Control in the Music Industry

Control in the Music Industry

When the Second World War ended, a new form of music gripped the world in an expression of sheer joy and endless happy energy replacing the seemingly reserved music of the past…Rock & Roll was born and with it, an industry that would cater to the wishes of the population and then later, control an art form and kill the voice of a young generation, thus destroying the art form and freedom of expression.

After enduring an “Economic Depression” and then a “World War”, America experienced a revolution in new inventions and an economic windfall brought on by the ravages of War and the demand for rebuilding Europe. North America’s infrastructure was virtually unscathed by the Second World War, so economic prosperity was exponential. Prosperity reflected the mood of the people; it was the Golden Age in the USA.

What Happened?

As an amateur musician, former concertgoer, and former DJ, in my youth, I can tell you that concert's, before the great collusion of 1985 / 86, were meant to promote the artist and album sales.

D.J’s that played the artists music over the radio, regardless of the label, also promoted concerts. The public could also buy singles in the 45-rpm format that cost about $1.00 to $2.00 per tune. The smaller record labels made their money with single cuts where the larger labels pushed the artist to make albums.

The artist received money for their music from the record company based on sales of their albums. The artist also received revenue with tours, T-shirts and a portion of the vending sales at the venue.

Concerts cost a whopping $7.00 per ticket in the 1970's. That amounted to about 2 hours of minimum wage back in those days. In today’s concert world, ticket prices vary from $50.00 to $300.00, depending on the artist performing. Now THAT is inflation!

Before CD's; if a big record label did not like an artist, the artist had the option of going to a smaller recording label. There were hundreds if not thousands of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_record_labels A great deal of popular artists started on small labels, but once the artist became popular by radio and requested airplay by its listeners, the larger labels stole the artists away with fat contracts. They were offers that the artist could not refuse, but also hidden in the fine print of the contract was a production headache for the artist, and the systematic killing of an art form. The possibility of “Large payoffs” to the artist that the smaller labels could not compete with kept the small record companies small and out of the loop.

Visions of Total Control:

Control of the music industry began when the top companies went into collusion in 1985 / 1986 to limit the freedom of speech that musicians expressed in their songs. They (Warner, Universal, EMI, BMG, Sony, Polygram & Friends) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry used a new form of technology at that time, (Compact Disc's) to kill all the small labels and dictate what was to be recorded or rerecorded onto CD.

The small record label remained small and then died when, over a six-month period; the big five record labels announced a changeover to CD's...(they made the announcement at the same time.) Once the bombshell announcement was broadcast, the big 5 or 6 companies had a field day of buying up all the little labels. I believe the phrase is, “Like shooting fish in a barrel”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_label

The next step was to buy up the Radio stations and syndicate their Top 40 list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_syndication It is not surprising to me that the same conglomerates were at work here.

To gain control of a large diverse Industry, a new technology was needed to kill off the small record labels, while controlling artistic freedom and the people’s voice. CD’s, and radio syndication provided the answers these C.F.R. members needed. After all, music had a huge effect on people that gave the younger generation a voice. A voice that grew in power by the number of radio listeners…this worried the power elite, because they were in jeopardy of loosing control over the people.


Freedom of Speech:

Human protest is generally reflected through music, so controlling the art form was the Council of Foreign Relations (C.F.R.) ultimate goal...no more “War Protest Music”, or any kind of protest music...the one thing they did not anticipate was the internet, file sharing and Napster. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster

Napster brought music back to the people; the old Vinyl was digitized and available once again for everyone. In my opinion, downloading a song from the internet is no different than using a cassette tape to record from the radio like we did back in the 70's and 80's. I have no problem with it, in fact I recommend it and argue in defence of it. Selling it is illegal, not downloading it. Music should not be controlled by a corporate few.

At any rate, it was a convenient way for the large labels to end the free speech movement in music by embracing a new, and very expensive technology at that time. Before the collusion, records cost between $5.00 and $7.00. The cost of CD's...$25.00...profit was also the goal.

What this all amounts too are control and censorship of an industry where decisions made on who is good and who is not were dictated by a very small group of people. What the music industry then put out was a controlled art form. New artist’s no longer had a way to showcase their music to a large audience, because pop radio was bought up and forced to play the big record companies top 40 hits. The peoples voice was silenced, and corporations became larger. You might question why the names of the big corporations are members of the “Counsel on Foreign Relations” or CFR, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_Foreign_Relations not I. Control is what they want, control of everything you do, see, hear, speak, and feel. Welcome to the age of big mother…

Stewart
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