Tuesday, November 25, 2003
TOT (Ooby Dooby) has a regular engaging habit of unearthing obscure and interesting links to music writing.
Like this fascinating online music history project.
This is the introduction to the topic:
"There is the history of the hits. Most books on rock music are histories of the hits. The charts decide, i.e. the masses decide. Marx would have loved it, except there is a catch: the masses tend to buy what is publicized by the media, which is what corporations pay money to publicize. Marketing decides the charts. Invest a few million dollars on me and even I, regardless of my musical talent, will break into the charts, i.e. will become part of "that" history of rock music. Most books on the subject are, in fact, books about the music industry. Very often, the profile of a musician is simply a list of her/his successes in the Billboard charts ("that album broke into the charts", "that album hit #5", "that album sold one million copies"). In other words, books on rock music tend to treat musicians like corporations or start-ups, judging them by their revenues, profits and marketing strategy.
Then there are national versions of the history of rock music. Italians have been more exposed to British music than American music. The Eagles and Creedence Clearwater Revival are hardly known, whereas the Moody Blues and David Bowie are almost household names. The history of rock music viewed from Italy is sharply different from the history of rock music viewed from, say, Boston."
(Thanks, T.O.T. for the holiday reading link)
¶ 11/25/2003 03:14:00 PM
Like this fascinating online music history project.
This is the introduction to the topic:
"There is the history of the hits. Most books on rock music are histories of the hits. The charts decide, i.e. the masses decide. Marx would have loved it, except there is a catch: the masses tend to buy what is publicized by the media, which is what corporations pay money to publicize. Marketing decides the charts. Invest a few million dollars on me and even I, regardless of my musical talent, will break into the charts, i.e. will become part of "that" history of rock music. Most books on the subject are, in fact, books about the music industry. Very often, the profile of a musician is simply a list of her/his successes in the Billboard charts ("that album broke into the charts", "that album hit #5", "that album sold one million copies"). In other words, books on rock music tend to treat musicians like corporations or start-ups, judging them by their revenues, profits and marketing strategy.
Then there are national versions of the history of rock music. Italians have been more exposed to British music than American music. The Eagles and Creedence Clearwater Revival are hardly known, whereas the Moody Blues and David Bowie are almost household names. The history of rock music viewed from Italy is sharply different from the history of rock music viewed from, say, Boston."
(Thanks, T.O.T. for the holiday reading link)
¶ 11/25/2003 03:14:00 PM
