The Worldwide Webb....

by hillary_step 7 Replies latest social entertainment

• 

  hillary_step

  Few serious musicians deny that Jimmy Webb is one of the most talented and consistent ?pop? songwriters of the past fifty years. He penned such classics as Glen Campbell ("By The Time I Get To Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman," "Galveston," "Where's The Playground, Susie"), Richard Harris (" MacArthur Park," "Didn't We"), the Fifth Dimension ("Up, Up and Away," "This Is Your Life"), The Brooklyn Bridge ("Worst That Could Happen"), Art Garfunkel ("All I Know"), Linda Ronstadt ("Easy For You To Say"), Joe Cocker ("The Moon's A Harsh Mistress") . These are the songs Webb is best known by, but he has built up a staggering body of work over thirty-five years. Many of his lesser played songs are his best, intimate and often strangely disturbing emotionally.

  Much to their fathers chagrin, his three sons have all entered the musical fray as songwriters. I was very interested to read his comments on the music industry of the C21st.

  "I would not recommend it at all," he says. "It's fifty percent harder to get a start today then it was in 1964. And that's optimistic. We as songwriters are in the same position as a professional fisherman. Our fishing grounds are kind of fished out. Three or four singers are not going to support a very large community of songwriters. We are in a moment of decision -- it's almost a crisis, in a way. We could lose a lot of the instinctive knowledge of things that had been handed down for generations. The kids don't seem to be too concerned about rules and regulations anymore. In fact, there seems to be an anarchistic movement among many young writers that says the less you know the better off you are. And the way one markets oneself in today's music business is very simple: one has to sing and one has to go out and get a hit record. And if there's anything harder than being a singer or a songwriter, it's being a singer/songwriter. When I was starting out, playlists weren't as tight as they are now. They were playing all kinds of different music at the same time. Now you're looking at markets that are very discreet. It's like segments of an orange. Record companies are faced with a real dilemma because they don't have a real broad-based listening audience like they used to. Record companies are in disarray. It's chaos. They don't know where to go. The industry is in a state of flux. The people who are making money are the ones who are writing and singing their own songs."

  My own experience suggests that Webb is spot on with his analysis of world music at the cross-roads. Serious music is, and argubaly has been for a couple of decades, becoming part of a 'niche' market and will, like a crag in a storm, protect its core values, but the mass ear will be cleverly tuned by Record Companies ( as ever seeking to appease their shareholders ) using overconfident and greedy teenagers as conduits of artistic mediocrity.

  God help us, a musical Armageddon approaches....lol

  HS
• 

  FlyingHighNow

  Hillary Step,

  I agree. Andy and I lament all the time over the mostly sound alike packaged product music cranked out by the music industry. Put Clear Channel into your search engine to read about the monopoly they are gaining here in the USA by buying out 100s of FM radio stations and controlling most of the tours of the singers, groups and musicians.

  We have discovered new artists or groups who are actually talented, not by radio but by Late Night Television Shows like David Letterman and Conan O'Brien as well as Saturday Night Live and then Austin City Limits that is shown on PBS here in the states.

  It seems to me like at least here in the USA they have turned the music industry into a cookie factory and the stars they try to sell us are just cookie cutter sound alike/look alikes. They crank them out a dime a dozen.

  And yes, you have strictly country radio stations, strictly hip hop ones, etc. etc. unlike the AM station in my town back in the 1960s that played Glen Campbell, The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, Tammy Wynette, Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass and Henry Mancini all in the same hour.

  Sigh.

  Heather
• 

  LDH

  Hello there Hillary!

  I hope you are well.

  My thoughts: sheep will always look for a shepherd, and the majority of humanity are followers and not leaders. The masses will continue to be exploited by music figureheads like Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears. They are the worker bees, Hillary. It's their destiny, LOL!

  You know how I feel about real music, and real musicians. I couldn't be happier that my kid listens to MUSIC, not the radio.

  I might just break down and get myself XM --isn't that satellite radio with 700 different channels? Does anyone have that? Like Heather, I love Austin City Limits.

  (By the way, she did get a gorgeous set of DW drums for Christmas. She is heavily into "Winter Drum Season" at high school now and her school will be going to the Nationals in San Diego in April. The last time her school had a drum line good enough to go to nationals was 10 years ago and they won. )

  Lisa

  "Still on the Line" Class
• 

  hillary_step

  Hello Lisa,

  Such a pleasure to see your post. Where have you been? Your little girl is still snaking the skins! That is great news Lisa. Much to their parents horror I bought Mrs. Step's niece ( fifteen ) a set of drums a couple of years ago and like your daughter she has taken to them naturally. Mind you her parents are not talking to me any more...lol

  Take care Lisa - HS
• 

  GinnyTosken

  I think it is easier these days to turn away from the cookie-cutter record industry and find the niche artists. I can listen to NPR's "All Songs Considered" any time I wish, can listen to samples of songs, read reviews online, and search for more information about the artists and their colleagues. It's also very easy to order directly from an artist. At least two cds that I purchased this past year were not available in stores.

  Perhaps this is not a musical Armageddon but more akin to the messiness in the nucleus of a cell before it divides and grows . . .

  Ginny
• 

  Seven

  Since the 80's a handful of companies have had a stranglehold on CD sales. There's the MTV monstrosity and Clear Channel dictating Top40, rock radio and the concert biz. Terminally greedy labels that have turned their backs on the 40 and over music fan(who accounts for half of all CD sales)who support the niche genres and "tightly programmed" radio has guaranteed certain styles and artists success at the expense of anyone fresh trying to make a break through.

  In the past, there were many ways to crack the biz: local radio stations, strong indie labels, regional clubs and promoters. Today, there are only a variety of separate-but-unequal circuits (alt-rock being the biggest) whose performers rarely break into the big time. (Of course, many of them don't want to, and some are major-label refugees with no intention of going back.) In erecting bulwarks around their domains, the major music businesses have left no entrance for the serendipity that kept the pop industry lively (and profitable) for decades. Yet the barbarians at those padlocked gates are the only people who can save the major labels' dwindling empires.-m.jenkins

  Ginny,

  Hello to another fan of All Songs Considered. Yes technology has left/is leaving the record companies out of the mix. I purchase nearly everything except some vintage vinyl online.Here's a net radio plaza for you to check out http://www.webradiolist.com/

  Hey HS,

  You wouldn't happen to have one of Jimmy's El Mirage's sitting around somewhere?

  Hi Lisa,

  Nice to see you around. :)
• 

  hillary_step

  Hello Ginny,

  I think it is easier these days to turn away from the cookie-cutter record industry and find the niche artists.

  That is certainly true, but it is not the niche artists unfortunately who are driving the industry forward, though it may be one day. They are satellites circling a planet which is so polluted that little creative musical life can exist unblighted for very long.

  It is this comment of made by Webb that to me is very telling and has all to do with what we leave behind.

  We are in a moment of decision -- it's almost a crisis, in a way. We could lose a lot of the instinctive knowledge of things that had been handed down for generations. The kids don't seem to be too concerned about rules and regulations anymore. In fact, there seems to be an anarchistic movement among many young writers that says the less you know the better off you are.

  The craft of songwriting is definately being impacted in a negative fashion by an industry which these days bears more resemblance to a lottery run by used car salesman, than it does a vehicle of artistic creation. Hopefully, as more musicians realize the value of self-promotion and small labels flourish, some rebalancing will occur. The alternative is Britney Spears in the White House....lol

  SevenOfNine,

  Strangely enough I have, but only in Vinyl. I will 'CD' it for you.

  Best regards to all - HS
• 

  wasasister

  Regards HS:

  An interesting read on the degredation of musical form is the book Digital Mantras:The Language of Abstract and Virtual Worlds, by Steven R. Holtzman. Although the book gets a bit preachy at times, the author suggests that after composers made a concerted effort to distance themselves from the structure and form of earlier works (such as using the "circle of fifths" for harmonics), music became rather chaotic.

  My own taste tends to agree, as I find much of the modern classical compositions from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to be discordant and annoying.

  A HUGE percentage of popular music played on the top 40 today consists of re-mixes or covers of earlier, classic R & B hits. Not much new being produced at all.

  I also agree with GT, in that with the advent of technology and the internet (thus your subject line ties in nicely), niche music is more and more accessible to those who appreciate it.

  Good taste and good music will never die out completely. Will there ever come a time when Bach, Mozart, Chopin, or Beethoven will not be heard?

  Wasa...not wanting to think about THAT