12 Extremely Disappointing Facts About Popular Music

[DrHerb]

http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-sad.gif http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/51.gif

I mean, really???? (http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/12-extremely-disappointing-facts-about-popular-mus)

[Mr_Zooly]

The beeber is an affront to nature and should be silenced!

[Low_Flyer_MkIX]

Well that's some depressing stuff to start the day with. Sometimes I despair for the future of the human race.

[RegRag1977]

Why would i be surprised?

It is not the first time artisans are beaten by industry: that's actually one ugly part of what they call progress (aka the thing most of us are so proud of http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif ).

Puting quality (number of item sold) and quality is not a good thing either, just think about what most people are buying to eat... http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/59.gif

People actually simply take what they are given to, and this is the common thing between rock stars from the past, and what we have now (don't even know how it's called lol). Will and curiosity have nothing or very few to do with it... No major difference for me, apart from "belonging" to a certain generation, or period of time.

[Low_Flyer_MkIX]

I'm going to open my windows, put speakers on the sills and crank out some Hendrix. Set to "11". The fightback starts here.

[danjama]

Honestly, i'm proud of the fact that I am not one of the dopes who make that **** 'popular'. You all should be too. We're on another level compared to the masses/sheep, in every sense of the word.

[Feathered_IV]

Aint nobody takin my Billy Ray album away from me, praise God.

[Worf101]

What any musician actually knows. The best selling artists in the world are usually just the best marketed. The first nail was when someone found a way to divorce the musician from his music, and they've been steadily getting screwed ever since. If talent ever had anything to do with it you don't even need that now... AutoTune, lip synch you name it, they can fake it. Sigh...

Worf

[Choctaw111]

I have to remember that these so called "statistics" do not take into account the "inflation". There are many more people today to buy these "abominations to music" songs. Also keep in mind that the mindset of todays' generation is WAY different than it was 40 or 50 years ago.

[WTE_Galway]

Recall that until recently with the rise of the evil iTunes the only people that bought "singles" were 11 year old girls. Everyone else bought albums.

Though the Wikipedia top 10 selling ALBUMS of all time is not exactly what you would expect (Led Zepplin do not pop up till number 12 and the best the Beatles managed was number 14) ...

- Michael Jackson, Thriller 1982, Pop/Rock/R&B
- AC/DC, Back in Black 1980 Hard rock/Heavy metal
- Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon 1973, Progressive rock
- Whitney Houston/Various artists, The Bodyguard 1992, Soundtrack
- Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell 1977, Rock
- Eagles, Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975), 1976 Rock
- Various artists, Dirty Dancing 1987, Soundtrack
- Backstreet Boys, Millennium 1999, Pop
- Bee Gees/Various artists, Saturday Night Fever 1977, Soundtrack
- Fleetwood Mac, Rumours, 1977, Rock

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L..._best-selling_albums (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums)

[Luno13]

Also, few people "buy" classic albums. Those are either in someone's parents' collections, are downloaded illegally (because, honestly, if the artist is dead, who cares), or shared by friends via usb stick. The music I buy comes from second-hand CD shops like Rasputin's and Amoeba, so this also doesn't factor into most statistics.

Ke$ha's singles are available on iTunes and other online vendors for $0.99. The songs are cheap and easily accessible. No one has her album when it first goes out (naturally) so everyone buys it up at once. There aren't 20-year-old copies floating around to share, etc.

Besides that, there was a lot of crap from the generation of the Beatles and Pink-Floyd, and there will always be some amount of crap produced. Don't panic, the human race is OK. On the brighter side, there's still plenty of good stuff being made today as well: Fleet Foxes, Radiohead, Puscifer, Grizzly Bear, Porcupinetree, Gorillaz, etc.

[WTE_Galway]

Top 10 selling albums of all time if you ignore soundtracks ...



- Michael Jackson, Thriller 1982, Pop/Rock/R&B
- AC/DC, Back in Black 1980 Hard rock/Heavy metal
- Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon 1973, Progressive rock
- Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell 1977, Rock
- Eagles, Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975), 1976 Rock
- Backstreet Boys, Millennium 1999, Pop
- Fleetwood Mac, Rumours, 1977, Rock
- Shania Twain, Come On Over 1997, Country/Pop
- Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV, 1971, Hard rock/Heavy metal
- Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill 1995, Rock

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L..._best-selling_albums (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums)

If you also ignored compilation albums the Eagles would drop out and the Beatles with Sergeant Peppers would finally slip in at number 10.

[raaaid]

if there wasnt the noise reduction conspiracy in speakers people would know how really good rihana and jaty perry really are

[thefruitbat]

popular music = 13 year old girls buying records.

not really a massive surprise that most of it blows.

[joeap]

Originally posted by WTE_Galway:
Recall that until recently with the rise of the evil iTunes the only people that bought "singles" were 11 year old girls. Everyone else bought albums.

Though the Wikipedia top 10 selling ALBUMS of all time is not exactly what you would expect (Led Zepplin do not pop up till number 12 and the best the Beatles managed was number 14) ...

- Michael Jackson, Thriller 1982, Pop/Rock/R&B
- AC/DC, Back in Black 1980 Hard rock/Heavy metal
- Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon 1973, Progressive rock
- Whitney Houston/Various artists, The Bodyguard 1992, Soundtrack
- Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell 1977, Rock
- Eagles, Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975), 1976 Rock
- Various artists, Dirty Dancing 1987, Soundtrack
- Backstreet Boys, Millennium 1999, Pop
- Bee Gees/Various artists, Saturday Night Fever 1977, Soundtrack
- Fleetwood Mac, Rumours, 1977, Rock

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L..._best-selling_albums (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums)

What's so "evil" about itunes (or amazon for that matter) anyway? You really think they are worse than the record companies dude? http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

A lot of the music you posted - all stuff I also enjoy - is available on itunes as well too, as is a fair amount of "alternative" rock, classical, jazz etc. Just because the top ten is composed of cheap pop crap doesn't mean you can't find the gems like the recently re-released digital version of Dark Side of the Moon (http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-dark-side-moon-deluxe/id464279671) or this one from Iceland. (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bjork-biophilia/id434122935?mt=8) Plus the internet in general has allowed small groups access to fans not only through the big stores like itunes and Amazon but sites like bandcamp or even myspace.

I dispute your contention that only 11 year old girls bought singles, it really depends what epoch of popular music we are talking about-the 50s and early 60s were mostly single driven IIRC (even popular music of the 1940s)-albums began to dominate in the 60s and 70s. In fact not sure if this is the case with Amazon but in itunes songs can be sold album only at request of the artist or more likely record company I suppose.

In my opinion you guys are kissing the target. The biggest villains here are the record companies who missed the boat to stave off piracy by embracing the internet and instead brought us DRM, even for CDs for awhile there, imposed national licensing on youtube etc. I know this won't be popular but I am sure the record companies are happy with the new streaming service like Spotify etc. as it is bringing in a rental model for music rather than the "ownership" model of legal downloads, or physical media like CDs, vinyl etc.

[bolox00]

what's so 'evil' about itunes et al?
as someome who has worked im the live music industry for 30 yrs i'd say pete townsend's comments are a reasonable take on things

http://www.musicweek.com/story...torycode=1047245&c=1 (http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1047245&c=1)

- do read all the article http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

record companies are certainly no angels ( "if you can't charge it to the band, it's probably not worth paying for' being an old record company maxim http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/winky.gif ) but there are also other 'actors' at work also- management (cowell http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/icon_twisted.gif ) agents, promoters,venues etc who are more 'vertically integrated', all of whom are looking to maximize their cut- and all with little incentive to nurture new bands-unless they are 'pre packaged' for market

[joeap]

Dinosaurs ... http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

[WTE_Galway]

iTunes is just a bad DRM model, its one "saving grace" is it allows the company running it to make huge profits.

Kind of what you expect from a company that has consistently been able to market average so-so tech as cutting edge and innovative at a high price, meanwhile acquiring an entrenched fan-base that are so fanatical about there products that it approaches a religious cult.

[x6BL_Brando]

Lies, damned lies, and statistics?

Back when I was buying albums - Stones, Dylan, Floyd, Zep, Butterfield, Johnson, Williamson et al - phones were for talking and computers were a joke. People made music with real instruments - and Raaaid's conspiracy theory almost makes sense if you ever owned a valve-powered amp and a set of Goodmans to play your sounds through.

Tin-pan alley was still kicking out pop - boy bands, girl bands, crooners, balladeers and novelty songs - and none of that has changed. The market is just much bigger.

[horseback]

Having spent a significant part of my childhood in Britain when the Beatles first emerged from the masses (I was there from January '61 through June of '64, ages 7 to not quite 11) and then returned to the Land of the Big PX; I should point out that while singles (actual 45rpm vinyl records) were the measure of a band or singer's popularity and yes, the greatest number of purchasers then were pre teen girls and teenagers in general, they were usually bought in those days with the buyer's own money.

As I recall, my first album (Sergeant Pepper, natch) cost me the princely sum of $1.99 at the Davis-Monthan AFB Exchange, a significant discount from the $2.50 or so it retailed at (buying the CD about a year agoo, I coughed up over $12.00, without the cool large album and liner notes that ccame with the original).

A 45 single, with only one song on each side (approximately 3 to 4 minutes of music per side, eliminating the 'extended version' from the singles' aisle, would cost you between 50 cents and one dollar (plus sales tax).

That's at least a week's allowance for a pre-teen girl in most of mid-60s America, and somewhat more for her British and European counterparts. You had to REALLY like a song to buy the single back then. LPs were a better value, in the sense that you got at least 6 songs per side, or about 40-45 minutes of music in an LP for your $2.50. Of course, for every truly great song on the LP, you often got two that were dross.

Today, you can get your one song for a pittance (and Daddy or Mommy pick up the tab), you don't have to worry about a safe place to put your fragile plastic disks, having enough space for them (and your comic books), keeping your Mom from throwing them away because of the risque or suggestive title or cover art or scratching them inadvertantly while bugalooing in your bedroom.

I pronounce the statistics skewed (and Marley and reggae are grossly overrated in any case) and that Justin Bieber cannot hold a candle to Bobby Sherman, David Cassidy, the early Michael Jackson or any other of the bubble gum rock gods of the sixties and early seventies for sheer ick factor to males over 9 in any era.

cheers

horseback

[Don_X]

How to have a no1 the easy way (http://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/)

Says it all really..

and then the classic middle finger to the whole music industry
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[K_Freddie]

Both my kids come up with this..

People with higher IQ listen to Beethoven or Symphony type music
The lowest IQ people listen to RAP music...

My opinion - Geeez f..k... there is a god http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/11.gif

[Treetop64]

Those stats are helped by the fact that today, any 13 year-old with a smartphone can buy music.

[Low_Flyer_MkIX]

Still, cheer up, eh? Little Mingers have won the X-factor.

We really need a 'jumping off a bridge holding a concrete block' emoticon.

[WTE_Galway]

Well down in Australia we get a wonderful tribute to class and culture with the Asia-POP channel http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif ...... lots of cutsie asian girls in short-shorts and bright flouro colors bopping around to some sort of synth/rap/pop who knows what ...

http://www.sbs.com.au/chinese/.../?siteLanguage=en_AU (http://www.sbs.com.au/chinese/program/popasia/?siteLanguage=en_AU)
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/sbs-pop-asia

Typical content below (South Korean Boy band SHINee) ...

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The future of music http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif