Saturday, March 14, 2009

Propaghandi interview

How do you feel about the current state of the music industry? Are physical copies of albums losing ground to digital releases? Is music better now than it was a few years ago?

The "industry" sickens me. It can be summarized like so: commercial pablum created to make lots of money for a handful old, ugly CEOs who hate music. If physical copies of albums are losing ground to digital downloads, at least there will be slightly less shit sitting in landfills for all eternity.


Are you glad you're a Canadian rather than a United Statesian? Do you think the people in the USA should be called Americans I mean North and South America should be Americans too?

I don't really think like that. To quote Neil Peart, "Better the pride that resides in a citizen of the world than the pride that divides when a colourful rag is unfurled."



Band rules SO hard.

12 comments:

Padfoot240 said...

How about pride in anything of this world is overrated.

Andrew C said...

The worst thing going on in music right now is the loudness wars. Everything getting released is compressed to hell with zero dynamic range. Some stuff like the new Metallica and Ben Folds albums are unlistenable. It was so bad Ben Fold released "Stems and Seeds", an alternate mixing of "Way To Normal" without such high levels of compression.

And there's nothing wrong with a little pride. It's pretty much the only thing that keeps stuff from turning into s***.

Niall said...

Excessive and overtaking pride is what is overrated. It is impossible to not have pride in anything in this world, even for you Padfoot. He's just saying that mindless nationalistic pride should take second fiddle to pride in our place as part of the overall greater human race.

Andrew, I COMPLETELY agree with you about the over compression of albums lately, in particular with "remasters" of old classic albums. Minor Threat released a master of their discography album which basically consisted of all the instruments getting a giant volume boost, sounds like hell.

Nathan: he's coming from a place where as a musician he either has to choose to sell his soul and artistic freedom to a huge record label to make a decent paycheck or keep his integrity by staying on an indie label. He's a hardworking musician who's been in the industry 20+ years. Not saying that musicians don't get rich, but many of the one's that do are just tools used to pump out hits only to fizzle out and die. That's not what music is about, well, shouldn't be anyway.

Padfoot240 said...

I guess I used pride to strongly.

Excessive and overrated pride is what is overrated.

Word.

But I guess one could argue that anything that is worth having pride in isn't from this world, but our spiritual world.
But it's weird. And would just deviate from this post too much.

Niall said...

agreed on that padfoot. Agreed.

Niall said...

I'm going to pull an "I've worked in the industry" card on this one and say that I've worked in the industry. I know how the booking process works and how the "gig-getting" process of this country works and it is 100% true that the bigger the record label that the band is on, the more able they are to even have the chance to play to those thousands of people that you speak of.

I have met PLENTY of record execs, and EVERY single one of them is looking for one thing, the next cash cow for their record label. Bands full of honest musicians do not get the time of day because record labels are already aware that they will not be able to control them at a later date, despite insanely talented. Bands that DO manage to go noticed by major labels are forced to under contract give up a certain amount of creative control to that record label. No they don't have to give up writing decent songs, but if the label finds a message "too extreme" or "too controversial" the song will not make the cut past an executive stage.

It isn't "rehashed crap" at all. If you are not going to make a record labels oodles of money (which they are deservedly losing now anyway) then you have no chance of being on a label. What makes oodles of money? Marketable accessible music that even the most innocent of 12 year olds can get hooked on to.

ANDIE DIAZ said...

i agree. citizens of the world absolutely and completely first.

Padfoot240 said...

Working at chain doesn't mean you can pull that card.

Niall said...

Why not? I spent every night i a box office with booking agents, hearing what they were looking for in bands, all about contracts, how to put together tour packages... you name it.

Why can I not pull that card? You have no idea what I went through every day at work and who I interacted with and talked to.

Padfoot240 said...

I know you got punched in the head

Niall said...

I know you have no idea what you're talking about.

But that did happen, yes.

Team Parks: Jason and Kristin said...

Cyberspace is a landfill