Headline, June15, 2013

'''FOUR SEASONS IN A DAY''' -

 ''A MUSICAL LICENSE TO ART''

What a song! If you haven't heard it, you have missed beyond comprehension!!  In the developing world -by and large- this is the level  of life and suffering!

But right up their at the philosophic level, You have to love the music industry, not least for its unerring ability to come up with the worst solution imaginable in any crises.

The problem of file sharing is undoubtedly a thorny one, for which it is difficult to work out an answer, but it's pretty clear that the one the music industry came up with  -treat your customers like criminals, drag parents into courts because their children have been downloading nursery rhymes etc  -was, without doubt as bad an idea as it is possible to have, creating as it did a vast sense of injustice and angry entitlement among the public.

That subsequently led them to view doing something that's essentially wrong as a matter of principle which must be defended to the very last. As a result, the music industry is, by its own account, facing something that looks suspiciously like doom. This sad state of affairs has caused it to get its thinking cap on again. What can it do to stave off imminent extinction?

Alas, some have come to the conclusion that it might be good idea to employ pop stars to run their own boutique labels. Universal Records has given Gary Barlow of Take That an Imprint called Future, on which he plans to release high classical music, which Island have gifted Amy Winehouse a label called Lioness. The latter seems particularly remarkable. Gary Barlow doesn't appear to know a great deal about classical music.

In fairness, however, you can see a certain logic behind the concept of letting a pop star run a record level. After all, they clearly know something about making a successful music, they move in circles when they come into contact with up-and-coming musicians, they bring with them a certain cachet of glamour and cool that your average record company executives cannot match. But there exists a vast amount of evidence to suggest, that when an artist runs their own record label, total chaos reigns.

As with so many things in rock and pop music, the template was set by the Beatles.These days Apple Records is a well-oiled money making machine which zealously guards the Beatles legacy via a series of selective. exquisitely done reissue packages. Alas, it was not ever thus. It began in 1968, when the most important band in the history of music were arguably at the very height of their powers, having just released the peerless White Album.

History, though, suggests the best one can hope for from an artist run label is weird kind of narcissism. All this is only going to prove that something John Lennon once said to Brian Epstein was right : ''We'll make the music.'' he snapped at his manager when the latter dared to make a suggestion about altering a song, ''and you stick to your percentages.'' As`Lennon was later to learn that sage advice cut both ways.

With respectful dedication to Simon Cowell and his entertainment empire.

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless