12/27/2007
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(antiMusic) Since it is such a slow news day, we'll end the final Day in Rock report of the year with an editorial I wrote about the current state of the music business. - Keavin antiMusic editor.
I started antiMusic almost ten years ago with the crazy dream of using it to showcase quality music that was being ignored by the mainstream. The last thing I thought it would turn into was a chronicle of the demise of the music business. Where I once was an optimistic and passionate music lover, today I'm pretty cynical about the whole "business" of music where the very last consideration seems to be the music. I'm still passionate about music, but I have utter contempt for the entertainment business at large and its culture of mediocrity, trend mongering and lack of passion about what really should be important and that is the art.

A few years back, I wrote a couple of related editorials about this trend and how it has only grown over time. One piece dealt with how some of the biggest selling albums of all time came about by mistake because given the general operating procedures of the music business they would have never had a chance. I wrote about how the Beatles were turned down by every major record company of the day. Not once, but twice. Now, think about that for a minute. The people at the record companies that supposedly know the music business turned down The Beatles twice because they didn't think they could "market" them. It has only become worse since then. There is a good chance that a band that could be as revolutionary as the Beatles is sitting in a garage somewhere, playing pay-to-play gigs and getting ignored by the corporate record company machine and you'll never hear them because they don't sound just like everybody else or won't make good pin-ups for teen magazines.

The sad state of affairs at the end of 2007 is that our biggest selling music stars are coming from a television karaoke contest. Sure they are talented, but do they really bring anything new to the game? Or are they, by the very nature of how they achieved their fame, playing it safe and putting out music which is basically a Xerox of what has come before? Sure, some inspire real passion from their fans. Some fans go to the point of insane obsession but when you really look at it, it usually boils down the cult of personality over the love of their decent, but mostly forgettable and interchangeable, music.

The record companies are corporations in the business to make money. God bless them for that, but somewhere along the line they lost almost all focus of the fact that great music can and does sell. And the last thing that seems to be in their mind these days is creating long-term careers and instead they want to focus on cashing in on "what's hot" today; as they pass out pink slips to their employees when their latest signings received a lukewarm reception. It interesting that the first music business billionaire was David Geffen, a man that made a career of taking chances on what he thought was great music, even if it didn't exactly fit in with the flavor of the week. He pretty much took chances and as a result made the trends, didn't follow them.

Now let's take a little look at the problem with "flavors of the week". Tween girls used to go insane over people like Scott Baio, Leif Garrett and Shawn Cassidy (insert and teen idol/90210/The OC star name here) but that passion was short-lived. People get excited about Led Zeppelin reuniting decades past their heyday, but does anyone care what yesterday's teen idol is doing? Frankie Goes to Hollywood had two of the top five biggest selling songs in the UK during the 80s, but when was the last time you heard about them (aside from a punch line)? Or have you even heard of them at all? This is just one problem of historic focus on short-term fame and gain.

To illustrate that problem, here is a highlight of sales from just one year; 1989. A year that really started the downward trend in music. The biggest selling album in the US that year was from Bobby Brown. The only time we hear about him today is in relation to scandal and who he married. The second biggest seller was from New Kids On The Block and the third was from Paula Abdul. How many CDs are they selling today? Interestingly enough, the No. 5 biggest selling album that year shows us the other side of the coin; the long term. Two years after it was released, Guns N' Roses' 'Appetite for Destruction' was the fifth biggest selling album of the year. This was a band that definitely didn't fit any trend at the time (aside from being hard rock) but sonically they didn't sound like anyone else and they still standout as original today.

Remember the long term here because Appetite, over the long haul with 15 million copies sold in the U.S., has outsold all of the albums that topped the annual sales list of that era: 1987's biggest seller Bon Jovi's 'Slippery When Wet' (12 million), 1988's George Michael's 'Faith' (10 million) and of course 1989's Bobby Brown's 'Don't Be Cruel' (7 million). By the way, GNR were one of those acts that Geffen took a chance on and stuck with even when they didn't have immediate success. It actually took them a year to catch on. In today's music business they would have been dropped after a couple months without a hit. Then again, in today's business they would have never been given a record deal in the first place. We need more David Geffens and Tom Zutauts and fewer Jay-Zzzzs and Matt Pinheads.

Should we mention other top 5 sellers that have slipped into obscurity? MC Hammer, Wilson Phillips, C&C Music Factory, Michael Bolton, INXS, Billy Ray Cyrus, Ace of Base, Hootie and the Blowfish, Fugees and the list goes on.

To be fair, you always have trends and one hit wonders, but over the past ten years the trends have dominated because labels have lost focus on developing "career" artists that don't fit nicely into the mainstream or current trend. (Label consolidations hasn't helped). Just look at the top sales from 1999: Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Shania Twain, N Sync, and Ricky Martin. 2001 gave us Shaggy and Limp Bizkit (but the Beatles topped the list 22 years after they broke up). Will Shaggy, Britney or the Backstreet Boys top the charts in 2023? Can Limp Bizkit get into the Top 200 this year? 2002 sported Creed, Pink, and Nelly. This year gave us two American Idol alums, Akon, Fergie and a Disney tween star. Will any of these "stars" still be big ten or fifteen years from now or will they be on a Vh1 reality show?

It's real easy to point to outside elements as the cause of the decline in music sales. The biggest scapegoat is illegal downloaders. But even with all music practically out there for free, people still pay for music they believe in. The problem is the lack of interest in what is being offered. Sure you can pander to a "focused" group like pop fans who change with the season, kids with a parent's credit card and the current hip-hop flavor of the week, but the real passionate music fans are feeling left out and ignored by the major record companies and even the indies. It is to their own detriment to have such a narrow view and focus. That narrow view is leading to a narrower potential for profit and success. They only limit themselves with it. The next time these executives are looking over the Billboard singles chart they might want to glance at the Boxscore chart to see what the more dedicated fans are paying for. You know those fans that will spend a hundred bucks on a concert ticket without even thinking about it. When's the last time you focused on what they like? Ah but those are older acts they don't sell CDs any longer. Tell that to The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi.

A few years ago I was given a gift card to Tower Records. I excitedly went to the local store with my mind set on picking up a couple of albums that weren't chart toppers but did sell well (both platinum) and should still be in stock. Sadly, I went in and the racks were filled with the "current" trend titles and very few albums that dated even a couple years before. I couldn't find one album that I wanted to buy. I remember going to Tower just a few years previous and spending hours going through the racks and finding gems like rare imports, b-sides etc, but on this trip I had the choice of the current "hot" rapper, Britney Spears, boybands, rap-metal or banal pop-punk groups with singers that sound like they need to take a Benadryl. I ended up going to the video section and picking up some DVDs instead. But you see Tower became too focused on the current trends and ignored the diehard music loving customer base that was their bread and butter and Tower fell as a result. The irony is that the download excuse is used a lot but you're more likely to find a casual pop fan not willing to pay for music that they will toss aside when the next "hot" release comes along, than a diehard rock fan that will buy everything the band puts out. So by focusing on short term artists, the labels are in fact exacerbating the download problem and creating a long-term crisis which is coming to a head for them now.

This isn't just a problem for the major labels, as many of the indie labels seem to be playing the same game. We have labels devoted to sound-alike pop-punk/emo groups and a half a dozen putting out indistinguishable metalcore and mallcore bands. And the problem here is that even the indies don't seem to want to take a chance on anything remotely different from the current trends.

Now I want to be clear that there are a lot of great and dedicated people that work at these labels that really get behind their artists and do their best to help them succeed. I've worked with some incredible people through the years at both major and indie labels. When I fault the labels I do not fault these people. I find the blame lies much higher up the food-chain, but sadly when the Limp Bizkit hits the fan at the labels it is these dedicated employees that usually are shown the door, when the fault lies with the decision makers at those companies. It would be interesting to see what would happen if one of these employees took over. I hate to harp on David Geffen but he did start out in the mailroom and it was a secretary that found a photo and demo tape discarded in a trashcan by an A&R person that lead Geffen to signing the Eagles.

The overall problems of the current music business really crystallized for us here at antiMusic when it came time for our writers and contributors to turn in their picks for Album of the Year. A few of the writers outright said they couldn't in good conscience make a selection because nothing stood out this year. One writer even selected Guns N' Roses 'Chinese Democracy' as his pick as the leaked demos from the CD were the only thing that made an impression on him this year. While in past years we had writers that couldn't narrow down their lists, this year the drought of standout music really hit home where not one album stood out from the pack for some of them. And our writers listen to a lot of music. Be it major label stuff or obscure indie stuff that is sent to us. We've averaged over a hundred reviews a month, so it's not like they haven't been exposed to new releases this year. Our writers do this for their love of music and when you have a year where they weren't offered any music that they fell in love with; then something isn't right with that picture. (A few did find some worthy releases this year and we will post that list next week.)

In April we will mark our 10th anniversary. Like I said at the beginning of this piece, this site was started ten years ago with the crazy (and admiringly naive) dream of using it to showcase quality music that was being ignored by the mainstream. Now ten years later we have a problem because not only does the mainstream ignore quality music, the underground isn't doing much better and we don't have many quality releases to tell you about. It's discouraging to say the least, and to be honest, having failed at our fundamental mission we'll have to think long and hard in the coming months if we will wish to continue going down with the sinking ship that is the music business or just toss in the towel knowing we tried to make a difference but couldn't. The dream dies hard but sooner or later you need to realize you have been dreaming the impossible dream.

Slash talks new book, Velvet Revolver plans
By ED CONDRAN '¢ Correspondent '¢ December 28, 2007

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For someone who claims to suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder, the guitarist known as Slash is pretty focused and accomplished. While recording "Libertad," the second album from his hard-rock act Velvet Revolver, the musician wrote his first biography, "Slash," which was released in October.

"I wrote the book on the fly," said Slash, a.k.a. Saul Hudson, while calling from his Los Angeles home. "I took it very seriously. It wasn't easy doing it while we were making this record because I get a little distracted. I have a really short attention span, but I hammered it out."

One big reason Slash penned the bio was to address Guns N' Roses issues for the last time, he said.

"People never stop asking me questions about my former band," Slash said. "Now all of my answers are in that book."

In it, Slash is remarkably fair regarding his former foil, enigmatic singer Axl Rose.

"I had no intention of trashing Axl," Slash said. "That's the problem with a lot of these books. They're overwhelmingly negative. Axl is a genius. I wasn't about to attack his character."

So far, at least, there's been no fallout from the volatile Rose's camp.

"I haven't heard anything from Axl's people," Slash said. "I know he's read the book. A mutual friend told me. I haven't gotten any vicious messages or anything. I guess he's cool with it."

Slash is the only member of GNR who has released a biography. He said he doubts that Rose, who still is putting the finishing touches on the long-awaited album "Chinese Democracy," will write one, too.

"How long do you think it'll take him to do that?" Slash said while laughing. "I mean, it's taken over a decade for him to release his record. I don't think that he can release a book in our lifetime."

The current members of Velvet Revolver, who will perform Saturday at Trenton's Sovereign Bank Arena and Monday at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan, plan to write and record a third album in 2008.

"We want to keep the momentum going with this band," Slash said. "We want to get right back into the studio shortly after this tour ends."

Velvet Revolver, whose current members include singer Scott Weiland, bassist Duff McKagan, drummer Matt Sorum and guitarist Dave Kushner, continues to make solid, straightforward rock 'n' roll.

"I think you know what you'll get from us," Slash said. "We like to do things in a certain way. We all just connect well with each other. We fit perfectly, and that's key for this band. Guns N' Roses was pretty dysfunctional. This band functions. We all fit together."