Re: [microsound] another satisfied customer

[Woody <woody@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 6/4/02 3:02 AM, <<< audi sensa >>> at 
audisensa@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> the recording industry is ALL about driving demand through 
spectacle and
> fetishization
> (desire)...the CDs they sell are merely widgets to shift in order to 
make
> money...in the throes of its current collapse they are mining the 
past 25
> years of music for fragments of melody/chord changes and 
repackaging it to
> kids growing up listening to their parents "classic rock" 
records...this
> subtle formula of subliminal "re-familiarization" or nostalgia is 
how they
> are making most of their money today

I think the more interesting question lies in how has the function of 
music changed and why?  It is too easy to moralize or demonize 
current listening trends.  The recording industry is one factor of 
many.  This type of approach also leads us away from this "us vs 
them" attitude.  

Historically, music functioned as a religious act, a ritual 
component, a method of oral history, and many others.  Why is it 
now background music to increase my purchasing ability?  Why 
does my brother buy all of the new releases at Tower and then turn 
around and sell most of them on half.com?  

I don't think marketing can be blamed for why people listen to 
music as background.  It does play into why music recordings are 
disposable commodities but again, this is too simple an analysis.

-Woody

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