Music For The Masses? I think Not

[Moozik: Fluke - My Spine]

Alan Wilder (formerly of Depeche Mode) wrote an open letter on the current state of the music industry. It's quite a long but worthwhile read.

He made me laugh early on and he's clearly not an Arctic Monkeys fan ;-)

True excitement comes from variation in rhythm, tone, pitch and a wide range of dynamics which in turn provides space and warmth - something you're unlikely to find in much of today's rock/pop music. If you want a good example, listen to The Arctic Monkeys 'I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor' for a bombardment of the most unsubtle, one-dimensional noise.

Later he laments the state of his own label, Mute Records.

I've long since given up expecting to make a profit from what I do. And you might expect that I would be full of resentment and bitterness toward my own record company but that's not really it. Mute are victims in all this. The reality is that all the companies are suffering and are desperately clinging on by their fingernails trying to come up with solutions as the rug is pulled from beneath them.

In Mute's case, EMI have inflicted so many spending restrictions and are 're-shaping' and 'streamlining' with department 'centralisation' and the reduction of the artist roster. EMI big cheese Guy Hands describes his business as 'an unsustainable model' with a need to 'reduce waste'.... Garbage collection. Thinly veiled rhetoric meaning CUTBACKS! He talks of 'eliminating duplication and bureaucracy'. Bottom line: 2000 jobs have to go.

More worryingly, he also offers us the information that currently about 3% of the entire roster is profitable and that those that never will be profitable, no matter how the model is changed, can kiss their arses goodbye.

That is about as far away as you could ever get from what I understood as the Mute philosophy, where the profit from major selling acts is used to nurture all the other artists on the label. Art. A record company does not sell baked beans, it exposes art to the masses. An unquantifiable thing. Baked Beans - a quantifiable thing.

He then closes but I'm sure deep down he has to know that for the big labels, it was always another business and never art.

So who shall we blame for the whole mess? Do we stick two fingers up at the record companies who have sat around twiddling their thumbs, peddling overpriced re-issues for years while their A&R men bombard us with shallow, faceless pop idol, X factor boy bands? Is it fair to say “... well, you had it coming”...? Or do we accuse the casual 'non-listener' with the attention span of a three year old living in a disposable, homogenized, Paris Hilton-obsessed society, over stimulated with too much life choice? A society that places value in triviality and accepts mediocrity without much question? Or perhaps the devaluation has evolved from the cult of the DJ, where anyone can regurgitate the very essence of rock 'n' roll by lifting an entire 70's funk classic, adding some rap drivel over the top and calling it their own work? Is modern music regarded as an art form at all anymore? Or is it just another business now?