FISTFULAYENRock Lit Revisited
Just back from MIDEM where I had the chance to talk to lots of people about how the music industry “ain’t what it used to be”. Definitely interesting conversations, but I guess I’m wondering what days we’re wishing for…
I just finished The Mansion on The Hill (authored in 1998), which I should have read years ago but I’m glad I didn’t, it’s really interesting in the context of the bell curve the music industry is experiencing now. A key passage:
…During the years between Born to Run and Darkness on The Edge of Town, the record industry had experienced the greatest growth in its history. In 1975, Born to Run became the first album certified “platinum” for sales of one million copies. Within three years, rock albums by The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and Peter Frampton would each sell over ten million copies. And, like the labels, the concert business also grew in size and sophistication until it bore little resemblance to he psychedelic ballroom circuit of the late sixties. As early as 1971, rock’s shifting economics had led to the shuttering of many of the smaller rock venues like the Tea Party and the Fillmore East and West. And where they survived, they were no longer the apex of the circuit. The goal was now to play sports arenas.
The changes were particularly obvious in Boston, where Ray Riepen’s protege and successor, Don Law, had grown wealthy by transforming the loose underground scene into a legitimate, structured business. In 1971, he parlayed his job at the Tea Party and relationship with Frank Barsalona into the Don Law Company, which staged its first show at the 15,500-seat Boston Garden. By the end of the decade, Law’s dominance of the New England concert market was beyond challenge. From 1977 to 1980, the Garden presented seventy-six pop and rock concerts, and Law promoted all but three of them. Over the same period, he produced all but one of the forty-five pop shows at the 7,200-seat Cape Cod Coliseum. By 1981, his hegemony was such that the Massachusettes attorney general charged four of Law’s companies with violating the state’s antitrust act. Without admitting guilt, Law paid $20,000 and signed a five-year decree agreeing not to engage in what the Commonwealth characterized as monopolistic practices.
For the performers, the financial rewards were just as apparent and irresistible. In 1968, Premier had charged the Tea Party $1,250 for its first booking, a three-night stand by Procol Harum. Just eight years later, Premier’s top act, Peter Frampton, was paid $250,000 for one stadium show in Philadelphia.
Monetarily, the marriage of the music and the business was an extraordinary success. But artistically and socially, it was a complete reversal of the values that had spawned the music. The underground scene started in earnest when rock assumed the mantle of meaning and intent from folk music, and it was founded on a search for authenticity and an explicit rejection of consumerism and mainstream values. But the resonance and appeal of that message had proven broad enough to supply the impetus for a new business — and that business had taken on a life of its own. When Frank Barsalona and Dee Anthony preach professionalism and a respect for show business homilies, they nurtured a commercial star system that had nothing to do with the underground ideal. By the late seventies, they — the record companies — had succeeded to such an extent that the modern rock scene became the antithesis of what it had originally aspired to be. Jon Landau was correct in recognizing that rock was a business. The problem was that the music no longer drove the business, the business drove the music.
Now I’m sure I’ll get comments accusing me of being a romantic, aging independent music fan (guilty) and the book of hyperbole, but I ask you this: when were your favorite records from the 70s made, before or after the first platinum record in 1975? Ziggy Stardust and There’s A Riot Goin’ On or Frampton Comes Alive and Saturday Night Fever?
So now I’ve moved on to 1978′s Rock N Roll Is Here To Pay (recommended to me years ago by Jay Babcock but it’s unfortunately sat on my shelf unread until now) to try to get the POV from the middle of the late 70s boom. From the preface:
Rock music is the most important cultural expression in the United States today. For this generation it serves the funtion TV did for the last as the primary source of entertainment and values. Rock music, which accounts for more than 80 percent of all records and tapes sold, is also the core of a $2 billion business that dwarfs other entertainment industries. It is bigger business than the $600 million made in 1974 in professional sports, or the $1.6 billion in movie revenues.
The music industry is interwoven into the fabric of American business. Through their directorates and primary stockholders, record companies are linked into other corporations. Many record companies are directly owned by outside firms, or they are subsidiaries of large corporate conglomorates. The Allman Brothers, for example, are million-selling artists on the Capricorn label, distributed by Warner Brothers, which is part of the record division of Warner Communications. John Denver records for RCA Records, one division of a multinational corporation that markets more than 60,000 products and is tied to the United States military establishment, with more than several hundred million in defense contracts annually.
Keep that $2B number in mind as you lament the decline of the music business. Inflation-adjusted that’s about $6B, the estimated size of the digital music market in 2009.
Just fun for perspective, IMHO. I’m not really drawing any conclusions from it.
Speaking of, I’ve also been listening to all the Australian configurations of the early AC/DC records Brian Frank lent me (after we nerded out on our love for Bon Scott for two straight hours at a Topspin meetup one night, bumming out every other person who tried to talk to us that night). So rad. Thanks, Brian. “It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock N Roll)”, “Ain’t No Fun” (waitin round to be a millionaire), and Rock N Roll Singer are pretty perfect soundtracks to this reading.
Next up on the bed stand: Our Band Could Be Your Life… Other suggestions?
ian
minoruuuu wrote:
i read “mansion on the hill” a while ago and having only witnessed the “biz” since the late 80′s/early 90′s, i’ve always wondered how it became to be.
fast forward to now, the current occurences seem to make sense.
nice post, thanks!
Posted 23 Jan 2009 at 12:35 am ¶
astarr68 wrote:
I just can’t seem to bring myself to read most of those books on the music business, I find it like those self-help books and how-to-raise-kids books – just too many opinions that fly in the face of one another. I think most of my favorite records from the 70′s came post ’75 and part of the whole punk and post punk era, plus all the great reggae/dub/etc, much of which was coming through majors, or extremely large indies. I think boiling down the quality of music as a cause and effect between the growth of the industry is a pretty sweeping statement. I think art, and I count music as an art form, ebbs and flows, and you have these periods of great leaps followed by stagnations, for a multitude of reasons, too many to put into a comment.
I like to read more about the artists, than the business, OUR BAND is a great collection, you’ve probably already read them, but PLEASE KILL ME and Colin Escott’s bio on Hank Williams are great reads.
Posted 23 Jan 2009 at 1:26 am ¶
iancr wrote:
Hey Adam,
Please Kill Me is my favorite book, period. So good. I haven’t read the Hank bio. Will buy and check it out.
Those punk albums from the late 70s were a direct *reaction* to what is described in the first paragraph above.
So I disagree, recorded music has never existed without an economic context. The story in this post sticks out for me as an example of how big an effect it has, even inside a single artist.
What’s Fugazi without their idealistic context? Is it not related to “the business”?
ian
Posted 23 Jan 2009 at 7:57 am ¶
Adam Wexler wrote:
“When Frank Barsalona and Dee Anthony preach professionalism and a respect for show business homilies, they nurtured a commercial star system that had nothing to do with the underground ideal.”
Do you think we should we put the blame on those two for creating the 1-hit wonder system?
In regaards to the 2nd snippet…
If it matters at all, I do believe there’s been a revival of rock music of late, and we will continue to see this trend over the next decade…and that can only be a good thing for the music business considering the lifetime of rockers vs. top 40.
Posted 23 Jan 2009 at 8:33 am ¶
Paul Klump wrote:
Ian,
Very interesting read, and thanks for hipping me to “Mansion on the Hill, I’ve just added to my queue at my local library.
“Our Band Can Be Your Life” is a great read, a nice companion piece I’d suggest is a book that compiles a bunch of interviews that originally appeared in Punk Planet:
http://bit.ly/VrSuR
P
Posted 23 Jan 2009 at 9:32 am ¶
astarr68 wrote:
I don’t disagree that punk was a reaction to the overblown, prog, 20 minute chime solos of the 70s and processed cheese rock, but I think the business has always been about chasing the almighty dollar regardless the style. And the minute labels see money in any kind of style they chase it, which is pretty much any business 101. I don’t think I was trying to make the point that music and ingenuity in music can’t exist outside of business, if I did, I blame sleep deprivation, because I certainly don’t agree with that, and I should have all my Crass records taken from me immediately. I just think that the business amplifies what already exists and takes advantage of trends, sometimes to the benefit of music, and often times to the point of exhaustion and detriment. My point being, labels put out good shit and bad shit at all times. Hedging bets…
Posted 23 Jan 2009 at 2:25 pm ¶
iancr wrote:
I get what you mean, Adam.
I do think the exceptions to the rule have been the most interesting, though. Dischord and Matador, for example, I would argue have made money despite *not* chasing trends and the almighty dollar.
ian
Posted 23 Jan 2009 at 2:33 pm ¶
Jason Feinberg wrote:
I was going to chime in about punk being the response to the above, but looks like that’s already being discussed. I think it goes deeper than a genre, it touches on the balance between expression and profit. at the same time as the explosion of biz opps, there were artists then that cared more about expression than money, and that hasn’t changed to this day. the sections from that book just show me that the music business model has been evolving from the start and what we are seeing today is simply a continuation of that. we have more options than ever before to craft a model that makes sense, it’s just getting the masses (and those with the purse strings) to come on board that seems to be the struggle.
Posted 23 Jan 2009 at 4:13 pm ¶
astarr68 wrote:
Are we talking about making money or making good music? What is good music anyway? It’s all so relative – music is so driven by taste, what we think is interesting musically can be another persons fingernails on chalkboard. You should have seen the looks I would get from people when I would throw on a Melt Banana record in the office.
I tend to think the public dictates these trends as much as any companies do. I think you and I are part of the fringe that look at music as beyond plain entertainment , that we like our music to challenge us. Most people out there want the hollywood movie, home depot, vanilla, happy ending, not the arthouse film, Dwell, and exotic food. And more power to them, I think there is a place for it all, and I’ll support my decisions/tastes with a purchase, and I’m relieved that there are companies out there that like Dischord and Matador who operate with no care to chase trends and getting rich quick, who support the arts, but I think the public majority plays as much a role in the art out there as does the company. I BTW – I love these sorts of discussions…making me nostalgic for the Flipside/MMR letters section discussing ‘the scene’…
Another good read – Nick Kent THE DARK STUFF.
Posted 23 Jan 2009 at 4:37 pm ¶
bernie wrote:
Ian – Our Band Could Be Your Life is a good read. Also check out ‘Hit Men’:
http://www.amazon.com/Hit-Men-Brokers-Inside-Business/dp/0679730613
Posted 02 Feb 2009 at 12:33 am ¶
RC Lations wrote:
The Mansion On The Hill is a really great book. One of my favorites so far on the business.
If you’re looking for books on industry history, make sure you check out Rockonomics – it’ll give you some real strong background for Tin Pan Alley, PROs, and the rise of record labels in America.
Posted 02 Feb 2009 at 1:39 pm ¶