Rock On!
Written by Kimber Tuesday, 24 November 2009 00:15
Rock On!
by Dan Kennedy
Algonquin Paperbacks, 2008
Do you ever wonder if the big wigs that sit at the top of the record labels wonder if they actually know what they are doing? Is there any rhyme or reason left in the world of music marketers? Or is it all just an arbitrary game of who can come up with a more obtuse and perverted way to apply music to our deranged little world?
This is, more or less, the question posted in Dan Kennedy’s “Rock On.” On the surface, this is a cute little story about a marketer who is recruited by a major record label during the initial stages of the music industry collapse. Kennedy spins his tale with clever anecdotes wherein he seems to ask, frequently, “wont you just get a load of this? Just look at it!” It’s humorous for the first hundred pages; after that you find yourself reading a little faster to see if any significant plot points are revealed.
To answer Kennedy’s question: yes, we can get a load of that. The mere fact that his marketing challenges are based around selling yet another Phil Collin’s “best of” collection, a Fat Joe album, and figuring out how to work with the “latest rock sensation” we all know as The Darkness.
Yes, the music industry is in a heap of trouble. And lately, they’ve just been grasping at straws to keep their doors open. Lately I’ve been asking myself this: where did we get it into our heads that music had to be an industry?
For thousands of years, music served a simple purpose: to be the rhythmic background of culture. It was how epics were told and how ritual dances were remembered. There are still modern clues that culture and music are tied together. We know the implications of labeling something as “jazz” or “Celtic.” However, looking at the American charts, I have to ask if this is the music I want representing my culture.
Even though fashion and music have shared a bond for as long as I can remember, I think it is pretty odd that so much of the music industry is based on appearances. Last I checked, you can’t quite hear things that were meant to be seen. It seems most of Kennedy’s tale is about how he feels the need to keep stride with appearances. The first week on the job he finds himself purchasing overpriced photo frames to decorate his office with, even though he doesn’t seem to have the photos to fill them.
The frames are an analogy that are observed all too often with recent Billboard charts. Sure, these artists may look like a rock/pop/country star that is going gangbusters with their career – except for the slight shortcoming that they don’t have the kind of music people should be going crazy for.
The mainstream labels haven’t done anything impressive in a long time. About 99.8% of it is entirely unlistenable. Hell, not even the gossip around today’s pop stars is anything new or noteworthy. I’m pretty sure I would be much more into the indie scene if the indie scene didn’t have so many, well, “indie fans” clinging to it. As much as I would love to jump on that bandwagon, I just don’t look good in leggings or neon.
While every generation has fads which eventually turn into regrets, I can’t help but think what our current music situation says about our culture. Yes, we are a country that has gone stir crazy over anything capitalist. But our music? The very thing that is to represent our souls? Our being? What does it mean when the very thing that is supposed to “represent us” has its quality measured in millions of units sold?
Maybe I’m just feeling a little altruistic lately. But when will music marketing turn from “this is what people want to buy” to “this is what people want to feel?”
