Yes, the music business is suffering, but ya know what's worse - the people are suffering - including and especially the musicians. First, with fewer and fewer places to play, many talented (and of course non talented) guys and girls went away - got day jobs, "real" jobs. Next, how 'bout the youngsters, who now have nowhere to learn their craft. When I was first starting out, back in 1980, there were tons of places for us to play, learn how to be in front of an audience, how to play with other players (some learned this, others didn't, but...). So, we have the ever greedy club owners, the agents who are so full of themselves that they don't know which way is up, the envy ridden, throat cutting musicians, and now, the current finanicial fiasco putting even more nails in the coffin. As if that's not enough, the entertainment people who are in place - the ones managing the clubs, restaurants, and casinos, not knowing up from down when it comes to entertainment - these guys will hire the act who has the biggest line of crap, the most third person B.S.all over the internet, and who are the greasiest, most self indulgent numbskulls out there. So, again, any talented artists, young or old, who might be out there, they see the corruption, the nonsense, and how it's damn near impossible to work in the music business, so they get out of the business, go get day jobs, and the result is, we, the listeners are deprived of real music, having the music industry's crap shoved down our throats, not to mention what any talented artist must go through. On that, many artist types don't function so well in society - in the "normal" work force - they cannot deal with workplace bullying, or working directly with the public, much of whom are snippy, angry, aggressive, and just plain mean.
The music industry bigwigs have always been ass backwards, signing "artists" and bands who will jump on any and all bandwagons, trying desperately to be hip and cool. It has never ceased to amaze me, the mind numbing stupidity of A & R guys (formerly known as talent scouts), and record executives, who are in some bizarre way, attracted to the hip and the cool - ever how phony these acts may be. Most or all artists and bands worth their salt accomplished what they did in spite of the record companies, not because of them.
It's been said that the internet is the answer, but the music part of the internet is still in its infant stage - where it's very difficult for a listener to find decent music, having to filter through all the self serving crap that every wannabe, and every wannabe's brother, sister, cousin, aunty, and uncle are putting out there. So, for the time being, the music business is suffering horribly, as are the artists and the listeners. We go to the clubs and the restaurants, we see burned out hippies, and burned out rednecks, who no longer care about what they do, howling into their microphones, and slopping through their mindless guitar scales; we go to the casinos and must endure lounge lizards from hell.
I don't have any answers, because people will always be who they are, the ruthless and the horrible aspiring to positions of power, while the decent dwell in society as is dicated by said ruthless and horrible, and the world continues to spiral downward.
If you have answers, I'm listening.
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