Soulflower

Oh and blackdragon, thanks for your opinions!

blackdragon123

no worries!

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Balto91

......I care about the industry and where its going. If you ask me, ever since especially when Lady Gaga came out it has gone to (thumbs down, raspberries). Ever since LG's arrival, you've had Kesha, Katy Perry, Lorde, all copycats copying mediocre sounds (I almost stopped using Roland keyboards after Roland began endorsing LG).

They say everything comes back in style eventually. I believe we are beginning to see this in music. With the 80's how everything was dance pop oriented (e.g. Michael Jackson) Same goes for the vinyls, even new ones. So I believe the Lady Gaga/Beyonce thing we're seeing is a nowadays Madonna thing going on. The problem that exits that didn't exist in the 80's is the technology. When Madonna was out, what was king was the Roland Juno's and NES. Fast forward almost 30 years later, now we have so many more dance friendly products (e.g. Ableton, Propellerhead), the dreaded autotuning and other computer friendly software/hardware I think getting out of the recreated 80's buzz might take some time. If we're lucky, we'll get another Nirvana/Offspring comeback.

Soulflower

Thanks for your perspectives!!!!

wedoitfortheloveofmusic

Plain and simple, it's because we buy their bullsh*t! The consumer has gotten lazy and accustomed to flashy, beautiful, mainstream, and whatever comes out of the radio. In addition and I say this generally speaking what I've seen with artists now a days is they are lazy. In the past there used to be a "barrier of entry," if you wanted to get into the music industry. You had to invest all this money into a professional studio, print a bunch of cds/tapes, book a bunch of shows, grease some wheels to get on the radio station. Now a days it's as simple as creating a social network page, a sound cloud page, and maybe a youtube channel and bam...you have a shot at the big leagues. Now a days, again generally speaking from what I've seen in the industry, artist complain about "hooking" up a recording session, "hooking" up instrumentals, "hooking" up a gig, but when it comes down to pay ah man can you work with me? 10 minutes later there at the strip club, popping bottles, showering women with dollar bills, and smoking on planet earth's finest greenery. So hopefully the point you're seeing through my somewhat confusing post is:

1) We are too lazy and unwilling to step out of our comfort zones as viewers and listeners(generally speaking)
2) The Barrier of Entry is so non existent that any and everyone thinks they're the next biggest thing making the industry so flooded with bs that it's much more difficult to find that jewel.
3) Artist are lazy and unwilling to invest in their craft (generally speaking)

Ninetales

yeah wow theres no barriers to entry in an industry that has an extremely high amount of entrants. uhhh

wedoitfortheloveofmusic

Ok I mispoke, no barrier of entry is not what I intended, what I intended was the barrier of entry is not as high as it once was. A "high number of entrants," sure is a barrier, but it's a weak one. You can overcome this barrier, without having to spend on dime of your hard earned money. Just by reading some books, performing some research online, and you can develop a marketing plan that would easily get you past a lot of the bs. Now whether or not you were talented...that's another story.

Janszoon

Gotten lazy? You say this like radio wasn't more dominant in the past than it is now.

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Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

wedoitfortheloveofmusic

No you're right, radio was definitely more dominant in the past then it is now. Although don't take that for granted. Radio is still the #1 way that artist, "blow" and is still extremely influential.

I'll try to clarify my point here. The initial question is, Why does the mainstream industry only want a select few to be popular?

At the end of the day it's a business. They'll do whatever makes them the most money. This trickles down from top to the bottom, each doing whatever makes them the most money. Personally its distasteful to only do things for money, maybe I'm a bit naive and that's another rabbit hole we can discuss later, but even with saying that you can't fault them for doing this. A company/industry is in the business to make money otherwise why else would they exist? A company/industry is driven by what their consumers want or believe they need. If you buy, subscribe, and listen to the bs then you're going to continue to receive that bs. The company/industry will continue to streamline their product in order to increase their profits. Thus, if we as consumers, show that we are content with listening to the same 3-4 artists on the radio, guess what they'll comply and they'll continue to streamline this process to make it more efficient. I mean think about maybe 10 years ago, you could listen to the radio and hear a myriad of different artists from different record labels albeit it would be those same artists over and over again. That has not changed for the reasons spoken above but at least you had variety. That has now diminished to 3-4 artists on repeat across all radio stations. I hadn't realized how bad this was until I took a road trip about a year ago from Miami to Kansas and literally heard the same 3-4 artists and 3-4 songs the whole trip back and forth.
So this is why I believe the consumer has gotten lazy. A company/industry would not do something if it didn't make them money. If a company/industry did not receive positive results when only pushing the same 3-4 artists and songs then they would not do it, plain and simple. If there were more people like us, who actively took a stance against this, then things would change but it starts with us the consumer.

Soulflower

Great points.

The industry forces people to accept these pop stars. The public is forced to accept these pop stars, not because the general public necessarily likes them but because these are the only pop stars the industry will market.

If this was the 80's or 90's a lot of these so called big pop stars would not even be as popular and that is the truth.

It is some type of industry agenda going on and I would like to know why because there are more interesting acts out there if the industry would market them.