Nick annoys Lily Allen

[my breakfast.]

If music was worth paying for it would be worth paying for. Lily Allen's music is so generic and bland that nobody is motivated to actually spend their money on it. Students will still buy old Pink Floyd LPs out of junk shops (partly for the inherent mojo, but nevermind) but the thought of parting with cash to hear some cockney tart with an IQ sing bland songs about herself all day long does not appeal to me, or too many others.

People care more about what Lily Allen wears than her music. If the music industry now was not governed so much by making safe choices and signing artists making muzak, and mechanically squeezing every last nuance of individuality out of the musician then people would buy the product.

Gentle Giant were signed to Columbia in the 1970s and looked like this:



Do you think this band had a stylist? Do you think the managment in Columbia dragged them in and told them their sales were down 0.1% this week so they should play more power ballads? Hell No! Were they granted artistic freedom and therefore are still respected (albeit with a cult following) as highly tallented multi-instrumentalists? Hells yes.

That was the 1970s. With a few exceptions (Mars Volta, Coheed and Cambria, Porcupine Tree and other established progish bands) here is the face of music circa 2009.

Brokencyde are a "crunkcore" band, fusing hiphop and screamo and look like this:



Dare I say musical integrity has taken a back seat to visual appearance?

Here is some of their music.



This music has no staying power. It will not be remembered this time next year, let alone in decades time. Is it worth paying money for? Hell no. It is mixed to sound loud and noticable, even on small Ipod headphones and has no dynamics or actual musicality. This is were commercial music is heading, a disposable noise that could be by anybody with a record contract today.

[mainly lurking]

Good heavens! That was about the worst thing I´ve ever heard in my rather long life. I wouldn´t call it music even.

[danielcaux]

Yep, that argument about someone going out and buying the album if they like the mp3s they've acquired from somewhere nefarious is a red herring.

Guess what, I had all the Pink Floyd, Yes and King Crimson discographies on MP3 years before I was able to collect the money necessary to buy all those albums. So why did I bought them if I already had the music downloaded on my computer? I think is all about quality. If the music is good enough and you make an emotional connection with the artist vision, you buy the album. Crap like Lilly Allen or any other "artist of the month" fad is only download-worthy, at most. I know a lot of people now that have big MP3 collections around, but these same individuals NEVER bought albums in the days before the advent of Napster, becuase they didn't like to give money away for music. They just listened to music on the radio because it was free, and now download music from internet because it is "free" too. I do think Mp3 collections are just a better version of the mix tapes we used to recorded from the radio (and yes most "regular people" that I know don't even notice the differece between Cassette quality and CD quality). There where a lot of artists on those mix-tapes that you enjoyed listening to the one song by them, but you wouldn't even think of buying the complete album because the rest of the songs where really bad. The problem is that record labels used to trick naive consumers into buying the whole thing for just one song with a cool video people saw on MTV, now they can't do that as easily anymore, and they, and the aspiring "musicians" who want to make it into the big time, are mad because of that. And how much does really cost a CD? like 2 bucks? and they charge like between 12 and 15 dollars for it? That's quite a wide profit margin. They should lower the prizes and then they would see a lot more people buying records, but the arsetits don't wanna do that because that means lowering their lifestyles too, having no Ferraris or expensive country houses, etc.

Real artists don't give a sh!t if people buy or not their music, they do it because is in their souls, they will take a part-time job if they need money to survive, but they will compose and play music regardless if people is giving them money for that. Geez, not having a record contract or any actual fanbase didn't stop Daniel Johnston from recording dozens of albums in his early days. All this moaning girls and boys that we see on TV now are not real artists, they are just aspring rockstars, poseurs who want money and fame and see music as a mean for that end. Too bad for them to have missed the 80s when there was no internet.

End of rant.

[Alternative 4]

Downloads affect people like Lilly because she needs to catch people in the 10minutes she is famous. And 1000 people downloading her song that is famous for a week would really fuck her off.

A. The music industry is just fueling illegal downloading by the lack of a real alternative

b. trying to sell shit music quickly will not work with the above mentioned problems

c. its not even about the song anymore, its about the 10 seconds that people can sing along too.


The same short attention spans that Lilly dislikes are the ones that made her famous

[kelly clarks9n]

i think i agree

[Keith Jordan]

c. its not even about the song anymore, its about the 10 seconds that people can sing along too.

There will always be the musically ignorant who will listen to "music" like they would spend ££££ on branded clothing, the latest this and the latest that. Just mindless sheep following the herd as they are too mindless to think about what they even like. But these people are unimportant. The "real" music industry is alive and well somewhere underneath all that XFactor shite and what not.

Bring back hanging!

[Alternative 4]

OF course real music is alive, but its those ignorant prats this thread is about.

Also funny Gentle Giant and ballads were brought up 'Isn't it quiet, isn't it cold" is one of my fav ballads.