Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
The Rhetoric of Reaction
It's mutually assured destruction; it's the Cold War; it's a return to the Dark Ages. And yet, from my lit-crit perspective, the record execs epitomise the worst excesses of the Cold War Soviet Union.
What do we have? The collectivisation of the industry into ever-larger conglomerates. The transformation of music into "works for hire". The manufacture of artists to suit the demands of the execs for Product. The restriction of choice for consumers.
The new Clear Channel-SFX combine promises an unprecedented level of concentration in an industry that once thrived on the creative tension between radio programmers, concert promoters and artists. Clear Channel is taking over a company that has already destroyed the unspoken system of relationships and loyalties that long characterized the live music business. In the new world of one-stop concert production, booking agents have been castrated, already-successful bands are offered fantastic sums in return for centralized control and less well-known bands are left with fewer places to hone their sound.
Stalin's Five Year Plans had nothing on the A&R departments at the major labels.
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