electro-music.com   Dedicated to experimental electro-acoustic
and electronic music
 
    Front Page  |  Radio
 |  Media  |  Forum  |  Wiki  |  Links
Forum with support of Syndicator RSS
 FAQFAQ   CalendarCalendar   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   LinksLinks
 RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in  Chat RoomChat Room 
 Forum index » Discussion » Schmooze
Frank Zappa Explains the Decline of Music
Post new topic   Reply to topic
Page 1 of 1 [19 Posts]
View unread posts
View new posts in the last week
Mark the topic unread :: View previous topic :: View next topic
Author Message
elektro80
Site Admin


Joined: Mar 25, 2003
Posts: 21959
Location: Norway
Audio files: 14

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:08 am    Post subject: Frank Zappa Explains the Decline of Music Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread


_________________
A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"

MySpace
SoundCloud
Flickr
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
mosc
Site Admin


Joined: Jan 31, 2003
Posts: 18197
Location: Durham, NC
Audio files: 212
G2 patch files: 60

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Good animation - especially the second half.


_________________
--Howard
my music and other stuff
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website AIM Address
Kassen
Janitor
Janitor


Joined: Jul 06, 2004
Posts: 7678
Location: The Hague, NL
G2 patch files: 3

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Not youtube but I like this video;
http://kotaku.com/gaming/video/shadow-monsters-gameplay-is-a-bit-amazing-297555.php

_________________
Kassen
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
Acoustic Interloper



Joined: Jul 07, 2007
Posts: 2067
Location: Berks County, PA
Audio files: 89

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 1:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Frank's comments about the hot young execs apply to a lot of so-called industries, not just music, at least in the U.S. Seems to be a pretty general corporate drift towards sucking.

We listened to Hot Rats on the drive home from Canada last week. It was my pick-me-up to keep me awake during the last long leg of the journey. Excellent Rats! I smell a rat

_________________
When the stream is deep
my wild little dog frolics,
when shallow, she drinks.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
EdisonRex
Site Admin


Joined: Mar 07, 2007
Posts: 4579
Location: London, UK
Audio files: 172

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 1:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Acoustic Interloper wrote:
Frank's comments about the hot young execs apply to a lot of so-called industries, not just music, at least in the U.S. Seems to be a pretty general corporate drift towards sucking.

We listened to Hot Rats on the drive home from Canada last week. It was my pick-me-up to keep me awake during the last long leg of the journey. Excellent Rats! I smell a rat


Hot Rats was my first ever Zappa album, which I got at 12. I was easily corrupted. Very Happy

Re: MBAs (go ahead, say it) there is a reason I never got one of those. When the revolution comes, the MBAs will be the first up against the wall.

_________________
Garret: It's so retro.
EGM: What does retro mean to you?
Parker: Like, old and outdated.


Home,My Studio,and another view
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
seraph
Editor
Editor


Joined: Jun 21, 2003
Posts: 12398
Location: Firenze, Italy
Audio files: 33
G2 patch files: 2

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 3:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

EdisonRex wrote:

Hot Rats was my first ever Zappa album, which I got at 12. I was easily corrupted. Very Happy

I think mine was "Grand Wazoo", many others followed: Hot Rats, Freak Out, Uncle Meat, 200 Motels, Waka/Jawaka etc.

_________________
homepage - blog - forum - youtube

Quote:
Don't die with your music still in you - Wayne Dyer

Last edited by seraph on Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:29 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Mohoyoho



Joined: Dec 03, 2003
Posts: 1632
Location: Tennessee
Audio files: 8

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 7:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Freakout was mine. I saw him live in Boston around 1967 or 68 at the Pyschedelic Supermarket. My mother and father drove me and my friend to the show because we weren't yet 16. He was very influential to me.
_________________
Mark Mahoney
Kingsport, Tennessee
http://www.reverbnation.com/markmahoney
www.cdbaby.com/cd/markmahoney
www.cdbaby.com/cd/mmahoneympeck
http://cdbaby.com/cd/mmahoneympeck2
http://www.limitedwave.com/subterraneous/
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Acoustic Interloper



Joined: Jul 07, 2007
Posts: 2067
Location: Berks County, PA
Audio files: 89

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 8:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Mohoyoho wrote:
Freakout was mine.

Yeah, mine too. Opened up a whole new world of music appreciation.

_________________
When the stream is deep
my wild little dog frolics,
when shallow, she drinks.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Mohoyoho



Joined: Dec 03, 2003
Posts: 1632
Location: Tennessee
Audio files: 8

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 9:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

As far as his theory on the decline of music; I think that is a very simplistic view. I think some of what he said is true, but I think as the pop music industry started to grow at an incredible rate, money became the main factor for the decline. It's not unlike the stock market mentality. Investors demand a certain rate of return. Just as stock analysts put their spin on the businesses on Wall Street, the same happened to the music industry. The way to get a consistent rate of return is to formulate and create an assembly line that mass produces and clones performers. And then came music videos. . . The look, which was often influencial in an act's success, became even more important than the music. The price of marketing and promotion started to skyrocket. If successful, their efforts paid off big. If unsuccessful, people lost their jobs. To take chances on artists on the edge might end a career, so safe mediocre acts became the norm. I think producers have become even more powerful than ever, and that also is keeping the edges of music dull.
_________________
Mark Mahoney
Kingsport, Tennessee
http://www.reverbnation.com/markmahoney
www.cdbaby.com/cd/markmahoney
www.cdbaby.com/cd/mmahoneympeck
http://cdbaby.com/cd/mmahoneympeck2
http://www.limitedwave.com/subterraneous/
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Acoustic Interloper



Joined: Jul 07, 2007
Posts: 2067
Location: Berks County, PA
Audio files: 89

PostPosted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 6:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Mohoyoho wrote:
To take chances on artists on the edge might end a career, so safe mediocre acts became the norm. I think producers have become even more powerful than ever, and that also is keeping the edges of music dull.

The effects of videos & costs etc. are all true, but I think the cultural drift coming with those MBAs is a big factor. Companies are trying to *optimize* returns, and part of doing that is reducing variability. In the old days there was more of a tendency to *gamble* on a return. The transistor was a risk in its day: just a shitty, low power tube.

They've gotta teach those MBAs something, and it's not going to be creative thinking or risk taking, because the people teaching those courses don't do those things. I remember in the old days of the Bell System, some people used to bitch about the managers being former engineers who got themselves promoted. According to this camp, the former engineers didn't have business or people skills. Along came a generation of these 'soft-skilled' managers who didn't understand shit about what was being created -- recalls Bush Sr's comment "I don't care whether it's computer chips or potato chips" that we make & sell -- and, at least for the tech company that used my work for 1/4 century, they managed the business right into the ground. Also recalls when the Pepsi guy ousted Jobs from Apple. Sugar Water Man.

Intellectual inbreeding leads in time to extinction.

_________________
When the stream is deep
my wild little dog frolics,
when shallow, she drinks.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
EdisonRex
Site Admin


Joined: Mar 07, 2007
Posts: 4579
Location: London, UK
Audio files: 172

PostPosted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 8:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Quote:

Also recalls when the Pepsi guy ousted Jobs from Apple. Sugar Water Man.


Ah yes, Gil Amelio. Beige Apple boxes. Completely without style or performance. I had one of those. It sucked. I cursed him every day I used it.

The music industry is run by worse than MBAs, it is run by lawyers. I work with lots of lawyers and they are not generally known in corporate circles, for risk taking. It's all about the revenue flow.

_________________
Garret: It's so retro.
EGM: What does retro mean to you?
Parker: Like, old and outdated.


Home,My Studio,and another view
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
bachus



Joined: Feb 29, 2004
Posts: 2922
Location: Up in that tree over there.
Audio files: 5

PostPosted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 8:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Acoustic Interloper wrote:
Frank's comments about the hot young execs apply to a lot of so-called industries, not just music, at least in the U.S. Seems to be a pretty general corporate drift towards sucking.


Ya got that right. The trend is toward a corporate world run by effing pea brained bean counters promoting the values of a dung beetle and who suck up the swill of short-term self interest while effing everyone and everything else.

JM2C

_________________
The question is not whether they can talk or reason, but whether they can suffer. -- Jeremy Bentham
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Acoustic Interloper



Joined: Jul 07, 2007
Posts: 2067
Location: Berks County, PA
Audio files: 89

PostPosted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 9:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Couldn't'a said it better myself, and we all got plenty of anecdotes to back it up. One thing maybe worth adding is that, in both the physical and cultural universes there is *always* entropy to deal with, be it copyright-infringing MP3 downloads, music video production costs, whatever. How we react to entropy is what matters. The trick is to have thoughts more profound than the formula in a spreadsheet cell, and the chutzpah to act on them from time to time. There was plenty of bad commercial music and a pointless war back in the 60's, same as now, but there were also mainstream avenues for creative artists to travel, and there were even people walking briefly on the moon. You'd be hard pressed to put a bottom line value on walking on the moon, and yet there was plenty of technology invented in support of that in mainstream use today.
_________________
When the stream is deep
my wild little dog frolics,
when shallow, she drinks.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
EdisonRex
Site Admin


Joined: Mar 07, 2007
Posts: 4579
Location: London, UK
Audio files: 172

PostPosted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 9:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Quote:

yet there was plenty of technology invented in support of that in mainstream use today.


You couldn't pay me to allow Tang into my body nowadays. Laughing

_________________
Garret: It's so retro.
EGM: What does retro mean to you?
Parker: Like, old and outdated.


Home,My Studio,and another view
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Stanley Pain



Joined: Sep 02, 2004
Posts: 782
Location: Reading, UK
Audio files: 10
G2 patch files: 35

PostPosted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:15 am    Post subject: Re: Frank Zappa Explains the Decline of Music Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

elektro80 wrote:


i love zappa (in fact i loved him so much, i used to play Francesco Zappa trios with my brother and sister...) but i think that he's been proven wrong over time.

sigur ros, arcade fire, autechre, aphex twin, broadcast, vincent oliver, the musical releases of the label Border Community, electro-music.com as a community... i just don't see this decline in creativity or creative work being stifled.

in fact, the major labels are suffering, not from decline in sales, but in terms of them becoming less profitable administrative behemoths. many indie labels are thriving and that's having a positive impact on artists who might not be getting the stellar advances they recieved in the 70s and 80s but are making a (more than) decent living and have more creative control over their work.

to paraphrase Zappa, "all the good music was written in the 60s by a man with an imperial moustache..." so if you have nostalgia for that type of music, go listen to it. the recordings are still available!

i've never understood why Zappa was so nostalgic over this issue in particular.

_________________
there's no I in TEAM, so let's all act as individuals instead
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
mosc
Site Admin


Joined: Jan 31, 2003
Posts: 18197
Location: Durham, NC
Audio files: 212
G2 patch files: 60

PostPosted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 7:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

If you call electro-music.com a success, you'd be right. But if you compare it by the same standards used for the record companies, it's a complete failure. That standard is financial. Nevertheless, you make a good point.
_________________
--Howard
my music and other stuff
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website AIM Address
elektro80
Site Admin


Joined: Mar 25, 2003
Posts: 21959
Location: Norway
Audio files: 14

PostPosted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I think Zappa´s thoughts on this should be understood based on where he was coming from and what was going on in the industry at the time. With that in mind, this is getting more interesting.
Consider this guy was signed on Verve because the label wanted diversity. Shocked Laughing
He later saw how the industry transformed into a runaway business monster. Seemingly the major labels tried to reinvent themselves into oil companies.
Also keep in mind how significant say the K-TEL compilations were. At the time this was very controversial. You guys remember K-TEL? Laughing

_________________
A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"

MySpace
SoundCloud
Flickr
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
espion



Joined: Sep 13, 2007
Posts: 19
Location: Glasgow, UK

PostPosted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 10:27 am    Post subject: Re: Frank Zappa Explains the Decline of Music Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

elektro80 wrote:



excellent video..

_________________
New Releases:
Espion - Petrol Bomb EP - Bass4Bots - "..the last electro anthem of the decade"
Error Response - Zen - Elektrotribe "..a masterpiece of sample based electronica"
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website AIM Address MSN Messenger
EdisonRex
Site Admin


Joined: Mar 07, 2007
Posts: 4579
Location: London, UK
Audio files: 172

PostPosted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Quote:
you guys remember K-TEL?


Do I ever. At least I remember the endless commercials. I never ever bought a k-tel compilation. But I knew about what the motown scene did to its own artists by the 80s. I was already sour on the biz by then, although I was still playing a lot back then. I think the guys who used to produce K-Tel commercials started doing religious infomercials once cable got big. It seems that way, I could never prove it.

_________________
Garret: It's so retro.
EGM: What does retro mean to you?
Parker: Like, old and outdated.


Home,My Studio,and another view
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic
Page 1 of 1 [19 Posts]
View unread posts
View new posts in the last week
Mark the topic unread :: View previous topic :: View next topic
 Forum index » Discussion » Schmooze
Jump to:  

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum


Forum with support of Syndicator RSS
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
Copyright © 2003 through 2009 by electro-music.com - Conditions Of Use