h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Anyone who can remember the low points of the seventies can tell you that this manufactured music thing is just a cycle. The Osmonds (~shiver) and their ilk dominated the pre-punk era. The backlash came in the form of punk and new romantic music. This time around though, it'll be more difficult for that to happen, because the way that the record companies do business now means that artists like The Stranglers or Kraftwerk would find it far more difficult to get a contract today. I believe the backlash will happen just the same, whether through the internet or some other media, people will find good music and make it popular which will lead to the cycle of rip-offs and copying and manufacturing of bands all over again.

I quite agree - the experience of the past thirty years is surely indicative of the future of an industry that mercilessly cannibalises past successes to ensure future ones, until something genuinely popular emerges from the underground or indy labels. It happened with punk, and with grunge. Hip hop makes periodic brief forays into the popular spotlight but the wider listening public seems reluctant to embrace it wholesale. I see the trend of pop music as being an ever-tightening spiral of self-derivation, based on whatever has sold well in the past, until the vortex is broken by the intrusion of the genuinely popular external musical force. Then it all starts again.

That may sound as if I don't like pop, but it's quite the contrary. I really enjoy the rare appearance of an act which puts an original spin on a tested formula. Abba were the gods of pop music, using contemporary influences to create original and complex compositions.

An alternative counter-trend is that of the twenty-year cycle - pop in the '70's was heavily '50's derived; in the '80's we saw a lot of '60's references (but more so in fashion than music); in the '90's it was back to the '70's, particularly in the latter half of the '90's; can we expect the noughties to reference the '80's? If the return of the Flock of Seagulls hairdo on the catwalks is anything to go by, it seems like a sure thing. And if there's one thing record companies love, it's a sure thing.

Oh, the record companies LOVE a sure thing, but they also have an insatiable desire to appear to be innovative and ahead of the game.
There's a little man sat somewhere in the bunkers, paid to think about what the companies can best tap in to next...and if the current 'news' story is anything to go by, it going to Classical music. Witness the free publicity being given to 'Bond' at the moment, with such luminaries as Sir Thomas Allen bemoaning the loss of Classical musics' identity. They (Company? Media?) have even given it ANOTHER new title...Classical Pop! What next? Classic Grunge? Classical Power Pop? Post-Punk Classics(Limp Biskit play Mozart...)?
It maybe cyclical, but as long as there are back-catalogues to be plundered, the music industry will never be short of 'innovative' ideas.
Quote The Jam, "The people want what the people get..."
How true is that!?

The problem is that the public don't know what they want until they hear it.
You can create bands aimed at certain demographics, but they will have a very limited shelf life-Steps break up was inevitable, but they dodged the falling sales bullet by pre-empting their inevitable decline.
A lot of these forums seem to be obsessed by the idea that one type of music is inherently greater than another, simply because one type involves 'playing a real instrument' and another does not.
The fact of the matter is (and I know a number of professional musicians who will back me up on this) playing "rock and/or roll" simply ain't that difficult, if you are playing synth behind Atomic Kitten or guitar for Led Zeppelin.
As we appear to be at the beginning of yet another Numan revival (more lives than a cat, that boy), it's perhaps worth remembering that some of the best music of the last 25 years has been made by seemingly talentless goons.
As Eddy Grant once remarked;
'What's the argument. It's all rock and roll.'
Sit back, chill, relax and listen to whatever turns YOU on, and to hell in a handbasket with all the others.

But all these kid bands - wouldn't you say they're telling people they like it? I mean - what with the pop idol thing - who bought an album without hearing it on the radio first?

Mind you, when there were bands around (like Queen in the 70s and stuff... [waaaaay before I was born]) you could trust you actually liking what you heard before you heard it anywhere else..

Sometimes I wonder as My sister sings to her westlife albums whether she actually has an inkling inside her saying "Why am I singing this?! It's a load of balderdash!"

(Replace Balderdash with Gibbon juice, Donuts, Wilf or any word which will fit )

My guess is that she really does like it.
Why should she not. When your ten, it's very hard tio see thaAlien Ant farm have a relavance to your life (or when you're 37 come to that...)
Kids like happy things they can sing along to and that their mates all like. They don't have the same hang ups as adolescents and twenty-somethings.

>>Kids like happy things they can sing along to..

So do women in their 30s!

Hey, it wasn't an exclusive remark.
I tend to like music on the sunny side of the street. I find all the testosterone and anger associated with bands like AAF and Linkin Park a little...suffocating.
Like being trapped in a lift with seven or eight very angry men.