JPF Home Page Forums Lyric and MP3 Feedback Lyric Feedback Forum SHOWCASE: SONGS/ESSAYS BY GARY E. ANDREWS

"Manufacturing Songs".
The 'revolution' in the music market has varied permutations in the various genres. The 'changes' in pop are a little different than those in country, or jazz, or every other genre. Something they may have in common is 'manufacturing' music to put out to the public. Less inspired than 'generated', the music generally falls short of aesthetic qualities people are looking for, but adequate in what they'll settle for.
We used to think those bands with a million-selling album must be getting rich. But record companies back then were taking all the album sales, telling 'artists' to go tour and make their money in concert tickets.
Some learned to 'merchandise' too, selling hats, t-shirts, sew-on patches, stickers, bumper stickers, pictures; whatever their fans would buy. A bassist told me he made more merchandising than he did playing with the band.
There was a story the record labels, no longer able to sell hard-copy devices, came back to the artists, asking for a cut of their ticket sales, merchandising.
The range of creativity was greater, combined with personal appeal of personnel, and bands could make a living.
There was a story artists, or their management, would ask a Song-Writer for permission to change some words, or one word, as a way of cutting the artist in as a Song-Writer, with a share of the Song-Writing Royalties. Colonel Parker was infamous in getting that agreement on every Song Elvis Pressley sang, or he wouldn't let him sing it.
Publishers who might have negotiated a hefty 'share' of Publishing Royalties began to ask for 100%. If the Song was a hit and they wanted another one, and the Song-Writer had the gumption to negotiate, they might get them down to a lower but still hefty percentage, retaining a share of Publishing Royalties for themselves, the 'creative' entity without whom there was no product.
A hit Song, getting millions of plays on terrestrial radio, could earn a Song-Writer and Publisher substantial Royalties.
People in the industry, at the can't-sell-them record labels, Publishers, artist Management, began to focus on Songs they owned, that their artists wrote, that they themselves Published, to keep the money coming to them and not a third-party Song-Writer and Publisher.
It didn't work very well. Not every 'artist' is a 'creative artist'. They look good in a cowboy hat or a low-cut dress, and have one hit, maybe that they wrote or found, and, as soon as that hit hit, they started needing another one.
They found they couldn't find or manufacture Songs that 'hit'. The public might buy them on some scale, because it was the latest thing from the artist, but not enough people wanted to 'own' the Song in any form to listen to again and again.
Then the technology made it possible to 'own' a Song without paying for it.
But, 'manufacturing' became a modus operandi that worked often enough to keep the shrunken industry operating.
Problem was, the manufactured Songs started to all sound alike, in 'popular' (pop) music, and especially in country, a 'laundry-list' of 'things country', farming, trucks.
Sweet tea was everywhere. Whisky/whiskey brand names. Skoal rings too for a while, in blue jeans. Tailgates and tank tops.
It was boring as hell to anyone with a literary sense of a Song, like the old Songs that told stories in coherent fashion, not just 'painted a picture' or 'put props on stage'.
You could spot the Songs that every Line was either just a Rhyme, or led weakly up to THE Hook, the title Line, that probably should have been the first Line of the Song and told the story suggested in that Line, finding THE Hook, whatever it may be, as the story unfolded. I even heard a batch of Songs in which three or more had a segment toward the end where each note was the same in pitch and duration, obviously without any idea of what to do Melodically, literally 'beep-beep-beeping' their way through it to get to the Chorus again to end. It may have been an attempt at a Bridge. After hearing it in the first one I noticed. The second one got my attention. The third one was obvious to me as a 'manufactured' product that should not be out to my ears yet, unfinished, weakening the rest of the Song.
Manufacturing works, in dollars and cents, adequate to keep some companies alive. Many Leadership Decision-Makers in labels, Publishing companies, other, simply could not conceive of a way to stay alive at that level of income and went out of business. Someone said there were only five 'Labels' left, at one time, where there had been dozens, if not hundreds. 'Personal', artist-owned Labels are common now.
Co-writing, with band members, friends, strangers, became a routine modus operandi; manufacturing.
But the 'manufacturing' creativity generally falls short, limited in originality, anything 'new', any new way of telling the story.
Songs have been written for thousands of years and we still have not exhausted the possibilities. But it isn't easy to 'manufacture' a Song that truly offers something new.
Again, people will 'buy' it, on some scale, enough to keep the 'business' going for those in it, but on a smaller scale than was the norm before.
The world's really waiting, dollars in pocket, for something new. The 'manufacturers' are on the lookout for something new, if it falls out of the sky at their feet, but they're limited in their own creativity and not searchers any more, searching the clubs, searching the net even. There's too much, too much time in bad bars listening to amateur writers/performers who turn out to only have one or two Songs, or 200 Songs that aren't 'hit' material. Too much time listening to mediocre product on the internet. 'Management' finds it 'unmanageable'.
But they have to 'sign' something, or they're out of business, so they do.
They find 'artists' who can't create good art, can't manage their money, can't hold their liquor, are dumb enough to drink liquor, use dope, get fat, get in fights, go to jail...everything but entertain and 'sell' music.
It's easy to settle into those ruts of 'manufacturing', and stay there. But every so often, something breaks out, originates, creates, innovates. And can change the modus operandi. The possibilities of another Great Flowering of musical creativity are there. It's happened at times before. It can happen again.