I have avoided righting a end of the year post because, quite frankly.... Not much new inspired me this year. However the more I think about it I think the reason I was uninspired is that nothing new really happened. The big music according to Billboard was still pop acts like your Biebers, who is derivative of New Kids On The Block: The solo years. The only newer bands that have got my ear in the last few years have been the Kings of Leon, The Black Keys & Avenged Sevenfold... And they are hardly breaking ground and are barely "new", more newish, haha.
What was most exciting to people from the response of everyone seemed to be reunions. This year we saw reunions for Rage Against The Machine, Soundgarden, Faith No More, Smashing Pumpkins, Anthrax & at the start of this year Van Halen with David Lee Roth. Hell... The biggest shows of the year were the Big 4 shows featuring metal bands from the 80s. How are these guys making more noise then the Biebers & Gaga's out there? It's simple... It's what the people truly want.
Billboard's main pop chart only includes albums that are under 2 years old. Why is this? If you look at sales for all albums there are catalog records that routinely outsell newer releases, yet aren't acknowledged. Maybe if they were we'd have a better music scene and less whining about the end of record sales. Sure... Maybe it's easier to sell a greatest hits package or a discounted disc, but Led Zeppelin 4 still out sells most music and it is neither a greatest hits package or typically in a bargain bin. Same can be said for the Beatles, the Stones, Pink Floyd & numerous other older acts. And I don't care about spikes in sales because of a death. Sure, when Michael Jackson died he was the biggest selling artist that year, but people would have never bought the music if it was bad (no pun intended)
I guess my point is simple. Billboard needs to recognize these albums just as they would a new release and maybe the suits at these record companies would take notice and start producing acts we can actually care about again.
Looks to me like you're concerned with two separate issues here;
ReplyDeleteOne, that there was nothing "new" this year and two, Billboards old rules for what counts on what chart, etc.
As far as the first part goes, I'm not concerned with anything "new" happening. As long as something comes out that I like, I'm happy. Sure, there have been plenty of Earth shaking records to come out in the past and sort of "reset" everything, but I'm not expecting it any time soon. As I said in my year end wrap up, at first I was thinking it was a bad year in music overall, but looking back I came away with several albums I'll be listening to for years to come so I'd consider that a success.
As far as Billboards "rules" are concerned, I've wrestled with that for years and finally settled on "who gives a shit". Somewhere along the lines, Billboard set it's rules up to be far more of a selling tool than a chart. As we continue our creep toward the death of the full length album, Billboard is going to be reduced to being completely useless anyways. It was more or less a "singles chart" in the 50s and that's what it's going to be again very soon. The difference this time is that iTunes wasn't around in the 50s. This time around, no one will need Billboard because Amazon together with iTunes will give you a pretty accurate picture of whats selling.
The problem with nothing new and exciting is that older musicians (except mega stars) don't get the press that younger bands get. Every generation needs their share of big acts that will last past 1 record and tour and that just doesn't seem to happen as much anymore. I find it funny how with all the media available that no one can maintain a long career.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Billboard... This is how these shitty execs find the trend for the next "big thing" and if old music is truly outselling newer music then it should be noticed