Home -> Magazines -> Issues -> Articles in this issue -> View
Leader | |
Article from Recording Musician, March 1993 |
As the green shoots of economic recovery peek tentatively through the Paraquat-soaked soil of bureaucratic ineptitude, you might be tempted to question the stance taken by the British record industry. For many, this year's Brit awards might be the last straw, awards being handed out, with very few exceptions, to a very 'safe' bunch of established artists or to one-hit wonders whose closest brush with originality has been to do an 'own version' cover.
And it's not just we in the UK who have noticed the decline — the US touring circuit, once the breaking ground for new British bands, now sees the same tired faces doing the rounds with little sign of any new talent from the country that supposedly invented quality pop music. And this makes me both sad and angry, because I know that the talent is out there, and I know there's still a huge demand for good music.
From where I stand, it seems our record company executives have fallen from being the envy of the world for their foresight and imagination to the level of being yes-men to their own accountants. You only have to see the number of successful cover versions that stalk the charts to know that the whole business has stagnated — the only original material that seems to get any backing either comes from artists with a safe track record or from those making low-budget, disposable dance music. Don't get me wrong — there's nothing wrong with dance music as a form of musical expression, but unless some diversity and adventure is injected into British music, it's going to find itself on the ropes along with many of our other failing industries.
But what's to be done? For a start, the record companies could wake up to the demographic changes in our society and acknowledge that there is an expanding market of over-25s who are getting just a little tired of back-catalogue material being repackaged for CD. We don't want to be able to buy the same old stuff on DCC and MiniDisk — we just want more decent music in the first place. Organisations such as the British Record Producers' Guild are already acutely aware of the threat of this malaise both to music in the UK and to the livelihoods of those working in the music business. They are making a positive step in looking for genuinely new artists and musical styles they can promote, but until the companies with the real marketing power acknowledge the problem, I fear it will be a case of too little, too late. Are we really going to sit back until the Japanese decide they can manufacture our pop music just as easily as they can the majority of our musical instruments? On reflection, I think we probably are!
Editorial by Paul White
Next article in this issue:
mu:zines is the result of thousands of hours of effort, and will require many thousands more going forward to reach our goals of getting all this content online.
If you value this resource, you can support this project - it really helps!
New issues that have been donated or scanned for us this month.
All donations and support are gratefully appreciated - thank you.
Do you have any of these magazine issues?
If so, and you can donate, lend or scan them to help complete our archive, please get in touch via the Contribute page - thanks!