Music for everybody, Sometimes we need a little socialism
Sex and Violence
Greg Karber
Issue date: 3/27/09 Section: Opinion
More than half of all bankruptcies in America are at least partly to blame on medical expenses. This is taken by many to be proof positive that we need to have universal health care.
And yet, more than half of all the music on the radio is awful, but few people are crying out for music socialization.
However, I am one of those people. They say money is the root of all evil, and that may or may not be true, but it's certainly true that when money is the root of a particular song, that particular song is likely to be awful.
Additionally, money has ruined many musicians:
Elvis Presley toured himself ragged at the behest of Colonel Parker, who constantly needed extra cash to fund his hellacious gambling addiction, and many blame this exhaustion for his descent into drugs and fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches from which he never recovered.
Destiny's Child constantly had internal disputes resulting from Beyonce's demands that she get 99 percent of the money and that the other members carry her in on a throne.
It's difficult for musicians to produce art once they become wealthy beyond all possible comprehension, especially when that wealth is generated through a corrupt label system with an insatiable appetite for music produced for the lowest common denominator.
Even ignoring this, though, you have to admit that it's much more interesting to hear a rapper spit about his hard-knock life on the streets than ruminate on the ennui he now feels within his Armani suit. Or what about those late-period Beatles songs, like the one where John just brags about how much Patrón he drinks?
The only solution I see is to make it illegal to sell music.
I know what you're saying - you're saying that this system of free-market capitalism, which was invented by Jesus and perfected by Ronald Reagan, is the best system we know of for the production and distribution of scarce goods, and I agree with you on that one. Scarce goods need capitalism to be distributed, but music is not a scarce good. With the Internet, you can copy a song for nothing more than the cost of the electricity your computer consumed while doing it, and you would have used that electricity anyway downloading pornography.
Digital music is now, for all intents and purposes, an infinite resource, and it makes no sense to control the distribution of an infinite resource. Buying a CD is like buying bottled water except without any of the chic.
But I guess what you were getting at, when you asked that question two paragraphs back, is, "Won't this destroy the incentive for artists to create music?"
No, it won't. In much the same way that the nonexistent market for saleable fan fiction hasn't prevented preteens across America from inventing salacious encounters between Edward and Bella, Jacob and Bella, Edward and Jacob, Edward, Jacob and Bella, and every other possible combination, the destruction of the financial incentive will just keep the people away from music who we want to keep away from music (like Nickelback).
And don't give me that made-up hullabaloo about how we're cutting the artists' legs out from under them: artists make about 7 cents a song per CD, which means from the sale of a $15 12-track CD, the artists will get about 84 cents. The total cost of producing a CD is about $1.
That means that middlemen collect $13 of your money. Artists make their real money from concert performances, which luckily people still feel compelled to attend even though you can go on YouTube and watch low-quality, staticky-audio, blocky-picture shaky-cam footage shot from the 1,200th row on a Motorola RAZR. Go figure. (I'm thinking it has something to do with being able to smoke marijuana in public.)
Only when we purge this destructive influence from our music will we see a true meritocracy emerge, in much the same way as the aforementioned YouTube has effected the perfection of the short-film medium (especially in the categories of Lip Syncing and Funny Animals).
Greg Karber is a columnist for The Arkansas Traveler. His column appears every other Friday.
And yet, more than half of all the music on the radio is awful, but few people are crying out for music socialization.
However, I am one of those people. They say money is the root of all evil, and that may or may not be true, but it's certainly true that when money is the root of a particular song, that particular song is likely to be awful.
Additionally, money has ruined many musicians:
Elvis Presley toured himself ragged at the behest of Colonel Parker, who constantly needed extra cash to fund his hellacious gambling addiction, and many blame this exhaustion for his descent into drugs and fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches from which he never recovered.
Destiny's Child constantly had internal disputes resulting from Beyonce's demands that she get 99 percent of the money and that the other members carry her in on a throne.
It's difficult for musicians to produce art once they become wealthy beyond all possible comprehension, especially when that wealth is generated through a corrupt label system with an insatiable appetite for music produced for the lowest common denominator.
Even ignoring this, though, you have to admit that it's much more interesting to hear a rapper spit about his hard-knock life on the streets than ruminate on the ennui he now feels within his Armani suit. Or what about those late-period Beatles songs, like the one where John just brags about how much Patrón he drinks?
The only solution I see is to make it illegal to sell music.
I know what you're saying - you're saying that this system of free-market capitalism, which was invented by Jesus and perfected by Ronald Reagan, is the best system we know of for the production and distribution of scarce goods, and I agree with you on that one. Scarce goods need capitalism to be distributed, but music is not a scarce good. With the Internet, you can copy a song for nothing more than the cost of the electricity your computer consumed while doing it, and you would have used that electricity anyway downloading pornography.
Digital music is now, for all intents and purposes, an infinite resource, and it makes no sense to control the distribution of an infinite resource. Buying a CD is like buying bottled water except without any of the chic.
But I guess what you were getting at, when you asked that question two paragraphs back, is, "Won't this destroy the incentive for artists to create music?"
No, it won't. In much the same way that the nonexistent market for saleable fan fiction hasn't prevented preteens across America from inventing salacious encounters between Edward and Bella, Jacob and Bella, Edward and Jacob, Edward, Jacob and Bella, and every other possible combination, the destruction of the financial incentive will just keep the people away from music who we want to keep away from music (like Nickelback).
And don't give me that made-up hullabaloo about how we're cutting the artists' legs out from under them: artists make about 7 cents a song per CD, which means from the sale of a $15 12-track CD, the artists will get about 84 cents. The total cost of producing a CD is about $1.
That means that middlemen collect $13 of your money. Artists make their real money from concert performances, which luckily people still feel compelled to attend even though you can go on YouTube and watch low-quality, staticky-audio, blocky-picture shaky-cam footage shot from the 1,200th row on a Motorola RAZR. Go figure. (I'm thinking it has something to do with being able to smoke marijuana in public.)
Only when we purge this destructive influence from our music will we see a true meritocracy emerge, in much the same way as the aforementioned YouTube has effected the perfection of the short-film medium (especially in the categories of Lip Syncing and Funny Animals).
Greg Karber is a columnist for The Arkansas Traveler. His column appears every other Friday.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Jeremy
posted 3/27/09 @ 7:06 AM CST
I feel compelled, especially since I disagree with most of your points, if you can call them that since it is satire, to say that you did a good job in writing this. (Continued…)
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