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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!



Next article in this issue

Crosstalk


Publisher: Recording Musician - SOS Publications Ltd.
The contents of this magazine are re-published here with the kind permission of SOS Publications Ltd.


The current copyright owner/s of this content may differ from the originally published copyright notice.
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Recording Musician - Mar 1993

Donated & scanned by: Mike Gorman

Editorial by Paul White

Next article in this issue:

> Crosstalk


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