Izaak Plunkett | Contributing Writer
Many people talk about the music industry, but very few people talk about it intelligently and objectively. Let’s take just a minute to do so. What has been getting put out as popular and mainstream pop culture sound lately is horribly bland. Even worse, the current technology makes it possible for awful musicians and vocalists to sound good. As a music productions major myself, this is disappointing. I would hope that the people who went into this business had a little more integrity than to mindlessly force-feed us repetitive, four-chord, blandness about having parties. I would hope, that as Americans, we have something more to be proud of than that.
When you stop to think about what you hear coming from most dorm rooms and the radio these days, can you really tell the difference between songs? It’s a lot of bass in a 4/4 time signature with somebody grunting over top of it. The music industry used to be a place where legends were created because of real talent, not because they had enough money to buy their success. Legends like Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Kurt Kobain and Nirvana, Pink Floydd, Journey, Queen, and many others were self-made bands. They started at the bottom and they ended up on top. They worked hard for their money; they didn’t let their money work hard for them. They wrote their own music. Masterpieces were written by one man or woman rather than mediocre karaoke tunes written by five producers and six “song writers”.
Thankfully, there is some redemption. There are still some really great musicians out there, some of which have even made it big because they deserved it. Maroon 5’s Adam Levine has an amazing voice and is truly a great song-writer. He is not to be confused with Justin Beaver… I mean Bieber… who is the exact opposite. There’s Manchester Orchestra, Brand New, Mumford and Sons, Band of Horses, Staind, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, and Jack’s Mannequin who are all staying quite successful while still maintaining integrity by not letting their producers write all of their music for them. They are legitimately good bands and not disappointing to see live like 99.99999 percent of the junk on the radio these days.
America, I’m disappointed, really. Europe has managed to keep their own integrity with good bands. One of the things they did to do so was send Nicki Minaj our way when they realized their music industry could do far better than a half rate, bipolar, spoiled, rich, arrogant weirdo. They’re STILL producing bands like Green Day, Muse, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, Radiohead, Gorrilaz, Bloc Party, and many bands with sounds like the Beatles. Their producers realize our music industry is in shambles, and they are doing all they can to save theirs before it heads in the direction ours has. We can turn ours around if we stop being spoon-fed mediocre junk, but we have to stop accepting mediocre musicians playing mediocre music.
Photos by Tyson Domingo
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