Rick Raw: iPods and The Internet Dilute Significance of Popular Music

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

During the late 1960s and 1970s, popular music was driven by the counter culture rock movement, led by Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Neil Young. Today, the preponderance of alt-rock bands and aspiring singer/songwriters has overwhelmed the public’s ability to absorb it all.

Now anyone can join any of the paid music download sites like Rhapsody for $12.99 per month and check out any artist, listen to their latest music, and download it for a price. Yes, I use it and its great for checking out new artists. I used it much more when I was writing at least two music reviews every week. Nonetheless, it’s a boon to me and other entertainment journalists.

Back in counterculture era, when records were recorded on vinyl and the rock revolution was driven by exceptionally talented artists, listening to music was a sacred ritual. My friends and I would get the latest Bob Dylan or Beatle album, giddy with anticipation. We’d have a get-together to listen to the album, which always exceeded our expectations. Then we’d discuss it, smoke some marijuana until nothing we said made any sense. But an album release was a hip happening of the highest order.

Of course, there are those that would argue that the massive proliferation of pot smoking during that time fueled the movement. I disagree! It would have happened anyway because of the natural pendulum movement from the conservative 1950s to the beatnik awakening in 1960, and then the hippie subculture of the mid-1960s through the mid 1970s. I call it the swinging pendulum paradox.

The entire counterculture movement revolved around the evolution of rock’s unshackled creative renaissance. It was the voice of change as resistance to the war in Vietnam began to heat up and morph into the angry Anti-Vietnam War movement. Men grew their hair long in protest. Even bankers and lawyers had Beatle bangs.

Today, the pervasive iPods connected to the ears of just about everyone has pushed music into quasi-background music. Now music has lost its significance at stimulating new ideas and become part of a person’s private environment. The music is readily available for download on iTunes. There is no album release anticipation.

The Internet is saturated with new music. Anyone with a guitar and a song can produce an album and launch it on the Internet. Granted some of those artists have achieved fame just from their popular Internet sites, but that is the exception not the rule.

Every kid in suburbia has his or her own garage band with an album. It’s a right of passage for teenagers. Get the kid a Stratocaster and an amp in one box for Christmas. (It’s true, I saw the Fender box set at George’s Music.) For bonafide talented songwriters, it’s almost impossible to get noticed in the din of unmitigated musical dung on the Internet.

For at least five years back in the 1990s, brainy college students figured out how to download music for free, ripping off artists for millions of dollars before these sites were shutdown and the punks sharing the stolen music were prosecuted.

In today’s world, established artists’ new albums do not go gold or platinum right away, and they depend on touring to make money. Of course, a handful of mega-stars’, like Bob Dylan, catalogues are still commercially active. Occasionally, one of his older albums goes gold or platinum from catalogue sales.

Country music is still living in the past of radio play driving hits and albums. Country music artists nurture their fans more than rock or pop artists to keep their place in the king of the mountain game. Country stars stay after their gigs to sign autographs and chat with their fans. However, in country music, staying around more than one album and to continue creating hit music is the trick to survival..

Lately, rock and pop artists have been writing music for films and television which is a lucrative market. It’s a way of staying in the game and making money. But for the millions of wannabe rock stars, it’s a jungle out there with little chance of making a name for yourself. If an aspiring musical artist can write hit songs, or have a sound that appeals to the alt-rock fans, then his or her work will speak for itself.