Why does bad music sell?

Subject: Why does bad music sell?
From: Tom B.
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 06:34 PM

It's my opinion that there is a lot of bad music that is selling like hotcakes these days, actually over the last two decades or more. I don't understand the attraction. I will make the assumption you know what kind of music I mean, and if not, that's fine, just run with it.

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Alice
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 06:46 PM

Could this be the 'Why does Johnnie buy **it' thread? Quick answer, clever marketing and peer pressure.

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Tom B.
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 06:50 PM

But does that mean you really can sell s*** to sewer rats? Do they become sewer rats, or were they already that way when they came out of the box? I, too, feel it's the peer pressure, mostly. Is it like an acquired taste? I remember the first time I sipped coffee, at 5, I thought, what do they see in that? Now I drink coffee. If you repeat something often enough, as the saying goes...

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 07:27 PM

also...*sigh*..for the same reason that stupid, inane TV programs 'sell' year after year...there are LOTS of shallow, lazy people who WANT to see gratuitous crap!..*big grin*...(also why the junk sells at Stuckeys on the Interstate...and why 'country' craft shows with brightly painted ceramic angels are more common than those with artistic blown glass and turned wooden vessels...etc.,etc....)

Seems like the 'hoi' get 'poloi'er every year....as to music....for 40-45 years now, ever since "Rock Around the Clock", louder, brasher and 'anti' has made more money than quiet, laid back and happy...*shrug*...

(who, ME?...grumpy?...naawwww)

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 08:39 PM

I think that Alice seemed to suggest that this thread i very closely related to Why Johnnie can't sing. I'll be rude this time and suggest that part of the problem is that there are lot of brain dead people who haven't a clue how to be themselves around.

I shouldn't e like this but I am being "extreme" in the hope of hearing other peoles opinions - do we know how to be ourselves any more or we just sheep driven by marketing etc?

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Mudjack
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 09:04 PM

Hello Tom B.and Mudcatters
It's called media mass marketing and goes back to the payola scandals. Even though there is no payolas, the industry is very much controlled by the giant money powered companies who know if they control the air waves by force feeding the puplic only certain kinds of music then the buying public will buy only the kinds of music they think is popular. Example is how kids are affected by Saturday morning cartoons. Those ads are aimed straight into the minds of those youngsters and Bingo, they already know before they're old enough to talk what it is they want when mommy/daddy go to the store.
Us folks who have disaplined ourselves to ignore those signals from the top forty Trash and More trash seem to have a distinctive taste in our choice of music. We are also guilty of being SNOBS of sorts when someone asks, "what kind of music to you play/or listen to"? Most folkies are into folk style music, celtic, bluegrass, traditional, acoustic, singer/songwriter, cajon,blues, jazz.
Another observation I've discovered is that adults for the most part are not the trend setters, the kids go out and spend parent's money on teen stuff and seem to establish what is popular by the all mighty dollar spent.(parent's dollars that is)These are of opinion (mine) and based only on what one has seen in the past years and like you Tom, ask, "What makes music SMELL?" oh I mean sell.Good thread Tom, thanks for the chance to shoot my opinions out there
Mudjack

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: CKrueger
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 09:19 PM

I'm not alone! I don't watch TV, listen to the radio, or go to many movies. I know sometimes I miss out on good things, but so much of the world in rude, ignorant (and proud of it) and awful--why should I invite it into my home? I teach middle school, and my students are puzzled by me (and quite tolerant, since I am gray-haired and therefore obviously entitled to be eccentric), but I love to do new things and ride roller coasters and read. As I read all of your thoughts on this intriguing question, I have no real answers, but am thankful that at least there are lots of people asking the question. Why isn't the loud car at the stop light ever playing Vivaldi or Celtic music? Why do I immedeately draw certain conclusions about the people who ARE forcing their music upon me? The questions go on and on...

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Chet W.
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 09:28 PM

I agree with Mudjack on everything except for us being snobs. Music is like anything else; the more you put into it, the more you get out of it, and there are no shortcuts. So, for folks that put no effort into it, the top hits are about all they can handle. If a person has only one or two records, they are not likely to be Tommy Jarrell or Gid Tanner.

And (I know this will sound shameful to some), I have tried for years to write songs bad enough for the radio. I no longer believe that I can save America's culture with good music, so if I could write a song here and there that makes tons of money (think Achy Breaky Heart) so that I could do what I wanted the rest of the time, I'd do it. I tried to write disco songs back in the 70's. It's hard to get into that mindset of total inanity if you don't fit into it naturally.

So, I encourage all you writers out there, try to write a bad song now and then. Why shouldn't we get those big royalty checks and accept trophies at the Country Music Awards IN HOLLYWOOD if somebody has to? Then we could buy the best tents and instruments and spend all our time at our favorite festivals all year long. Maybe even have them catered.

Provocatively, Chet

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: wildlone
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 10:55 PM

in the dim and distant past i used to buy "crap" but a lot of it is now considered classic.But it is hard to think of a lot of todays songs being so in years to come.WL>

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Banjer
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 11:04 PM

BAD MUSIC sells because those who buy it just haven't any idea what GOOD MUSIC is!

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 11:16 PM

*big grin*...sure is nice to NOT be the most vocal and cantankerous for a change!..you guys make my day!

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 11:32 PM

Here in (supposedly) sophisticated Toronto, 24 thousand people turn out to see wrestling. Howard Stern is the most popular radio show. Jerry Springer, Oprah, Rosie O'Donnell and Roseanne are the most popular TV shows. Between ten and twelve thousand people go to the hockey arena to see huckster evangelists, and truly BELIEVE these extortionists are speaking for God. Every week thousands go to see one of several Andrew Lloyd Webber pseudo-opera musicals.

Tom Paxton, Sandy and Caroline Paton, Doyle Lawson, or Archie Fisher MIGHT draw 150 people on a good night.

There are lots of nice people in the world, but VERY few culturally adventurous ones. Thank God I've found a few at Mudcat.

Rick

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Chet W.
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 11:35 PM

But you guys are missing the point aren't you? Why do so many people eat at McDonalds?; because it's easy and it's in style. In Prague, Czech Rep (my second home), when they put in McDonalds after the Commies were out of style, people would pay relatively large sums of money to eat a Velky Mac when for the same price they could get a whole nice meal across the street. This was especially true of young men trying to impress young women (an ancient incentive). It was fashionable. And though it's hard for some social scientists to take, an awful lot of today's young people (like my former students at the prison) engage in very dangerous and tragic behavior in large part because it's fashionable, thanks (in part) to the popularity, and therefore fashionable nature, of extremely negative media. If you're an adolescent and looking for love, you maximize your chances by putting the popular music on the box. I guess to some extent that's always been true, and it gets to be a way of life. Play them some good music, and they'll look funny at you. Over 90% of the recorded music sold in this country, according to an article I read a while back, is whatever's in the top of the charts, and a year later the purchaser never listens to it again. That's why you have the mall record stores, useless to the likes of us, that only seem to have a few dozen titles in the store; they are maximizing their profits. Let's face it, if we support and take pleasure and fulfillment from music that is thoughtful, creative, soul-nurturing, and from the heart, we will always be in a minority. No need to get worked up over it. I used to, but it cut into my time for enjoying the things and people I do care about. A jolly gang are we, and few.

Chet

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: wildlone
Date: 17 Sep 99 - 11:47 PM

where i work the packing dept has a tape machine with a radio and the youngsters listen to the latest noise on it i took in a copy of Pachabels canon and it started a game on who could think of modern songs using this fine old tune as a root.Theres quite a few.

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: _gargoyle
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 12:04 AM

The boycoting/trashing/MANUERING of "MickyD's" in France is a beautiful testament to the youth of the world.

They have moved beyond passively listening to "We Will, We Will Rock You" to actively beginning to rock the foundations of the established world as most know it.

The new mellenium..... will bring a new world.... alien to most in this forum.

To refraise the original refrain.... Why SELL? music, or t-shirts, or tickets??????

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: emzdogz
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 12:07 AM

Just Curious: did those in the packing dept. come up with any matches to your challenge?

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Bugsy
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 02:46 AM

AIRPLAY on the major radio stations is one of the major factors. Take the worst song in the world and if it's played over the PA at the shopping centre, at work and every time you turn the car radio on, you'll find yourself humming the damned thing without even being concious of the fact.

Amazing isn't it?

Bugsy.

p.s Try getting airplay with a major radio station if you aren't represented by a "Major Record Company". "Come back and see me when it's in the Top 40". How do you get in the top 40? "Airplay".

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Ewan McVicar
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 05:04 AM

I thought I'd check this thread out to see what was to be defined as 'bad' music. Turns out that 'bad music' is the music most people in the world like! Does that make them bad people!
How do you cope with the fact that many of those people will be equally contemptuous and dismissive of the music people here love, and indeed call it worse names than 'bad'?
Oh, I know that one of the answers is in some of the commments above. We are right, and they are ignorant.
But what if they are right, and we are ignorant?

I can cope with the idea of a 'bad' song, although some people keep asking on Mudcat for lyrics etc for songs I consider thoroughly 'bad' - e'g' poorly written, banal, politically fascistic, grossly insulting, slipshod lyrics and lazy tunes, etc, etc.
Are they ignorant, or might we be talking about preferences and differences in taste here? If you blame it all on the power of marketing and feel it cannot be resisted, how come there is a Mudcat Cafe? Or are we the mighty and wise ones who see, but most regrettably cannot convey our knowledge to the masses?
How many songs on mass TV would it take to turn the millions on to the 'good' music. (By the way, classical musicians fell as superior to us as some of us seem to feel to the masses. But of course the 'serious' ones are wrong, and we are right - again.)

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Ralf Weihrauch
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 05:46 AM

Could anybody give a definition of "Bad Music"? No matter what you dislike, there are always people who like it. It is very ignorant and arrogant to rate your own musical taste higher than others.

Greetings Ralf

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: poet
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 07:14 AM

oh dear what a bag of worms you've opened up here.
and what a bunch of snobs(literary of course). Music is a product of age and energy 3 to 4(ding dong bell) 8 to 10(whatever mum and dad are playing) teens(anything mum and dad hate and what the girls/boys think is cool) teens to 30(a learning curve into what you really like) over 30(a rejection of anything modern!!)Their is space in the world for all music even so called bad music. one mans food is another mans poison remember.

Graham (Guernsey)

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 08:04 AM

I can't speak for the others but I consdider bad music to be music with little or no melodic structure; take some of the rave music as an extreme example: a comupter program could churn that out without human interaction.

I do not feel that because I don't like a song, it is necessarily bad music. Although I tend more towards folk music (especially Celtic and English dance music) my tastes are quite varied. The only consistent dislikes I have are rave, rap, modern classical and modern jazz.

I believe that marketing does lay a big part in getting poor quality music played by the masses and that people tend to listen to what the owers of the tv and radio tell them is the in thing to be listening to rather than judging for themselves and this has been demonstrated on several occasions. Altough I happened to like this music weren't the Monkeys created as a sort of American answer to the Beatles? A more recent British example is the Spice Girls. They are certainly not the most talented group of performers but they were created, their image was cleverly marketed and all of a sudden a group of second rate performers are one of the most popular bands in the UK...

Ewan McVicar commented that he didn't think much on some of the songs in the DT. I do not think that anybody is suggesting that if it is folk music, it is good and I am sure that there would be quite a few that I don't like for one reason or another. Altough I would suggest that because of the nature of folk music and the way it expresses the views of people, it is only to be expected that some songs might be "politically fascistic" or considered "grossly insulting" to some. I have a lot of Irish rebel songs in my repertore but I don't sing them any more because I don't want to upset people but I still regard a number of them as being good songs.

Jon

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Jack (Who is called Jack)
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 09:13 AM

Based on what I read above, I'll restate the question,

Why do the songs of Madonna or Ice-T sell a bazillion records, while the music of great quality that WE enjoy and understand doesn't. John McCutcheon criss crosses the nation and still plays in church basements. Even if you take the view that digustibus non disputandem est, you can still argue that from a point of view of quality, beauty, resonance with the human condition etc, Mr. McCutcheon's music compares favorably with anything, yet his doesn't sell. Why?

In a word Fashion (a form of ugliness so offensive it must be changed every 6 months -- Oscar Wilde, or as I call it mass conformity masquerading as identity). The clothing of past ages is no less beautiful, or more ugly than todays clothing, yet few are running around in Ascots and hoop skirts, or dressing up like Jackie Kennedy. Yet now we have body piercing and tatoos, where did that come from? No one knows. Cultures have been doing it for millenia, but why it should re-emerge in our culture now?

Tell me how to predict and explain the ebb and flow of fashion and together we'll get rich.

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: CKrueger
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 09:48 AM

Well, of course we are sounding opinionated and a bit self-righteous. I think there are a couple of reasons for that--first, the very title of the chain drew our attention. We selected ourselves into this exchange of rantings and ideas. Second, isn't that one of the funcions of this--to state an opinion that without claiming rightness or wrongness is most assuradly our own? People choose the music they love because some intrinsic aspect within that music resonates within their souls. Therefore, they are fiercely defensive of those choices because of what revealed in that choice. If you want to pursue a negative aspect of this, it allows us one more way to categorize and judge people. I don't take it all that seriously. I like what I like--and may not like what "they" like, but mostly with they would turn down their car stereos. Maybe there is something that happens in our brain when we reach a "certain age" that makes us more set in our own tastes and more reactive to what is around us. I don't know, but I do appreciate a chance to read what other people think, especially, being human, the ones who agree with me...

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 10:17 AM

I strongly dissagree with the age reasons suggested. I am 39 and althouhg I do no regularly listen to chart music, I do listen to some and there have been new songs that I have really enjoyed. These are a couple of years old now but Strange Glue by Catatonia as a song that I particularly enjoyed and I also found some of Space quite interesting and enjoyable.

I do not believe that the question revolves around people getting in set ways as they get older and I would happily join a folk rock/ folk punk or whatever mix if we had the personnel around here to do it.

I still believe that the truth is that so many people just go with whatever is the in thing and that this is not based on anything musical.

Jon

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: arkie
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 10:29 AM

When I arrived in this wonderful little spot in the Ozarks almost 30 years ago there was a city dump a few miles out of town and each citizen delivered their own trash. On each trip, as I was unloading bags from the back of my truck, there were other citizens rummaging around and carefully tossing stuff into the back of their trucks and wheelbarrows. One man's trash sometimes is another man's treasure.

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 10:55 AM

In a wor (another word) NOSTALGIA!!

The music of one's youth, when we championed bad music because we and our testosterone/estrogen rebelliousness picked our music not because it was "good", but because, like the mountain, it was there. It was packaged by the music industry to sell to us in our naivity and ignorance. We bought it. Then the years passed. We had gone on to good music. When it came time for our old music to become nostalgia it was packaged again and resold to us in the newest digital formats---and again as whatever format comes next. In the future, that which was new and quite gross when we we took to it originally (to gross out our parents) become fuzzy and pink in our memory. We enhance it there---give it meaning it never had. Why? To regain our youth in a culture that tells us constantly that only youth is any good. Is Sammy Sosa really worth mega millions and was Babe Ruth only worth a few thousand dolloars?

Once again I've digressed a bit. but it's all intertwined.

Every reason given here for "why bad music sells" is valid.

BOTTOM LINE:

As my old uncle used to say, "FAME IS PROOF THAT PEOPLE ARE GULLIBLE.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: sophocleese
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 11:05 AM

People being people they want music. A lot of poeple use their discriminating tastes in other arenas. Some people will spend a lot of their time searching out unique and wonderful clothes as others just head to the discount store and buy three identical pairs of jeans and half a dozen t-shirts so they don't have to think about it. People buy processed cheese because its packaged to be easy to use while others look for stilton, camembert, old cheddar etc.. People buy bad music like they buy cheap clothes or lousy food because they need music.

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: lamarca
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 11:06 AM

I am rapidly approaching my 43rd birthday, and still have what I like to describe as "broad" tastes in music (or what BillD describes as "no taste...") I like opera, some new alternative rock (for ex: Mighty, Mighty Bosstones, Cowboy Junkies, Crash Test Dummies), Brazilian forro, the late 60's and early 70's rock of my teenage years, Child ballads sung by English and Irish tinkers, Child ballads sung by English folk-rockers with electric guitars and drum kits, South African mbaqanga, Calypsonians of the 30's and 40's - to name a few of the kinds of music I've actually spent money on in the past few months.

I used to say I detested country music - then was forced to listen to top-40 country radio for awhile because of a housemate's tastes. I found that I still disliked most of what were "hits", but that there were always a few well-crafted, interesting songs blended in with the other stuff. I never "voted" for the stuff I liked by buying it, though, so I didn't enhance the survival of the "good" music ("good" = the stuff I liked) over the dreck.

Theo Sturgeon coined Sturgeon's Law: "99% of everything is crap" (or some similar percentage). In today's marketplace-driven Darwinian selection of music, the only way to enhance the survival of the kind of music you like is to buy it. Support the artists doing your kind of music, so that they can continue to be that small, but important 1% of what's available.

As for hoi-polloi and the lowest-common-denominator taste of "the general public" (which we tend to think we don't belong to), remember that the Roman civilization spawned both gladiator contests and the poetry of Virgil - and both forms of entertainment survive today, despite centuries of moaning about the decline of that 1% of "good" arts...

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Llanfair
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 11:53 AM

I really think we should take a more lateral approach to this question. So far, everyone has assumed that it is the music "good" or otherwise that is fashionable, or not. The music is the symptom, not the disease. Young people, in my opinion, are guided mainly by their hormones, and the perpetrators of "pop" music are, on the whole, very attractive or charismatic individuals, who are managed by people who know how to sell it. As a youngster, if Paul McCartney had sung the alphabet, I would have bought it. Musical tastes vary, thank heaven, but the music isn't always the priority, it's the effect it has, and the money it can make. Hwyl, Bron.

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 12:16 PM

Of COURSE we're "arrogant", and "self-righteous" about things we've spent years digging into and trying to understand from "the inside out". If we weren't, we woudn't join groups like Mudcat or song circles, or bluegrass clubs, or Club Django organisations. Because we're also "Folkies", we're nicer generally in our arrogance, than more mainstream "groups". If you don't believe me, check out some of the Rock, Classical, or Country, chat groups.

Rick

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Mudjack
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 12:23 PM

Ah yes...the worms are a wigglin' on this one. I told you it was a good thread. Music is ALL bad, it's Satin's tool to deliver us to the pits of HELL.(hearty harr)
I was reminded once of how narrow minded I was to the sounds of C&W and saying how BAD I thought it was. At a song circle years ago A friend of mine finished performing this wonderful song and I asked him where it came from and he replied, "Garth Brooks" That opened my eyes to try and listen to some of the POP stuff. There is a coworker at work that wants me to give his 3 year old son guitar lessons. Says he really wants to do Garth Brooks songs.The media hype is there but at the same, there really is talent out there. Most are guilty of selling themselves like hookers on the street corner. Most people listen to have some noise and rythyms to help get through their day, as I have over the years progressed to musician/singer status I find myself really listening to the whole song. Maybe being armed with knowledge and experience of music gives us a different perspective and appreciation for music. My expression of snobbery was meant:since I don't know much about the main acts in the music media and isolate my appreciation to a discriminate category of acoustic folk type artistry, those folks in the main stream might think of me as a snob. And thats OK, because regardless good or bad music, they have fallin into the trap of being force fed music that Corporate America wants them to hear. In other words, they'll likely never experience going to a live concert of 150 audience and seeing what an intimate concert is. They'll pay $75 dollers for a ticket and sit in the last row, watch the big screen TV, listen and watch the great fireworks show, never really seeing the artist up close, come home and tell me what a great concert he saw.
Oh hell I'm just an opinionated snob, I'm beginning to like the expression.
Mudjack

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 03:05 PM

The Prisoner Song and the Wreck of Old '97 were multi-million selling hits in their day, regarded by many people as that "bad music that is selling like hotcakes these days", who then bemoaned that kids had forgotten the good stuff like Billy Murray and the Peerless Quartet, or the original charttopper, John Phillip Sousa--that had been equally popular, a generation before--"How Long Blues" by Leroy Carr and Snapper Blackwell appparently sold millions as well--

The same is true of many other old songs--the were once wildly popular, in that same "music machine" that some of you are now mercilessly trashing--it's just that now times have changed, and people like something else--

The same with "classical" music, it was once "popular" music, if you don't believe me, go read up on Johann Strauss, and the crowds that descended every night on the cafe where his orchestra played--and they danced all night! Not to mention the tradition of Opera--talk about playing to the teeming masses!

I love "traditional" music, and think that the community that has built up around it is wonderful, because it preserves music that is fun and sometimes great, and because continues a tradition of performing tradition that seems at times to be in danger of completely disappearing--

The one thing that disturbs me is that there is an almost ritual habit of making vicious and hateful attacks on other music forms, justified, I guess, because they have big audiences and the artists seem to generate a lot of money--and made more troubling because contemporary music has such clear and strong roots in traditional music--

The folk and traditional music scene and shouldn't be compared to the pop music world--if you want to make a lot of money with your music, you should cross over to it and do what it takes to succeed there(as many have) and not complain that what you're doing here hasn't been embraced by the world at large(please note--most folk and traditional performers don't do this, at least not much;-))-- Today's pop music is, after all, the traditional music of tomorrow--

End of sermon

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 03:14 PM

Oh, Darn. Lamarca said most of what I was going to say, and she makes my point very well. Let me see if I can say it another way. I don't know if I should attempt this approach with a Whitehead expert amongst us, but let me give it a try. He's busy learning Windows 98, so he probably won't notice...(grin)

Why does bad music sell? Well, popular music sells because it expresses the idiom of the moment. Popular music is, by nature, ephemeral. When the moment passes, most of the music of that moment will also pass away. However, from each moment, something endures.
The music that endures from those past moments is what we folk snobs call good music, but it's not only folk music that has to be sorted through this test of time. I remember music classes when I was young, when my teachers would tell us about all the awful music that came out the the production lines of Tin Pan Alley, and later from the Brill Building. My teachers were right. A lot of awful music came out of those places. As time has gone by, we've found that a lot of good music also came from those same production lines.
Take a look at the Music for the Nation (1870-85) collection of sheet music at the Library of Congress. You'll find a lot of garbage there. There's a huge volume of music here and it covers a very short period of time, so I get the impression that the Library of Congress decided not to sort out the bad stuff. The collection at Duke University and the Levy Collection at Johns Hopkins are different - they were assembled by collectors, and I'm guessing they most probably avoided saving a lot of the bad music. I'm glad the Library of Congress has saved the bad stuff for us. As time goes on and our vision of the past becomes more objective, we may find some gems that other generations have passed by.
So, why do people buy bad music? Same reason they buy trashy books, or speak in trite phrases. That's the way life is. Even the Einsteins among us think truly original thoughts only every once in a while. The rest of the time, they speak words that have been spoken before. But every once in a while, something wonderful is created. We need to find those wonderful creations and preserve them.
But we shouldn't get too huffy about all the crap that's produced. We create a good amount of it ourselves.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: j0_77
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 04:30 PM

Hot hot hot, hmmm, first there is Music, demands your full attention - (hush up I am listening to this song) and then there is 'wallpaper music' Yogi Bear and His Orchestra Play the Beatles. Hmmm as a ex 'performer' I know that some audiences like 'wallpaper music' they wanna chat drink visit but not be too involved in the music. The want atmosophere.

At the Winfield festival I'd wager that 80% of the crowd play something. That is the other extreme, I used absolutlely go into orbit when getting ready for a show for a 'folk'audience. Every lick, riff or variation observed evaluated etc.

In the middle is the meat of the Music Bizz the average listener. These are the folks who buy the CD's - see Dixie Chicks - Record companies etc don't always record crap, they sometimes get it right. Also notice DJ's are 'wallpaper' music blind, if they must play crap why not make it good crap!

Bad recordings - yup agree there is a big heap of crap out there and yup the DJ's push the junk into your memory banks. Good or Bad! Don't know, what does irritate me is this method of 'puhing' is widely used for other puroses. It's a sort of aural hypnosis - like the grocery stores play slop to make you buy more groceries - ho ho ho.

Singing etc, it is a fact that a 'good' voice is a rare thing. I sing badly because I've a limited range.

Phew.

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: catspaw49
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 04:55 PM

Great thread.......

Rick makes the point that folkies are more tolerant and I think that's true....possibly because we all know somewhere down deep, that some of the "Pop of the Day" may eventually enter the genre.

Joe, you are at your most eloquent and best.....forget about the "Whitehead Guy"...I'll fend him off for you if needed...but your points are well taken and well phrased.

Lamarca, I agree with Joe...You said it well.

In relation to your comments about the Romans and Rick's earlier ones about who fills arenas and who/what doesn't........................ I've often thought that were I to go back to school for a more advanced degree (WHY I would do this, I have no idea) that an interesting thesis topic would be the parallel courses and popularity of "Big Time TV Wrestling" and "Big Time TV Evangelism." I dunno'.........perhaps they have the same audience.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 05:21 PM

....ah, but even wrestling and evangelism have their poetic moments, 'spaw.
-Joe Offer, sometime fan of Hulk Hogan and Robert Schuller-

I gotta sneak another comment in here. You may scoff at Hogan and Schuller, but both show intelligence, imagination, and humor in many things they have done.

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: joeler
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 05:27 PM

There is no such thing as bad music. Music is relative. goodbye Joel

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Jack (Who is called Jack)
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 07:37 PM

Jon Freeman

I have to compliment you on the thoughtfulness you put into your posts. You make the fine but necessary distinction between your subjective and objective observations. Good for you.

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 09:04 PM

Say it ain't so Joe! Robert Schuller and Hulk Hogan? Wait a minute, now that you mention it, I wouldn't mind seeing the two of them go head to head at the Silverdome. At the climactic moment when the Hulkster is about ready to slam Schuller into the next millenium, all of a sudden the spotlight shines on the entrance to the ramp and the "Gawd Squawd" come rumbling out. Jerry Falwell, Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, and 23 Republican congressmen storm the ring, demolish the hulk, and officially challenge Jesse Ventura to meet them at the Superdome next Sat. night.

Ahh heck, maybe I'll take in a folk show instead.

Rick

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Jack (Who is called Jack)
Date: 18 Sep 99 - 09:36 PM

Now hang on a minute, lets think this through. Although staged, professional wrestling is extremely dangerous. Guys in the biz like Hogan and Ventura, who work out and know the moves still get seriously injured a lot of the time. Heck, one of em even got himself killed this year.

All I'm saying is that we shouldn't dismiss to quickly the idea of a steel cage grudge match involving the portly leaders of the religious right and the republican party. It stands to reason that they'd do less damage if they had to spend part of the year recovering from torn ligaments, concussions, and the like. This might not only be entertaining but good political sense.

And who knows? A serious groin injury might be just the thing some of them need to help them actually practice the 'fidelity and morals' they keep preachin.

Nahh, even a hernia wouldn't stop them fellers. If'n you put a skirt on a acorn squash, half of 'em would try to talk it into going to a hotel somewhere.

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: "The Whitehead Guy"...who forgot his cookie
Date: 19 Sep 99 - 12:10 AM

I learned JUST enough Windows 98 to find out what was being said about me.....*grin*...

You know, I have a little card I bought years ago...it is on the wall next to my stereo...it has a cute drawing and a message:

I like the right kind of music-what kind do YOU like?

When it comes right down to it, we ALL know that values in any field are pretty relative and seldom easily definable.....yet, we all know that values are assigned to many things, by 'experts' as well as by the masses. The thing is, they don't all use the same criteria to assign! .....Some choose some pretty bad stuff because it fills a need...(greasy french fries....loud, raucous music...bright, gaudy, ostentatious clothing...[some even dote on Flamingos!]) It doesn't make it 'good', just popular...and in many ways, 'bad' is simply less work to find or create.

As much as I love the genre' of traditional music, there is a lot of it that IS bad. The neat thing is, that BECAUSE so much of it had been sifted and processed for many years, a lot of the worst gets lost and what survives has a lot to recommend it. Are there some 'good' songs being written today? Sure....call me in 40 years and we'll discuss 'em. I simply do NOT have the time or energy to sort most of them out right now............

(and I am writing this MUCH to late, after coming home from a Louis Killan concert...he does some 'good'music!)

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Sep 99 - 12:38 AM

LMAO..Your post ain't much, good bit of truth in it though, but I LOVE the new handle!! Best laugh of the day!!!!!! And on the music...well I'll talk to you in forty years there bro....I just have a feeling we may be conversin' uh,......."elsewhere." Bring anti-perspirant and wear light clothing.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Chet W.
Date: 19 Sep 99 - 01:40 AM

What about this? Have you ever noticed that music is the only art form (or forms) that nearly everyone has some dearly held opinion about? When was the last time you even heard of people expressing loyalty to one painter or another ("I can't BELIEVE you like Picasso!") or serious novelists for that matter ("Steinbeck rules, man") or poets ("Sure I'll camp out for weeks in front of the bookstore so I can get the first copy of that new Robert Frost retrospective, man! I hear it's a bitch!"). Big manufactured hit music (what better example lately than the Spice Girls) is made to be fashionable for a short time, and that's it. Make room for the next face on MTV. We're not really talking about music here. It's about fashion, it's about popularity, it's about increasing one's sexual success potential. LATER, if you're still loving and learning about something the way most of us are doing with whatever we consider to be traditional music, and if you're still doing it when you're no longer on the prowl for a date, only then are we even talking about an interest in music.

And, if it's just a matter of taste, why not have a mechanic whose taste runs to poor repair work fix your car next time? It's his/her prerogative, right? No better or worse than any other mechanic, right?

Chet

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 19 Sep 99 - 08:56 AM

Wow, thanks a lot Jack! I have never been complimented like this before.

I find music a very intersting subject to discuss and as with many other posters, do feel strongly about certain issues and I am well aware that it is all to easy to be purely subjective about it all - the worst part of this is that in certain ng's that I subscibe to an issue like what is meant by folk (which has no single correct definition) has degenerated into a personal slanging match because people have failed to realise that they are only expressing thier view point and that somebody elses could be equally valid.

Jon

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Lonesome Gillette
Date: 19 Sep 99 - 10:02 AM

Maby recording has hurt music in some way, helping what you might call "bad" music. I've wondered about this a little, I've wondered what kind of music I would play if I had never heard a recording. I think music would be more local, nobody would sell millions of records but more musicians would be needed just so people could hear music. Seems like music would be more magical if recording was taken out of the picture. (this relates dosen't it)

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 19 Sep 99 - 10:50 AM

If you never heard a recording, you would have learned to read sheet sheet music, and you would have played and sung the songs that came to you that way--which is what they did before there were recordings--

I sort of doubt that even then your musical taste would have been shaped by what was strictly local--because even in those days people sought out the music of the big cities--

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 19 Sep 99 - 12:28 PM

It seems to me that there is a case for judging music good or bad in every genre including folk music. I think music can be good and bad at the same time. Some songs can be well-crafted with interesting tunes and have negative messages or violent themes. Some great lryics can have pedestrian melodies and vice versa. If we're talking about music on the AM radio, today, a lot has to do with the fact that the American public is not being well-educated when it comes to music. The schools aren't doing it well because it's not considered important enough. So much of what we consider good or bad is subjective and knowledge of different kinds of music is important. Then is music "Good and bad" for whom?

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Chet W.
Date: 19 Sep 99 - 01:35 PM

I should have stuck with my self-pledge to not get involved in this subject anymore, but, if the realities of this situation really bother you, do yourself a favor and let it go. It will never change (It's never really been any different) and the anxiety over it can only take away from your healthy passion for the meaningful music you love. I've been there.

Chet

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 19 Sep 99 - 02:36 PM

Chet,

I think it's interesting to talk about. I'm just not sure that you can really define "good" and "bad" music that carefully without specifics. "Good or bad" to whom and for what reason?

I see certain tunes containing lryics that send unhealthy messages to kids but this is true for folk music as well as pop. Songs about grizzly murders from Appalachia are no nicer in content than some of the "Gangsta Rap" that you hear. If we are talking about music that some would deem "puerile", well hell, that's nothing new in any musical genre or era. Growing up in the forties I heard a lot of sappy popular music that had very little edifying content but then there were those great songwriters such as Berlin, Arlen, Carmicheal, Mercer et.al. who made that era look pretty good. It's probably not too much different now. The problem with this discussion is that so far I don't believe it's been discussed. We need specifics and then we have something to talk about. What "good" and "bad" music? And why?

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Why does bad music sell?
From: Mudjack
Date: 19 Sep 99 - 03:31 PM

BAD is only a guage and often liked by those that are a part of it. I'm often reminded about "The Blues" and how it was scoffed at in it's time and considered bad taste and was listened to at speak easys. I once attended a concert of performance art music, meaning a bunch of street people beat on pans and and yelled at one another in the form of a mini musical play. I liked the recital (acting) but thought their music was simply terrible. Then someone commented how great it was that people can make music out of trash can lids and tapping on wine bottles. I failed to see or hear any music , just a lot of noise going no where.
Ah yes. RAP... likely "the blues of tommorrow" not much in it's day but re-examined in the future like the blues , might re surface as America's greatest form of music.
I have chastised the media's control but in all honesty, the music made by Kingston Trio, Limeliters and the Weavers lured me into the want of making music. They were un-mistakenly POP of the time. (yes, the same Weavers Frank banjo'ed and sang for). Yes, also the same media that managed to blacklist a group for their political affiliation.The music certainly was the best, but government agencies and the powers in being wanted them shut down. Little was heard from the Weavers in those dark days.THAT WAS BAD. This is a reversal of what the thread is all about , Why good music does'nt sell.
your opinionated snob, Mudjack