Friday, August 23, 2002
The most beautiful environment, a tropical bay on a remote island and I am visiting the home of a friend. We go swimming in the bay, and the dolphins show up to swim with us, just as we had hoped they would do. But suddenly, there are too many dolphins surrounding us, they're everywhere, lots of them, and it feels a bit weird and confusing.
This is what I am reminded of when I happen to think of the sudden wash of compilations coming in on the marketplace surge. One or two might be fun and okay. I am also reminded that my attention and interest is not affected positively by huge numbers of record reviews in the same publication, some monthly magazines geared towards "music lovers" regularly publish 150-250 one paragraph reviews each issue. But this form of overabundance is how the music industry seems determined to market their product and can always manage to find writers write about it.
I dislike the current spate of compilations pretty much for the same reasons every one else does. There are simply too many of them and they deprive the writer (people like me) of anything significant to talk about. Unless, of course, I want to discuss the individual merits of different versions of the same songs, or the packaging, and so provide some minimal sort of social usefulness in the form of providing consumer service, especially should my comments be deemed benign or helpful to the company stuttering out the compilations, which is, of course, exactly how record companies intend people like me to act. What can I possibly say?
Most compilations because of changing technologies have been dickered about with, and then because there's the ability to do that, the temptation is strong to go on to alter, change, and freshen things up in other mysterious studio ways, and the thing can end up a charade, albeit a "hits charade" (a phrase invented by a much cleverer person than I). But this also acts as another way of betraying history.
Actually, I find these quickly reiterated compilations soon become nearly indistinguishable one from the other, and every bit as irritating as a browser glitch that keeps the same old spams popping into my mailbox over and over again. I can hit delete, delete, delete, but I can't really ignore them … these unasked for things keep taking up space, not just asking for but demanding my attention if only I am to rid myself of them.
Though I recognize that such releases are beneficial in keeping an artist's name in front of the public, just as the income that dribbles in is always welcome, such releases usually keep the artist and audience busy revisiting his creative history. Though if a musician has been around for a while, there's always the history thing asking to be tapped into, which could promise a bit more to consider, even write about, assuming there is any readership still willing to digest more than 150-250 words on any topic. There might be too many fish in the sea. I shout to my friend over the whitecaps, "How many compilations or best ofs do you own?"
¶ 8/23/2002 01:31:00 PM
This is what I am reminded of when I happen to think of the sudden wash of compilations coming in on the marketplace surge. One or two might be fun and okay. I am also reminded that my attention and interest is not affected positively by huge numbers of record reviews in the same publication, some monthly magazines geared towards "music lovers" regularly publish 150-250 one paragraph reviews each issue. But this form of overabundance is how the music industry seems determined to market their product and can always manage to find writers write about it.
I dislike the current spate of compilations pretty much for the same reasons every one else does. There are simply too many of them and they deprive the writer (people like me) of anything significant to talk about. Unless, of course, I want to discuss the individual merits of different versions of the same songs, or the packaging, and so provide some minimal sort of social usefulness in the form of providing consumer service, especially should my comments be deemed benign or helpful to the company stuttering out the compilations, which is, of course, exactly how record companies intend people like me to act. What can I possibly say?
Most compilations because of changing technologies have been dickered about with, and then because there's the ability to do that, the temptation is strong to go on to alter, change, and freshen things up in other mysterious studio ways, and the thing can end up a charade, albeit a "hits charade" (a phrase invented by a much cleverer person than I). But this also acts as another way of betraying history.
Actually, I find these quickly reiterated compilations soon become nearly indistinguishable one from the other, and every bit as irritating as a browser glitch that keeps the same old spams popping into my mailbox over and over again. I can hit delete, delete, delete, but I can't really ignore them … these unasked for things keep taking up space, not just asking for but demanding my attention if only I am to rid myself of them.
Though I recognize that such releases are beneficial in keeping an artist's name in front of the public, just as the income that dribbles in is always welcome, such releases usually keep the artist and audience busy revisiting his creative history. Though if a musician has been around for a while, there's always the history thing asking to be tapped into, which could promise a bit more to consider, even write about, assuming there is any readership still willing to digest more than 150-250 words on any topic. There might be too many fish in the sea. I shout to my friend over the whitecaps, "How many compilations or best ofs do you own?"
¶ 8/23/2002 01:31:00 PM
