Friday, January 29, 2010

Is Recorded Music Whale Blubber?

Most of you are familiar with Brian Eno. Here’s an interesting quote from Brian’s interview with The Guardian (U.K.) "I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn't last, and now it's running out. I don't particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you'd be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history's moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it." The full article.

Should we change our name to The Alabama Whale Blubber Collectors?

3 comments:

  1. I think this guy is very short sighted and has no idea what he's really saying...

    When it comes to recorded music in this day and age I totally agree. I mean; look at your average group of "musicians" who will easily spend 2 months (if not longer) in the studio to make a recording. Then added to all the effects, mastering and filtering you end up with a recording which is.. Yeah, perhaps whale blubber. What you hear on the recording doesn't match with what they manage to perform on stage.

    But in the record age it was a totally different issue. The average band didn't spend months in a studio, they spend months getting their act together. And once that was done they went for a studio session to record their performance. Nothing more, and nothing less. What you heard on record was what you got on stage. Yes, people made money from it. Some people made a lot of money, but that wasn't so much because of "recorded music". It was because they managed to get the right group to make a recording using their studio.

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  2. I think he more talking about the industry.

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  3. What Brian says is mostly common sense. There has always been something new coming along to replace the old. However, I think a lot of the problem for the music industry today is the result of a bad quality.

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