Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Corporate flunkies

There was quite a bit of chatter online about this chart which makes it looks like the music industry has sudden downturn just these last few years. It seemed to contradict all sorts of narratives. The chart is useless, however, because it doesn't adjust for inflation or population growth. Others have already done the heavy lifting on this so I won't repeat it here.

But I think it is worth noting that one of the things the criticisms of the chart underlines is just how heavily the music industry relied on album sales and particularly on big hit albums.

And that is fascinating because the prime boomer myth is that the rock music of the 1960s and 1970s was a force for non-conformity. And yet the entire music industry of that era was based on getting everyone to buy the same records. And, like so many sheep, everyone did.

And if we look at the actual profit margins on sales, we find that the music industry made much more money on album sales than they did on the sale of singles. Well, again, if you go back and read any history of popular music of that era, you will see the groups who moved from producing singles to trying to induce their fans to buy whole albums portrayed as great rebels against the market. In fact, Bob Dylan, The Doors, The Byrds, The Beatles, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, The Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones did exactly what their corporate masters wanted them to do.

They weren't rebels; they were just corporate flunkies working for the man. The whole musical "rebellion" of the late 1960s was a fraud from beginning to end and side to side.

Now this is, in a sense, a bit of a turkey shoot. It is always easier to point out how stupid "they were back then" because they-back-then are, figuratively speaking, tied to a post. (Although there are still a lot of parents, journalists and university professors peddling a lot of snake oil about the 1960s.) But here is the question:
What supposed rebels out there right now are actually really just serving entrenched interests of powerful people while deluding themselves and others with a bunch of fantastic nonsense about fighting for freedom and dignity?

I know where I'd begin to look for these people. I'd look for the people who have built their entire lives around the idea of protest. The more people identify themselves with an ideal, the more closely we should examine their claims.

Update: This may be the most prophetic thing I've posted as we have had the Occupy movement come along and serve entrenched interests while pretending to be rebels.

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