documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YBgZErdvyU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWamPVBvFAc
edit: added documentary link
To do awesome stuff people still need imagination. I was on some “sound art” exhibition lately. Most installations were very interesting, but I rarely I came accross something that I wouldn’t be able to do myself - given the imagination and time to do it. Most things can be built from readily available stuff and tools. It’s like taking crayons and a piece of paper. It’s you who has to do something with it.
A bit off topic, but i kinda remember the good old eighties for it’s nice music.
Then i downloaded a torrent with 1000 80’s songs and i’m shocked how bad it is.
I probably just remember the good ones and has forgotten all about the shitty music.
I think that is what happens when you get older, you forget the bad stuff and are fooled to think everything was better when you were young. 
That works for everything, you rather cling to good memories than bad memories.
On the other hand, shitty 80’s songs could be good input to do a better version today 
I didn’t find much potential in the song package i downloaded, though there were a few acceptable ones. 
The few times i have tried to make a cover i have failed badly, but then i’ve tried to make a new version of something i like though.
I think i have downloaded a very bad representation of the 80’s, not even one song from The Cure or The Smiths.
That must have been a very bad pack indeed, one cannot go around the Cure for sure or the Smiths.
I think it all comes down to goals, and philosophy. If your goal, is to shine as an artist… You are looking at a very small group of people, who actually know what music is. I think 98% of people, “who are in the mass market,” can not tell you who Tchaikovsky is. 90% of people have no idea why Pink Floyd is better than Adele.
I actually sort of agree with text a lot (though it’s a bit narrow-minded and obviously biased), but I’m just going to quote a couple parts to provide my two cents on the subject.
No, the current situation didn’t make us appreciate it less, it just made most people’s inability to appreciate it more apparent (this is also the central fallacy here, assuming that we have arrived to some sort of dead end, that no progress will ever be done again). More details below.
The only thing the so-called digital technology really has done is that it has removed the physical element from music more. It has made people able to express their musical ideas better, and I think ideas are what really makes good music. However, I think this also hinders creativity. As in the past you needed those years to be able to properly play an instrument, before you could make an album, you also developed your creative skills. Just picking up a DAW I think can be somewhat limited in that since as the learning curve is not as steep so you don’t get that much time to develop those skills.
Then there is also the undeniable fact that there is a massive saturation in the market (or maybe “market” is more appropriate) today. Now that everyone has the access to the technology required not only compose and produce music, but also to publish and promote, it’s a big clusterfuck where some real talent gets lost in the playing field of mediocre music (which is where most of us, myself included, are). It’s the same dilemma as with a great underground artist against the stars of the major label, just from a bit different perspective this time. But that’s sort of what people such as the writer of the article seems to not recognize. The “problem” that has arisen is not fundamentally any different from the one has been around ever since pop music has existed, it’s just a new form of it.
The main difference now is that in the past mediocre and bad artists couldn’t release more than one or two albums (unless they (ab)used established formulas and exploited the stupid masses), where as now releasing an album takes virtually no effort to release however many albums you like. Then again many great artists have only released one good album, or just one album altogether so the amount of albums released never was confined to the quality of the artist’s music. What it all boils down to is the stupidity and ignorance of human beings, and I can assure you, you’re never going to get rid of that universal.
That indeed is an “if”, and that being the central point of the writer’s whole argument, I think it fails at that point. “Effort” is a rather ambiguous word as it can be awfully relative. What is a lot of effort for one musician might be a walk in the part for another. I think this would also mean someone with less talent making the same album as someone with more talent would mean the less talented person (assuming talent can be objectively measured) has made a better album since he has have to had put more effort into making it.
Then there is the problem that the listener often doesn’t know about the true effort required for the musician to make the music. They can only do vague guesses, and if the person doesn’t have any insight to making music those guesses often completely arbitrary. Plus there also seems to be differences in how much people appreciate “effort”. I for one think the required effort doesn’t make a piece any better or worse. It can make it more interesting, or even impressive in some cases, but I don’t think it makes the music better somehow, in most cases at least. There are obviously disagreements here as it seems some people appreciate this factor more, but in my experience most such people are rather immature or ignorant, or in some cases just biased and spiteful.
Then there is the problem of how is “effort” exactly calculated? In most cases the production of an album from the point of an idea to the finished product there are several people involved in that process. Should the “effort” be divided between the amount of people involved (a single person producing the same album as opposed to say 100 people requries certainly more effort)? Or should the amount of effort be fixes, regardless of how many people were involved? Finally I must ask, how does “effort” exactly translate into quality? To my experience, regarding both my own stuff and other people, the amount of effort you put into making something doesn’t even begin to guarantee that the work is good. Some correlation exists but I think there often are far bigger factors that constitutes to the quality of the music, and honestly if your biggest worry is how much “effort” is involved I suggest you get your priorities fixed.
In the last section he talks about the “solution” (or I should say how he doesn’t know the solution). For there to be a solution there first needs to be a problem, which I don’t think there really is. It is undeniable that we are going through a transition phase, just like we were back in hundred years ago when recorded music was starting to become publicly available, and things like the album format were starting to born. The current situation will always adapt. This time it’s just that the the change started at such rapid speed it’s much easier to notice, and it’s much easier to make the current situation into a supposed problem.
There, I think that’s long enough, for now.
(Ps. I don’t think you can really mount a good argument against file-sharing and “piracy”. I mean, practically unlimited supply of culture and entertainment available for the masses for an effective cost of nothing, how do you exactly mold that into a bad thing? The previous generations could only get their hands on a few selected items every once in a while. The only issue is what the industry constantly wages war about. I don’t honestly think much losses occur due to “piracy”; most people who like a product I think will in any case be willing to pay a reasonable price for it whether or not they can attain it for free or not. I know I buy every album I like that is available. If they can’t afford it, then them getting it through more dubious means isn’t really a loss since they couldn’t have attained it in the first place.)
The thing is, effortless music is often the best kind.
Artists who put tremendous amounts of time into trying to attain a certain sound sometimes end up producing music that sounds contrived and inauthentic.
But the conclusion we’ve reached, I believe, is that there is simply more music for us to access via the internet, and whether music is better or worse than it was in the past is impossible to know – music is subjective, and there have always been people who prefer one era over another.
Also, music critics are playing an especially important role nowadays by filtering out the garbage.
What music critics? You can sell any kind of garbage you want on iTunes… Probably even allows you to add the label “Produced with Garbageband”
I think you mean bits?
A bit is a 1 or a 0. UTF-8 (for example) is a common way for encoding the characters of the alphabet and more into a Byte each. Could argue he should of written it in Hex though
I meant professional music critics. They don’t literally decide what gets released and what doesn’t, but they many people look to them for suggestions.
metacritic.com, rateyourmusic.com, and pitchfork.com
pitchfork in particular is often criticized for being a “taste maker”, but that has long been the role of record labels.
yeah it’s all very interesting and kind of smart. but, what is funny about this whole thing and what people sometimes neglect to consider is that electronic music and electronically produced music has become really the new folk music. things never become so new or different at all. well, they do. but they don’t.
Just wanted to inform you all that we are now not allowed to say the word ‘music’, it’s iMusic from now on.
And BTW, we are not allowed to say the word ‘tracker’ either, as you might guess we should call it iTracker.
For not to mention, iRenoise is now the proper name.
The effort of composing, mixing & mastering, should encounter the effort of listening.
It’s the market that finally defines the nature of the product.
People have the music they deserve : if they are couch potatoes, they deserve a boring tune that has no real composition effort in it. The couch potatoes music genre.
Since there are different markets : there are different music genres.
You can still try to make a “rare” (original) and uneasy musical thing, that has maybe better chances to get a “higher value”, than something you can find everywhere with no effort. But you have to meet your small restricted market of carefull listeners first, otherwise it’ll be like throwing “perls before swine”.
Thanks 00.1 for the link to that wesley willis documentary…
That guy was an amazing spirit. He used to hit me up for cds at deliliah’s… “would you like to buy my rock n roll cds??”
I think i still have an indentation on my forehead from my first wesley willis headbutt!!