MSJ asks: What is good music, and how do you get it?
Ian Black
Issue date: 11/19/07 Section: Features
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The royal 'we' realize writing this two-part article on the historical quality of popular music that the MSJ doesn't know what our peers define as 'good' music or how the group 'we' get that music. We don't know who your favorite artists are, or what you consider to make an artist a 'good'. How does one compare Rich Boy, Big & Rich, and the Big Bopper? Who's better: George Thoroughgood, Fugazi, or Ashley Tisdale? This week, we make a humble effort to help understand what is 'good' and give some idea of how audience members should expect to 'get' music in the next few years.
We are in the era of the audience. With innumerable sales channels, progressively lower cost for music players, and an active piracy market, the popular music market is more competitive; sales cycles are shorter and the supply of product is greater than ever; the sound must evolve quickly and still appeal to a core audience - OUCH! This competition could hypothetically lead to the greatest amount of musical innovation we've ever known; the flipside, however, is audience fatigue. How often do you listen to a song you downloaded a year ago? What is the shelf life of a song, or an album? If artists pour heart and soul into a song and you, the audience member, forget it within three months, what is the impetus to publish and sell an artists' work? Is the income enough to make up for the emotional rollercoaster?
In the past, musicianship and technical ability was the measurement of a good artist, and arguably, the most objective way to measure musical talent. This measure can still be used with some effectiveness when looking at jazz and classical music, notwithstanding the avant-garde turns of many young artists in both universes; programs sponsored by Harry Connick Jr and Wynton Marsalis in New Orleans, and VH-1's Save the Music. Generally, however, jazz and classical albums sell few copies; the fragmentation of popular music into many genres and sub-genres means the definition of 'good' isn't easily identified. With songs replacing albums and producers replacing artists as musical superstars, the concept of quality has to expand to fit the more diverse audience. The easy answer is simply that 'good' is what speaks to you, product marketers be damned. Sales managers, however, aren't likely to be satisfied with such a broad definition. They are likely to look for metrics, like CD sales, concert sales, artist MySpace site visits, or iTunes downloads. Radio play or MTV video play used to be a good measure, but who listens to radio anymore, and who watches MTV for music videos anymore? This lack of reliable measurement may be one reason why sex has become so prevalent in popular music today; in addition to spawning the oldest profession in the world, sex is a reliable sales driver for most consumer products (over 700 articles on the subject appear on Google Scholar).
We are in the era of the audience. With innumerable sales channels, progressively lower cost for music players, and an active piracy market, the popular music market is more competitive; sales cycles are shorter and the supply of product is greater than ever; the sound must evolve quickly and still appeal to a core audience - OUCH! This competition could hypothetically lead to the greatest amount of musical innovation we've ever known; the flipside, however, is audience fatigue. How often do you listen to a song you downloaded a year ago? What is the shelf life of a song, or an album? If artists pour heart and soul into a song and you, the audience member, forget it within three months, what is the impetus to publish and sell an artists' work? Is the income enough to make up for the emotional rollercoaster?
In the past, musicianship and technical ability was the measurement of a good artist, and arguably, the most objective way to measure musical talent. This measure can still be used with some effectiveness when looking at jazz and classical music, notwithstanding the avant-garde turns of many young artists in both universes; programs sponsored by Harry Connick Jr and Wynton Marsalis in New Orleans, and VH-1's Save the Music. Generally, however, jazz and classical albums sell few copies; the fragmentation of popular music into many genres and sub-genres means the definition of 'good' isn't easily identified. With songs replacing albums and producers replacing artists as musical superstars, the concept of quality has to expand to fit the more diverse audience. The easy answer is simply that 'good' is what speaks to you, product marketers be damned. Sales managers, however, aren't likely to be satisfied with such a broad definition. They are likely to look for metrics, like CD sales, concert sales, artist MySpace site visits, or iTunes downloads. Radio play or MTV video play used to be a good measure, but who listens to radio anymore, and who watches MTV for music videos anymore? This lack of reliable measurement may be one reason why sex has become so prevalent in popular music today; in addition to spawning the oldest profession in the world, sex is a reliable sales driver for most consumer products (over 700 articles on the subject appear on Google Scholar).
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