason
Link | April 3rd, 2008 at 9:24 am
Pribek wrote,
I don’t think that experimentation is bound by any elitist ethic. So, I would agree with your last paragraph. I think FZ would as well.
Maroon 5, see I liked that first record but, the second one is one of the most pitch corrected affairs I’ve heard. It’s further evidence that the industry sees the technology as a means to homogenize rather that a springboard for experimentation.
At some point this effort to homogenize, and/or make everything fit into a dreadful “genre”, developed from people having the arrogance to self-appoint themselves as the arbiters of what shall be sold.
Link | April 3rd, 2008 at 10:24 am