So much good! So much bad. And hope! Thanks for sharing.
PS: My wife and kids laugh at me when a song plays (that’s HUGE) and I say: I’ve never heard that one. I’m in my own musical world where the Black Taxi’s of the world won.
I hear you, Chris! It's easy to stay in the past with so much great music that you could explore and revel in for years. I tend to dwell in the 60s to 90s era of classic rock myself.
Doing research on women rockers, I've discovered a lot of great new music and been really delighted to see so much creativity despite a deplorable music industry. It gives such reassurance and hope that people persist in the face of such adversity!
Great post Ellen! I'm all for calling this a Golden Age for Music and it doesn't have anything to do with the pop charts! There's great new music everywhere!
Yeah easy solution get off of Spotify & start buying the music you love but of course the majority of people are to lazy to do that so let them have the AI slop. To be honest I personally could care less what happened to the music industry I've ripped nearly 2000 ALBUMS to USB doggles that's how I listen to music. Music I took the time to curate over 50 years of being a musician myself and a fan of all types of music. The best thing younger people can do for songwriter they like is go see the artist live and buy the merch and get up off the cash and at the least down load a song or two. For the really adventurous type go check out thrift shops for CDs no you wouldn't find the latest and greatest but like anything that requires work if you've done your homework you're bound to find something interesting. One last thing there's still an abundance of great songwriters out there & anyone with half a brain wouldn't stand for any type of AI music.
Performing and merch, as you say, is where the real money is for artists these days. Also hear that some artists are making quite good money on the streaming sites if they have a breakout song, but it's apparently not a decent living for most.
Yes, you're so right that there is an abundance of great songwriters. I keep discovering new talents among the coming generations and I'm thrilled at that.
Here's the thing that will turn it all around & it's that undeniably catchy song that everybody loves if the artist refuses to put on a streaming service. I could list a few examples here of what that song would be but pick whatever you choose. Whoever writes this Diddy like I said refuses to put it on any streaming platform and puts it on their own website and charges what they think it's worth. Also musicians have to get it out of their head that they're going to make a living with their music. Be happy playing live and find another way to make a living it can be done millions of others have done it you don't have to be fall for the follow your dreams and it will work out that's total b*******.
I wish I knew what would turn it all around, and that might do it or at least move it in the right direction.
I do think it's a travesty that the money in the music industry is huge, but only for the tech bros owning and running the platforms and a very few of the creatives providing the content, with most artists struggling even when they're producing songs that people love. See this article as background -- https://johnpstrohm.substack.com/p/the-money-business
I personally don't accept that state of affairs, want to live in a just world where we encourage and reward people for creating as opposed to exploiting what others create just to line their own pockets. We've gone down the wrong economic path and need to clean up the mess and put a fair system in place. But then I've always been a provocateur and an optimist!
nice article Ellen. Right on. With the internet musicians are going independent. And yet the hardest part is distribution. Sure bandcamp provides something but how do musicians get their music to radio for wider appreciation? Could be places like substack maybe a resource for independent radio.
I was part of an audio recording class and the instructor made comments about autotune & AI assistants. The instructor noted that autotune takes the life out of songs. He didn't say it but he should have, 'practice your scales if you're gonna sing and the violate tuning when it's important. He gave us an example with Duane Allman who hit what sounded like a wrong note live only to pick it up and run in another key.
He told us that he uses AI to speed up mastering but he notes, it's never quite right. Better but needs finessing.
You can dig a big hole with a backhoe but you gotta tune it with a shovel.
You can find incredible music here and I poke around sampling suggestions and have found some zingers like Hiatus Kaiyote.
Like you, I've been discovering some incredible music here on Substack. I'll check out Hiatus Kaiyote.
I've heard people say rock is dead, but there is a ton of alt rock, metal, whatever you fancy being done by someone. There are so many rock camps and school rock programs now that there are lots of rock musicians and groups being formed by the 'kids'.
As you point out, the distribution is the challenge and it just seems like artists now are having to learn how to be and do everything, to be music entrepreneurs. It may stand them in good stead over the long haul, but it also means they have to put out so much more effort to get to the same place that someone back in the day didn't have to expend.
Maybe I'm romanticizing and there never was a true golden age of music, but I'd sure like to see one where artists are supported and valued and rewarded as they should be.
And I appreciate your sharing what your instructor said about autotune and AI. The backhoe and shovel analogy is a good one. I'm not worried about AI becoming a replacement for humans, at least not based on what I've heard so far. If AI learns how to replicate human mistakes and foibles, then I'll start worrying!
Hundreds of years ago, artists, albeit visual, were highly respected, valued, positioned highly in society, and successfully rewarded by the church and state. I would love to live in a world that still values, respects, and appreciates all of the arts. However, as we see in public schools, the arts are always the first classes to be cut in a budget crisis. Parents advise kids not to study the arts because they "can't make money." The rise of AI no doubt threatens the arts, but we also have a president cutting the NEA, placing his chosen supporters and puppets in positions of power within the arts establishment (Kennedy Center), and placing tariffs on any film not made in the US.
We should remember that one of the first things the Nazis did was to enforce rules on art that it had to support and be aligned with the state. Any artist who didn't "obey" was deemed a deviant; they were publicly humiliated, their works destroyed, many fled and lived in exile, while others were sent to camps.
We must learn from history, or we will continue to repeat it. Thus far, humans continue to prove that we don't learn.
The arts are what give us our humanity and how we express it. Once it is taken away, or given to AI, or threatened by politics, we lose a part of our humanity forever.
Well said,Michael. I agree completely that we need to be vigilant against tyranny and repression and register a state of alarm when the arts and artists are subjected to rules and repercussions such as those employed by the Nazi regime. Artists who speak truth to power - the 'deviants' - are especially vulnerable.
The cuts are now affecting local arts funding here where I live, so I'm expecting (hoping) that having it hit folks so close to home will wake them up to think about what they value and what they don't want to lose and mobilize them to take action to preserve what's really important to them. There's such a level of fatigue from all we've gone through, but the rapid changes lately seem to have pushed them out of their comfort zone and into reaction and action, from what I'm seeing and hearing. I'm cautiously optimistic most days, but there are days where I fear for our future as a species and want to be put in charge of Planet Earth and put things right!
Substack could help by making it possible to fully embed services other than Spotify. Do they have a deal with Spotify or am I missing something I could be doing?
That's a good question. I embed Youtube videos like many because viewers/readers don't have to have an account, which they do if it's a streaming service. So for me it's about access. I don't think it makes a great deal of difference in helping artists financially doing that, from what I understand.
You always bring several levels of complexity to your posts. I have to think awhile before responding.
The thing that I’m finding fascinating is how the kids come to music as opposed to how I arrived. There seems to be a link between what’s popular in the culture and what is listened to. That’s always been true to some extent but now the popular artists are cultural phenoms as well as musical stars. Pretty much everything on the Top 100 today I would not even know except for the kids bringing it up. I’ve had to adapt.
My own background was classical with a strong dose of hymns and “religious “ themed music. I listened to AM radio in the Midwest and was heavily influenced by Chicago based garage bands. I enjoyed the prog type bands (ELP) and sort of gravitated towards the European groups. I found that most of the musicians started in classical music whether or not they were performing that genre or not. I found the European musicians had a greater fundamental knowledge of music structure than American musicians. I still gravitate towards the European symphonic rock bands when selecting music to listen to.
I’ve kind of gotten into the weeds again. You always get me thinking in many different directions. I always enjoy your posts.
I'm glad it's spurring reflection on how your own history has influenced your preferences and how that differs from the kids today.
I have to admit that, the more I reflect on it myself, the less sure I am that the kids are so different. Looking at my own history, I was raised on the crooners, TV variety shows, pop music -- which was the Beatles and Monkees to everything in the Top 40, which back then was virtually everyone in the pop and rock sphere -- and a bit of church music. I'm not sure there's a big difference in kids influencing kids, just different channels for finding it -- AM radio playlists and TV and radio shows breaking new hits back then vs. TikTok and other social media channels today.
I also think there was a definite gender breakdown back then, not sure if that plays out in the same way today. I used to find music in the 80s through my aerobics classes! I also remember discovering that Michael Jackson and Madonna were huge stars everywhere I traveled, even in small African villages where I'd see posters of them on walls.
It's a fascinating topic. I'm currently reading Fred Goodman's music history Mansion on the Hill hoping to better understand how we got from there to here, and have some others lined up. The political, economic, and social milieu has played a big role, maybe more than I was expecting.
I had to chuckle reading your response. When Michael Jackson passed away I was working for a large financial company. We contracted a team of developers in India. I was the intermediary between our team and theirs. Shortly after MJ died I received a condolence message and card from the developers. I couldn’t figure out who they were referencing, then it hit me.
That's quite funny that they thought you'd be that upset, and also so kind of them.
I knew MJ was huge when my mom died and we found his albums in her record collection. She'd never been into pop or rock so it came as a shock.
Funny that we tend to think of rock as our important musical genre and export, when just about every other genre is more identified with us -- pop, jazz, blues, country.
That’s interesting regarding your Mom. I’ve never owned a MJ album. If she had a Saturday Night Fever album that would be really mind blowing. Even I had one of those. Your observation on musical genres is correct. It’s been interesting what the Euros did with pop especially. The English and Germans did interesting things with the synth pop genre.
Yes, I had Saturday Night Fever too. Surprised to hear that you did. Next you'll be admitting that you did the hustle!
I don't know much about synth pop, have trouble now that there are so many genres and sub-genres knowing what's what and how they differ from one another.
I learned about the English love affair with pop when I lived there. It's much more of a unified market because everyone's required to have a BBC license if they watch or listen to the BBC at all, and to this day there are great BBC shows and docs showcasing new and old music. It's quite extraordinary. Not sure we haven't anything equivalent in the US.
So much good! So much bad. And hope! Thanks for sharing.
PS: My wife and kids laugh at me when a song plays (that’s HUGE) and I say: I’ve never heard that one. I’m in my own musical world where the Black Taxi’s of the world won.
I hear you, Chris! It's easy to stay in the past with so much great music that you could explore and revel in for years. I tend to dwell in the 60s to 90s era of classic rock myself.
Doing research on women rockers, I've discovered a lot of great new music and been really delighted to see so much creativity despite a deplorable music industry. It gives such reassurance and hope that people persist in the face of such adversity!
Oh I listen to tons of new music! Obviously not the ones written by those 8 writers.
And I agree with you…I love finding hidden gems from the past!
Great post Ellen! I'm all for calling this a Golden Age for Music and it doesn't have anything to do with the pop charts! There's great new music everywhere!
Thanks, Dan! I've been discovering new music through you. You're one of my new music 'informants'!
Agree, the pop charts can do their thing and we'll do ours. There's room for everyone.
For sure! I'm proud to be an "informant!"
Yeah easy solution get off of Spotify & start buying the music you love but of course the majority of people are to lazy to do that so let them have the AI slop. To be honest I personally could care less what happened to the music industry I've ripped nearly 2000 ALBUMS to USB doggles that's how I listen to music. Music I took the time to curate over 50 years of being a musician myself and a fan of all types of music. The best thing younger people can do for songwriter they like is go see the artist live and buy the merch and get up off the cash and at the least down load a song or two. For the really adventurous type go check out thrift shops for CDs no you wouldn't find the latest and greatest but like anything that requires work if you've done your homework you're bound to find something interesting. One last thing there's still an abundance of great songwriters out there & anyone with half a brain wouldn't stand for any type of AI music.
Performing and merch, as you say, is where the real money is for artists these days. Also hear that some artists are making quite good money on the streaming sites if they have a breakout song, but it's apparently not a decent living for most.
Yes, you're so right that there is an abundance of great songwriters. I keep discovering new talents among the coming generations and I'm thrilled at that.
Here's the thing that will turn it all around & it's that undeniably catchy song that everybody loves if the artist refuses to put on a streaming service. I could list a few examples here of what that song would be but pick whatever you choose. Whoever writes this Diddy like I said refuses to put it on any streaming platform and puts it on their own website and charges what they think it's worth. Also musicians have to get it out of their head that they're going to make a living with their music. Be happy playing live and find another way to make a living it can be done millions of others have done it you don't have to be fall for the follow your dreams and it will work out that's total b*******.
I wish I knew what would turn it all around, and that might do it or at least move it in the right direction.
I do think it's a travesty that the money in the music industry is huge, but only for the tech bros owning and running the platforms and a very few of the creatives providing the content, with most artists struggling even when they're producing songs that people love. See this article as background -- https://johnpstrohm.substack.com/p/the-money-business
I personally don't accept that state of affairs, want to live in a just world where we encourage and reward people for creating as opposed to exploiting what others create just to line their own pockets. We've gone down the wrong economic path and need to clean up the mess and put a fair system in place. But then I've always been a provocateur and an optimist!
nice article Ellen. Right on. With the internet musicians are going independent. And yet the hardest part is distribution. Sure bandcamp provides something but how do musicians get their music to radio for wider appreciation? Could be places like substack maybe a resource for independent radio.
I was part of an audio recording class and the instructor made comments about autotune & AI assistants. The instructor noted that autotune takes the life out of songs. He didn't say it but he should have, 'practice your scales if you're gonna sing and the violate tuning when it's important. He gave us an example with Duane Allman who hit what sounded like a wrong note live only to pick it up and run in another key.
He told us that he uses AI to speed up mastering but he notes, it's never quite right. Better but needs finessing.
You can dig a big hole with a backhoe but you gotta tune it with a shovel.
You can find incredible music here and I poke around sampling suggestions and have found some zingers like Hiatus Kaiyote.
Thanks for those observations, Greg.
Like you, I've been discovering some incredible music here on Substack. I'll check out Hiatus Kaiyote.
I've heard people say rock is dead, but there is a ton of alt rock, metal, whatever you fancy being done by someone. There are so many rock camps and school rock programs now that there are lots of rock musicians and groups being formed by the 'kids'.
As you point out, the distribution is the challenge and it just seems like artists now are having to learn how to be and do everything, to be music entrepreneurs. It may stand them in good stead over the long haul, but it also means they have to put out so much more effort to get to the same place that someone back in the day didn't have to expend.
Maybe I'm romanticizing and there never was a true golden age of music, but I'd sure like to see one where artists are supported and valued and rewarded as they should be.
And I appreciate your sharing what your instructor said about autotune and AI. The backhoe and shovel analogy is a good one. I'm not worried about AI becoming a replacement for humans, at least not based on what I've heard so far. If AI learns how to replicate human mistakes and foibles, then I'll start worrying!
Hundreds of years ago, artists, albeit visual, were highly respected, valued, positioned highly in society, and successfully rewarded by the church and state. I would love to live in a world that still values, respects, and appreciates all of the arts. However, as we see in public schools, the arts are always the first classes to be cut in a budget crisis. Parents advise kids not to study the arts because they "can't make money." The rise of AI no doubt threatens the arts, but we also have a president cutting the NEA, placing his chosen supporters and puppets in positions of power within the arts establishment (Kennedy Center), and placing tariffs on any film not made in the US.
We should remember that one of the first things the Nazis did was to enforce rules on art that it had to support and be aligned with the state. Any artist who didn't "obey" was deemed a deviant; they were publicly humiliated, their works destroyed, many fled and lived in exile, while others were sent to camps.
We must learn from history, or we will continue to repeat it. Thus far, humans continue to prove that we don't learn.
The arts are what give us our humanity and how we express it. Once it is taken away, or given to AI, or threatened by politics, we lose a part of our humanity forever.
Well said,Michael. I agree completely that we need to be vigilant against tyranny and repression and register a state of alarm when the arts and artists are subjected to rules and repercussions such as those employed by the Nazi regime. Artists who speak truth to power - the 'deviants' - are especially vulnerable.
The cuts are now affecting local arts funding here where I live, so I'm expecting (hoping) that having it hit folks so close to home will wake them up to think about what they value and what they don't want to lose and mobilize them to take action to preserve what's really important to them. There's such a level of fatigue from all we've gone through, but the rapid changes lately seem to have pushed them out of their comfort zone and into reaction and action, from what I'm seeing and hearing. I'm cautiously optimistic most days, but there are days where I fear for our future as a species and want to be put in charge of Planet Earth and put things right!
Substack could help by making it possible to fully embed services other than Spotify. Do they have a deal with Spotify or am I missing something I could be doing?
That's a good question. I embed Youtube videos like many because viewers/readers don't have to have an account, which they do if it's a streaming service. So for me it's about access. I don't think it makes a great deal of difference in helping artists financially doing that, from what I understand.
Good point about not needing an account for YouTube. Thanks.
You always bring several levels of complexity to your posts. I have to think awhile before responding.
The thing that I’m finding fascinating is how the kids come to music as opposed to how I arrived. There seems to be a link between what’s popular in the culture and what is listened to. That’s always been true to some extent but now the popular artists are cultural phenoms as well as musical stars. Pretty much everything on the Top 100 today I would not even know except for the kids bringing it up. I’ve had to adapt.
My own background was classical with a strong dose of hymns and “religious “ themed music. I listened to AM radio in the Midwest and was heavily influenced by Chicago based garage bands. I enjoyed the prog type bands (ELP) and sort of gravitated towards the European groups. I found that most of the musicians started in classical music whether or not they were performing that genre or not. I found the European musicians had a greater fundamental knowledge of music structure than American musicians. I still gravitate towards the European symphonic rock bands when selecting music to listen to.
I’ve kind of gotten into the weeds again. You always get me thinking in many different directions. I always enjoy your posts.
I'm glad it's spurring reflection on how your own history has influenced your preferences and how that differs from the kids today.
I have to admit that, the more I reflect on it myself, the less sure I am that the kids are so different. Looking at my own history, I was raised on the crooners, TV variety shows, pop music -- which was the Beatles and Monkees to everything in the Top 40, which back then was virtually everyone in the pop and rock sphere -- and a bit of church music. I'm not sure there's a big difference in kids influencing kids, just different channels for finding it -- AM radio playlists and TV and radio shows breaking new hits back then vs. TikTok and other social media channels today.
I also think there was a definite gender breakdown back then, not sure if that plays out in the same way today. I used to find music in the 80s through my aerobics classes! I also remember discovering that Michael Jackson and Madonna were huge stars everywhere I traveled, even in small African villages where I'd see posters of them on walls.
It's a fascinating topic. I'm currently reading Fred Goodman's music history Mansion on the Hill hoping to better understand how we got from there to here, and have some others lined up. The political, economic, and social milieu has played a big role, maybe more than I was expecting.
I had to chuckle reading your response. When Michael Jackson passed away I was working for a large financial company. We contracted a team of developers in India. I was the intermediary between our team and theirs. Shortly after MJ died I received a condolence message and card from the developers. I couldn’t figure out who they were referencing, then it hit me.
That's quite funny that they thought you'd be that upset, and also so kind of them.
I knew MJ was huge when my mom died and we found his albums in her record collection. She'd never been into pop or rock so it came as a shock.
Funny that we tend to think of rock as our important musical genre and export, when just about every other genre is more identified with us -- pop, jazz, blues, country.
That’s interesting regarding your Mom. I’ve never owned a MJ album. If she had a Saturday Night Fever album that would be really mind blowing. Even I had one of those. Your observation on musical genres is correct. It’s been interesting what the Euros did with pop especially. The English and Germans did interesting things with the synth pop genre.
Yes, I had Saturday Night Fever too. Surprised to hear that you did. Next you'll be admitting that you did the hustle!
I don't know much about synth pop, have trouble now that there are so many genres and sub-genres knowing what's what and how they differ from one another.
I learned about the English love affair with pop when I lived there. It's much more of a unified market because everyone's required to have a BBC license if they watch or listen to the BBC at all, and to this day there are great BBC shows and docs showcasing new and old music. It's quite extraordinary. Not sure we haven't anything equivalent in the US.