Notting Hill Diary

Actually “The Music Industry As We Know It” arguably died the best part of a decade back. The opportunities for vast wealth out of all proportion to the work input may now be limited, but my feeling is that the whole process has become more democratic. It is now not feasible for studios to charge the vast rates of the 80s because we can all (yes, that includes you, even if you have not a musical bone in your body) make a reasonable sounding recording on our home computers and we can all get our music heard over the Internet.

Finally, by being so slow off the mark by burying their heads in the sand, Record companies have allowed the genie of downloads to emerge from the bottle and no amount of bleating by them will put him back in any more than toothpaste can be squeezed back into a tube.

The words “King Canute” spring to mind.

Here’s my take on how it used to be:

1. Band records demos of songs they’ve spent their life writing and creates a buzz
2. Record company throws money at them
3. Band records hideously overproduced versions of demos with major producer in stupidly expensive studios
4. Record company/management etc sends them on tour for months (and record is a hit or not. Funnily enough it’s not relevant to the plot here).
5. By now band has bought lots of expensive equipment without which their life has previously seemed incomplete and record company tells them it’s time to write and record their second album. Despite having recorded the basics of their first one in a leaky shed or a bedroom, now they know they’ve hit the big time and settle down to write the whole album from scratch in a “proper” studio costing £1,500 a day. Of course what they come up with has ten times the polish and none of he guts of the first album, not that they recognise this till the record is released several months later. To compound their problems, since writing their first album all they’ve spent their lives doing is recording and touring, so guess what the subject matter of the second album is?
6. Despite massive promotion, sales of second album disappoint, so band resolves to go “back to basics”, which means writing and recording an album in a style they claim always to have loved. Unaccountably that usually means blues or country or somesuch.
7. Band is never heard from again. One member becomes an A&R man for the record company to which they were signed (and thus the cycle of abuse continues). After a period of poverty, (n-1) members of the former band sue the nth member claiming songwriting credits. Approximately 2 decades later, band “reforms” with 2 or more original members and tours to audiences who should know better by their age, playing tired old songs to rapturous applause. The gigs are roaring successes apart from an ill judged 15 or 20 minutes which are preceded by the dreaded words “We’re going to play a few songs from our new album now”.