I’d like to share with you a quote from John Hammond, the legendary music producer and my personal mentor:
"I am still the reformer, the impatient protester, the sometimes-intolerant champion of intolerance. Best of all, I still expect to hear, if not today then tomorrow, a voice or a sound I have never heard before, with something to say that has never been said before. And when that happens I will know what to do."
By the late ‘70s, the disposition of the giant labels was to proceed on a descent to myopic lunacy. By 1980, the buzz-phrase in the industry was “records are shipping gold and returning platinum”. There was grandiosity, owing to past commercial success, and this was a key factor in the Labels’ downfall.
“Hold on, Els,” I hear someone piping up – “it’s the new digital technologies and the Internet that delivered the silver bullet to the record industry.” I would have to respond by saying that while indeed this is true; let me remind you that several decades of really bad A&R choices by the Record Companies were the poisons that weakened our industry to the point of collapse long before the file-sharers delivered the final blows.
Granted, even back in the fifties, record execs were “looking for the new Elvis”…so while this is not a new phenomenon, it grew unabated and gained increasing momentum (“find me the new Springsteen, Madonna, Britney, Christina, etc.”) while at the same time, the labels, once owned and run by people passionate about music, were slowly being taken over by the larger corporate entities, and good “Artist Developers” and “Artist & Repertoire” staff began to “be disappeared”. The remit of finding new (read: original, interesting, and off-the-beaten-path different) artists became history. The new breed of A&R person was focused on making their bosses happy, (keeping their jobs), and wouldn’t dare suggest a new Tom Waitts, Frank Zappa, or … It was all about MTV (video really did kill the radio star), and glitzy, brightly-lit, expensive-to-mount lip-syncing became the popular craze.
In the eighties, the “haircut-synthesizer” artists (in many cases duos and trios) with about as much stage presence as a sponge, dominated the public eye. The nineties brought us “grunge” and the proliferation of “gangsta rap” – musics that expressed the society’s disaffection with the world they found themselves in. (It could be said that Donald and Walter did this a little more gently back in the mid ‘70s with lyrics such as “Any world that I’m welcome to is better than the world I come from…”) I also acknowledge the birth of “punk music” in the mid-‘70s where the artists a) expressed their particular dissatisfactions and b) it was fun to “play” without needing a lot of musical training, and so a rather “democratized” form of musical communication.
So what’s my point, you might ask?
…oh heck – wait a minute – Pete Waterman on the radio explaining what he sees as the present state of the British record industry. It’s good… it’s real good!
Right. – the BBC have now mounted an article (only a few hours after I began typing this), and I can now take the opportunity to quote from their website:
The 1980s pop producer Pete Waterman thinks the findings reveal an insidious truth about the way the strings are being pulled in the modern music industry.
Sitting beside his wall of Ivor Novello songwriting awards at his studios in the former London County Hall building, Waterman is vociferous.
"This has been a gripe I've had for over 20 years, and particularly right now. It's never been worse," he says.
"The major companies dominate and they see a CV and if you haven't got 96 O levels you ain't getting a job."
"I am still the reformer, the impatient protester, the sometimes-intolerant champion of intolerance. Best of all, I still expect to hear, if not today then tomorrow, a voice or a sound I have never heard before, with something to say that has never been said before. And when that happens I will know what to do."
By the late ‘70s, the disposition of the giant labels was to proceed on a descent to myopic lunacy. By 1980, the buzz-phrase in the industry was “records are shipping gold and returning platinum”. There was grandiosity, owing to past commercial success, and this was a key factor in the Labels’ downfall.
“Hold on, Els,” I hear someone piping up – “it’s the new digital technologies and the Internet that delivered the silver bullet to the record industry.” I would have to respond by saying that while indeed this is true; let me remind you that several decades of really bad A&R choices by the Record Companies were the poisons that weakened our industry to the point of collapse long before the file-sharers delivered the final blows.
Granted, even back in the fifties, record execs were “looking for the new Elvis”…so while this is not a new phenomenon, it grew unabated and gained increasing momentum (“find me the new Springsteen, Madonna, Britney, Christina, etc.”) while at the same time, the labels, once owned and run by people passionate about music, were slowly being taken over by the larger corporate entities, and good “Artist Developers” and “Artist & Repertoire” staff began to “be disappeared”. The remit of finding new (read: original, interesting, and off-the-beaten-path different) artists became history. The new breed of A&R person was focused on making their bosses happy, (keeping their jobs), and wouldn’t dare suggest a new Tom Waitts, Frank Zappa, or … It was all about MTV (video really did kill the radio star), and glitzy, brightly-lit, expensive-to-mount lip-syncing became the popular craze.
In the eighties, the “haircut-synthesizer” artists (in many cases duos and trios) with about as much stage presence as a sponge, dominated the public eye. The nineties brought us “grunge” and the proliferation of “gangsta rap” – musics that expressed the society’s disaffection with the world they found themselves in. (It could be said that Donald and Walter did this a little more gently back in the mid ‘70s with lyrics such as “Any world that I’m welcome to is better than the world I come from…”) I also acknowledge the birth of “punk music” in the mid-‘70s where the artists a) expressed their particular dissatisfactions and b) it was fun to “play” without needing a lot of musical training, and so a rather “democratized” form of musical communication.
So what’s my point, you might ask?
…oh heck – wait a minute – Pete Waterman on the radio explaining what he sees as the present state of the British record industry. It’s good… it’s real good!
Right. – the BBC have now mounted an article (only a few hours after I began typing this), and I can now take the opportunity to quote from their website:
The 1980s pop producer Pete Waterman thinks the findings reveal an insidious truth about the way the strings are being pulled in the modern music industry.
Sitting beside his wall of Ivor Novello songwriting awards at his studios in the former London County Hall building, Waterman is vociferous.
"This has been a gripe I've had for over 20 years, and particularly right now. It's never been worse," he says.
"The major companies dominate and they see a CV and if you haven't got 96 O levels you ain't getting a job."
"In the old days you got a job in the music industry because you knew something about music. Now when they see your CV they don't take you unless you've been to university, full stop."
But does the same requirement for academic credentials dominate when it comes to bands trying to break through?
"I think that when all the A&R people wear Jack Wills clothes it tells you where they're going."
"It's become snobbish. It's become a snobbish culture."
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Trust me - this short piece is well worth a read …it's the 'fast forward' - as seen by an industry icon, who has sussed out how today's British 'pop culture' is working - and not working.
The BBC link is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9373000/9373158.stm – clicking this link will open a new tab or window, so it's easy to pop on back here and share a thought or two.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9373000/9373158.stm – clicking this link will open a new tab or window, so it's easy to pop on back here and share a thought or two.
***Addendum*** I realize, three days after initially posting this, that there are many non-Brits who won't be familiar with who Pete Waterman is. He owned PWL - an incredibly successful music production house / record label based here in London. Their list of successful records is formidable. I did a bit of recording at their big beautiful studio complex, nicknamed "The Hit Factory" ...and I was impressed. A Motown of a different dimension, if you will. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Waterman_Entertainment
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E.R.'s Recommended Reading:
Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business
– this is the record business I grew up into; reading it was an emotional journey.
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Copyright 2011 Elliott Randall / ELZ Music & Multimedia - All Rights Reserved
