The magazine quotes studio engineer Gary Myerberg as saying: "There is no money in the recording music business. Thatâs basically like a flyer for your show. I donât think thereâs much hope for the recording industry in LA.
"If you want to go to the studio and spend $2000 a day, just take that and buy a laptop and a sample library or tell AI what song you want to make and itâll make it."
Guitar technician Jesse McInturff adds: "The need for a big room is pretty minor at this point. There are less and less rock bands and you could record Taylor Swift in a vocal booth the size of a closet."
. The actual article cited in the article above. It goes a little deeper.
. L.A. Recording Studio The Record Plant to Close After 50 Years
Obviously it depends on the type/genre of music, but as mentioned in the article, there are fewer traditional "rock" bands recording music these days - or at least they comprise a much smaller percentage of what's recorded nowadays. Still, for a lot of bands or artists who still use "traditional" recording methods, renting time in a large, expensive studio is prohibitive - it's historically been a kind of gatekeeper. I have a lot of friends who are musicians, and most of them still record with "live" instruments (guitar, drums, bass, keyboards, brass, etc.), but they usually do so in smaller studios - sometimes a basement or out-building of another musician with some past success in the business (e.g. Chris Stamey). Some of them, with better label-representation, do sometimes go to large studios though.
The magazine quotes studio engineer Gary Myerberg as saying: "There is no money in the recording music business. Thatâs basically like a flyer for your show. I donât think thereâs much hope for the recording industry in LA.
"If you want to go to the studio and spend $2000 a day, just take that and buy a laptop and a sample library or tell AI what song you want to make and itâll make it."
Guitar technician Jesse McInturff adds: "The need for a big room is pretty minor at this point. There are less and less rock bands and you could record Taylor Swift in a vocal booth the size of a closet."
. The actual article cited in the article above. It goes a little deeper.
. L.A. Recording Studio The Record Plant to Close After 50 Years
Rundgren recorded the âArenaâ album in his closet (and, of course, âSomething/Anythingâ in his living room).
St. Vincent makes her music on her laptop while on a flight.
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.
The magazine quotes studio engineer Gary Myerberg as saying: "There is no money in the recording music business. That’s basically like a flyer for your show. I don’t think there’s much hope for the recording industry in LA.
"If you want to go to the studio and spend $2000 a day, just take that and buy a laptop and a sample library or tell AI what song you want to make and it’ll make it."
Guitar technician Jesse McInturff adds: "The need for a big room is pretty minor at this point. There are less and less rock bands and you could record Taylor Swift in a vocal booth the size of a closet." . The actual article cited in the article above. It goes a little deeper. . L.A. Recording Studio The Record Plant to Close After 50 Years
Oh, WE (here) all know there's a lot of really cool stuff happening - because a lot of it shows up here, or in other smart 'radio' channels. My view on this is there's a lot more crap than cool stuff on the airwaves - and it drowns out the cool stuff. And/or the corp broadcaster can't be bothered to find & play the really cool stuff. Nearly every terrestrial radio stn in my metro plays crap (IMO !) or a loop tape of the great tunes from the 70's-80's-90's. And the indy stations ... completely depends on the DJ. From semi-good to dreck - each can be found in entire 2-3 hr semi-good or dreck segments, DJ dependent. I recall waking up often to utterly strange stuff (seems) like a moose endlessly huffing on an alpenhorn. Why is it played? Because it's an Alberta moose is why. Lunacy.
How people find consistently great new music on Spotify or other music services remains a mystery to me. He makes a great point about all the great classic artists of a genre (eg jazz) being available for $10.99/mo. If you know what you're looking for. How do the younger gens discover it? How do they discover modern jazz - eg Esperanza Spalding or Kurt Rosenwinkel?
Yep, in the old days we had Peel and Freed and Murray the K etc., now we have RP, KEXP, name your favorite, but you have to have someone curating what hits your ears, to some degree. I love digging through the bargain boxes or finding random stuff on youtube but {change of thought here} what makes us think older music was better is the shared experience we had when we discovered it. The kids have their curators too but I'm not paying attention.
Terrestrial radio is putting all their money into the idea that most people listen for 15 minutes max, never more than 2 hours. And I think that is probably true for me, I don't spend hours in the car and if I did, I'd be playing my phone or a book.
To quote the illustrious RP forum legend, physicsgenius, 90% of everything is crap. Yes I know it's not an original quote. Otherwise, I take issue with the whole premise of this video. No matter what style of music you like, I have to believe it's like drinking from a firehose right now for most music fans. Which is a point he makes: there's so much stuff out there, it's hard to catch everything. But there's a lot of really cool stuff happening.
Oh, WE (here) all know there's a lot of really cool stuff happening - because a lot of it shows up here, or in other smart 'radio' channels. My view on this is there's a lot more crap than cool stuff on the airwaves - and it drowns out the cool stuff. And/or the corp broadcaster can't be bothered to find & play the really cool stuff. Nearly every terrestrial radio stn in my metro plays crap (IMO !) or a loop tape of the great tunes from the 70's-80's-90's. And the indy stations ... completely depends on the DJ. From semi-good to dreck - each can be found in entire 2-3 hr semi-good or dreck segments, DJ dependent. I recall waking up often to utterly strange stuff (seems) like a moose endlessly huffing on an alpenhorn. Why is it played? Because it's an Alberta moose is why. Lunacy.
How people find consistently great new music on Spotify or other music services remains a mystery to me. He makes a great point about all the great classic artists of a genre (eg jazz) being available for $10.99/mo. If you know what you're looking for. How do the younger gens discover it? How do they discover modern jazz - eg Esperanza Spalding or Kurt Rosenwinkel?
Yeah. Explains why corp radio music playlists often suck hard with tunes that are uninteresting, repetitive, or just plain annoying.
Segment on drum tuning hits hard here with some of the nasty things I've heard in one of our best rooms.
Great vid. Worth a watch.
To quote the illustrious RP forum legend, physicsgenius, 90% of everything is crap. Yes I know it's not an original quote. Otherwise, I take issue with the whole premise of this video. No matter what style of music you like, I have to believe it's like drinking from a firehose right now for most music fans. Which is a point he makes: there's so much stuff out there, it's hard to catch everything. But there's a lot of really cool stuff happening.
Yeah. Explains why corp radio music playlists often suck hard (when they're not playing classics from decades ago) with tunes that are uninteresting, repetitive, or just plain annoying.
Segment on drum tuning and miking hits hard here with some of the nasty things (snare sounds!) I've heard in one of our best rooms.
Great vid. Worth a watch.
In this episode, I discuss the crisis in music in two acts:
Act I - Music is too Easy to Make
Act II - Music is too Easy to Consume
...and their cumulative negative effect.
Dude, I ain't even on your lawn! This is the sidewalk....
Declaring melody dead is a little premature. Or a little late; how would his criticism not apply to, say, this? Or, say, this? These pieces are all about the hook, repetitive, hypnotic. Hell, think of most drum musicâwhere it all started....
Melody may be out of fashion, but if that bothers you you're just listening to the wrong music. It's hardly dead, it's just not on the boom boxes at the beach...at the moment. Sooner or later someone will rediscover it and it will be the summer's big hit, the hottest trend.
I had seen that video a year or two ago; I guess that YouTuber was more interested in making a provocative click-bait title than actually proving his assertion - it worked: over 2 million views. Still, it's interesting stuff and he makes good points (while even pointing out that disregarding melody is nothing new in music), but declaring melody "dead" is more than premature - it's sentimental hyperbole, done for effect. At any time (like right now for example), the majority of the Top 100 songs on Billboard, iTunes, or wherever, are going to be songs which have some sort of clear melody. Sure, many of them are cliched melodic hooks or just really rudimentary, pentatonic-scale melodies, but they are melodies.
Melody may be out of fashion, but if that bothers you you're just listening to the wrong music.It's hardly dead, it's just not on the boom boxes at the beach...at the moment. Sooner or later someone will rediscover it and it will be the summer's big hit, the hottest trend.
Interesting and well done video. Thanks for sharing SirD.
A long time ago, my then girlfriend from Arizona and I were backpacking the Drakensberg mountains in the Kingdom of Lesotho. We were invited to a wedding ceremony by The Basutho people living in the hills a couple of days from the nearest road.
After a big keg or two of millet beer, along with some very fine locally grown Durban Poison, we were all dancing in the light of the kerosene lanterns in a dirt-floored thatched roof hut that was kept empty for the purpose.
Not much in the way of melody. I would not even call the shrill trills 'melodious' though the tone and sonic space they created were unique. The rhythm was great and the moment was sheer magic.
Dude, I ain't even on your lawn! This is the sidewalk.
Declaring melody dead is a little premature. Or a little late; how would his criticism not apply to, say, this?
Or, say, this?
These pieces are all about the hook, repetitive, hypnotic. Hell, think of most drum music—where it all started.
Melody may be out of fashion, but if that bothers you you're just listening to the wrong music. It's hardly dead, it's just not on the boom boxes at the beach...at the moment. Sooner or later someone will rediscover it and it will be the summer's big hit, the hottest trend.
I like his videos - they're very informative - he often makes good observations, and he's not afraid to be goofy and funny. Still, he knows that most of the rock or pop songs of the '60s, '70s, '80s, and beyond, used that same chord "vocabulary" he speaks of: usually some arrangement of the I, ii, IV, V, and vi chords. Even "classic" rockers like The Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc. very often worked in those conventions. Those conventions are centuries old - it's fundamental music theory (for Western music anyhow), but his point seems to be how he admires the artists who have deviated from them or used them as a starting point to explore other directions. Those deviations are usually more common in jazz than pop or rock genres. I know what he means though about much of the music these days - that so many artists are using the same chord sequences, at the same tempo, with the same sort of production techniques, etc... Part of it is that there is just a handful of writers and producers composing and producing most of the hit songs these days. For example: there is one composer who has written over 50 Top 40 hits since 1999 - for some of the biggest stars in the business. Rick Beato has made some recent videos where he checks out current Top Ten songs from Billboard, iTunes, etc. and breaks them down. He points out what he likes about some of them (especially ones that deviate from the formulaic approach) and ones he doesn't like he doesn't trash - he just says "That doesn't appeal to me" or something like that.
