We are now in the dawning of a new age which was unthinkable over ten years ago really. You can now download 333 copies of The House Of The Rising Sun (http://bitsnoop.com/333-houses-of-the-rising-sun-q3903820.html)  or if that doesn’t take your fancy someone else has collected 500 covers of Yesterday of, as he put it ‘varying quality’ Such amazing consolidation of music, whilst illegal, would have been inconceivable years ago – and also prohibitively expensive!  The wonders of modern technology!

 
Not only is there a conspiracy to get people to believe that Bob Marley performed a version of red red wine (discussed elsewhere on this site) – but not I see someone is trying to pass off that the Rolling Stones have done a cover of The House of the Rising Sun. http://www.metrolyrics.com/house-of-the-rising-sun-lyrics-rolling-stones.html (there are more links – I won’t paste them as well! It will on continue the problem. But the to compound the problem – some idiot on the net is spreading that it was a song originally done by the Doors!!

http://www.lyrics007.com/The%20Rolling%20Stones%20Lyrics/House%20Of%20The%20Rising%20Sun%20Lyrics.html

It's scary what may enter into 'fact'!

Some good news about music! Sales of digital ‘albums’ for the year of 2011 in the UK have already topped 21m copies  - and have beaten the 2010 total.

I was only just looking back and realised how much I have paid in the past for rare albums – sometimes of dubious legal validity. And sometimes it was only to get one track from the aforementioned …. overpriced …. album!  However that has all changed over the past decade. Songs are now easy to access as individuals - MP3’s and saved on a phone or computer, not vinyl or even CD! Newbies might find it hard to believe that things were, in the past, hard find let alone own and were often unofficial. Now it appears most copies that are out there are unofficial!

The excitement of tracking down a bootleg album at a record shop or fair is now lost. In the not too distant past one was grateful for whatever snippets of BBC sessions or video footage that could be squeezed, stolen, co-erced from the seemingly bottomless (and certainly always double-locked) vaults. Collections had a few rare bootleg lps; sometimes nicely packaged – other times sloppily put together in a hope that the music would do the talk (and walking out the ship!)  Often inappropriate in design, hugely expensive and tough to track down, these illicit LPs could often be scratchy, tinny and hissy as hell - but loveable and much loved because of it. They were exciting. Downloading and MP3 from an obscure site – while comparable is not the same. No complaints – getting the music and listening to it is what matters ….. 

Hopefully with regard to the record companies at least - this is the end of an age in which successful musicians and their managers, promoters and all hangers on will reap sickeningly disproportionate amounts of money thanks to what could be called simply a technological anomaly. It's a massive irregularity when historically being a minstrel musician was a low income occupation. It's only since music has been set to shellac and subsequently copyrighted that the successful ones have received such huge returns, and a large infrastructure has been built around it. Technology has now made this redundant and a few are clinging on to an obsolete way or business structure. Music was never designed to make money, it has only be adapted to do so and the money makers must adapt to continue to make some kind of a living. Music management and their crews need to find new, imaginative and practical ways that the public are willing to support either by pence or pounds.

Some would even say that “no one loses if a song is downloaded without a fee being paid. Sure, perhaps someone does not gain, but that is a lot different from someone suffering a loss. “ There is a strong argument to say that we are even regressing. Whilst it is true that the vast majority of ‘artists’ (eg. Painters, sculptors, photographers) seldom make a good living out of their works. Some sell ‘one offs’ for a nice amounts and perhaps that is where the future of music is heading with the box sets and nice packages like Elvis Costello’s new package.

 

I am amazed, stunned and not a little bit disappointed. Reading the paper today some randomer (who I probably should know – as they are clearly a celebrity of some kind) was asked what music they listened to. A reasonable and interesting question. The answer to which I always read even if I skim the rest of a feature or soundbite. They answered (as most people would) ‘Oh I listen to everything’. Which is a fine answer – and perhaps I am being too train spotty here - but then by way of example felt the need to say “…… JLS, One Direction and Mary Byrne.” as if this covered everything !! Wonderful. Absolutely fucking wonderful. There are millions of albums available out there – and thousands of new ones released every week. They range from the heaviest hardcore metal to the most minimalist classic music (that is not really the full range, but you get the idea) and instead we have been reduced to X factor pop wannabes capturing everything in the whole spectrum of music! What am I up against!

Was listening to Anais Mitchell’s Hadestown today – do yourself a favour. That is not really pushing the boat out – but it is better than the three mentioned above!!