Been A Long Time

I often find myself getting annoyed at people who hear a negative review about something and assume that statement is going to be true for the rest of time. Objects, just like people, are capable of evolving and developing new habits as the years pass. Just because a product had an annoying reputation years ago people shouldn't automatically assume the company has been ignoring it for all this time. For example, I still hear people say the following statement about Twitter: "Why would I want a bunch of updates about when people are taking a shower or what they are having for breakfast?" My reaction to hearing this is to quietly make a note in my head that those people are clearly not on Twitter. (Also, explain to me how those are any different from obnoxious 'status updates' on Facebook?) Obviously, you wouldn't want those kind of updates and while there were people who did that when Twitter experienced its sudden boom in popularity a few years ago, those users have either shaped up or have feeds followed by 3 people. If you follow the right people, these days Twitter is an extremely entertaining social media site where some people offer insightful comments about not only news and pop culture, but the world we live in today. Just the other day I read a Tweet which applied to me this afternoon: "It appears the music industry's new anti-piracy policy is to release music no one wants to steal." I couldn't have said it better myself.

Back in my radio DJ days I never thought I would be the kind of person who would look at the music kids are listening to and declare that music was better in my day. Even if the thought did cross my mind I certainly didn't think I would be saying it at 32. Yet, every time I turn on the radio and flip over to the top-40 stations I never stay for long because the music being released today is pretty terrible. It has all been auto-tuned and remixed to within an inch of its life, all in an attempt to cover up the fact that most of these musicians don't have any actual talent. I haven't heard a song in months which had made me think it has a chance to be on some classic music station in a couple of decades. As such I haven't bought any new music for my iTunes account in forever. It probably doesn't help that iTunes also raised the price on new songs. I barely want this stuff in my collection and I'm expected to fork over more than the cost of most Beatles tunes? Thanks, I'll pass. I had actually forgotten how long it had been until this afternoon when I finally found a song I wanted to purchase. I clicked all the appropriate buttons but before I was allowed to download the song I had to fill out a series of account reactivation questions, because I hadn't bought any music in so long that apparently Apple thought I had died.

I'm well aware that actually paying for music on the internet puts me squarely in the minority. But, it is not like I've been illegally downloading dozens of songs a month either. My iTunes library hasn't grown for almost a year because I haven't heard anything worth expanding it for. That is how bad I find most of the new music these days - I can't even be bothered to download it for free because it would still require me to spend the time to upload it to my iTunes and it just isn't worth it. Honestly, I mostly listen to podcasts during the course of the week and find them infinitely more entertaining than any of the artists who currently get major radio time. The music industry is always crying about piracy as the reason sales have slumped over the last couple of years, but I would say the same thing to those executives that I would to the guys in charge of the movie studios - make something worth buying and people will spend their money on it. "The Avengers" made billions of dollars, so clearly people will go to the theaters if they think a movie could be entertaining. The reason people aren't buying new music has nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with the fact the music being released today sucks.

If you are expecting me to end this post with suggestions for ways to save the music industry, unfortunately I don't have many to offer. There is no quick fix to this problem other than the record labels need to send out scouts as far and wide as they can to try and find new acts. And that doesn't mean turning on their TV and letting some talent show do it for them, because I think the failure of "American Idol" acts to turn out top-selling records has proven Americans like voting for these people more than they like paying for their music. It could just be time to try and find an act which is radically different from everything else that is out there right now. Even if they aren't universally accepted at least it will be something new to listen to, because the last thing I want coming through my speakers is yet another teeney-bopper princess whose music requires every note to be digitally remastered to make her sound semi-competent. We can't keep expecting England to churn out someone like Adele every couple of years. Considering her album was the last time I bought music before today I think it is pretty clear something needs to change or else it could be another couple years before I need to remember my iTunes password again.