Music for a generation...
EMI will probably get evicted from the FTSE 100 on Sept 10th as their share price has been doing so badly recently. The reason? US CD shipments are down 7% in the first six months of 2002 and UK recorded music sales are down 15.4% in the three months to June. Oh, and Aaliyah's family are suing EMI's Virgin America label for negligence over planning the flight where she died last year.
So why are record sales down so much lately? Is home copying killing sales? Is internet piracy hitting profits? Or is it just that there is no good music around at the moment? I suspect the latter.
[rant on]
I can't remember the last time I got excited about buying a CD. Or the last time I queued on Day One to buy an album. Sure there have been some passable stuff over the past few years but nothing AMAZING. Nothing that really gets me all excited. Boys bands, manufactured bands, bland dance music, 80s groups reforming to afford to buy themselves a pension, homogenous sound-alike R&B records and excessive riff samples / cover versions have meant that we are in the poorest quality era of pop music in a generation.
The breakup of 5ive... The demise of my beloved Steps (sniff, sniff)... The passing of Boyzone... Let's be honest, who really gives a fuck? Not a semi-quaver of their music will last for posterity. And longevity is as good a measure as any other. I had the late 70s/early 80s as my era of music to grow up to - that rich time of diversity in pop music from soul to disco to punk to electronica. What will people remember of today's tripe. What has 2000/2001/2002 given us? Gareth Gates? Ha!
Where's the next big thing? Where's all the excitement gone in music? You tell me.
[/rant off]
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