JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Vince Gill speaks out!

As I read the article and Vince Gill's quote (while shaking my head),

"For me, [country music] lost its traditional bent pretty severely," explains the songwriter. "I would love to hear someone write a song like 'He Stopped Loving Her Today' rather than 'You're hot. I'm hot. We're in a truck.' It's just mind-numbing to me."

"Vince admits he is dismayed by the current state of the music industry, and worried about its future. "Income streams are dwindling. Record sales aren't what they used to be," he notes. "The devaluation of music and what it's now deemed to be worth is laughable to me. My single costs 99 cents. That's what a [single] cost in 1960. On my phone, I can get an app for 99 cents that makes fart noises -- the same price as the thing I create and speak to the world with. Some would say the fart app is more important. It's an awkward time. Creative brains are being sorely mistreated.",

With this attitude coming from someone of Gill's caliber, I have to wonder how today's music industry can explain itself. We have Lot's of discussions here (JPF) about popular music evolution and how our parents didn't like our music, and everything is the same generational, etc, But the problem here IS that the music industry is losing money AND the music actually sucks. It's not a matter of taste. It just sucks. Maybe sales have shifted from record companies to Internet sites like i-Tunes, I don't know. I do know that you can find good music if you look for it. Why should we have to find good music on our own? That used to be the record companies job.

I can guarantee that songs like "He Stopped Loving Her Today" are going to be selling well forever. How long are they going to dumb down the listener and feed them this current crap? Maybe until they go broke.