You obviously care enough to make a couple stupid rants about it.
Yes, "former": Actually I got out of the business because my mother got cancer and my father got Alzheimer's disease. I spent fifteen years of solid, unremitting hell dealing with that. Music didn't seem that important.
Go ahead, genius, make some jokes about that.
If you think I'm gonna make jokes about it then you're an idiot. I am sorry about your parents. I know how it feels, and appreciate the hell you've been through.
However that does not excuse your bitter and "I am better than you, moron, twerp, blowhard" attitude.
The truth is, in my younger days, I HAVE practiced the piano for 4-8 hours every day, I have won many classical piano competitions, I have played live on KUSC radio here in Los Angeles, and yes, in the classical circles, I was "the one to watch" when it came to classical piano performance.
However, I didn't go further. As to the reasons, well, I had my reasons, but unlike you, I'm not gonna go and share my sappy story in hopes of getting some sympathy. Sure, I was depressed for a while, but got over it and made the best of what life offered me. Now I have a great career, that allows me to make a good living and support my family.
Go ahead and call me a loser if you want or a "moron", "blowhard"... whatever. Those comments say a lot more about you than they do about me
Concerning your post after this one, where you are describing the "perfect radio-worthy song"... Well....
ATTENTION BOYS AND GIRLS!!!
If your intention is to be able to top the radio charts, have millions of people listen to your music, then you will do best to listen to this man's advice.
So, yeah, what you say definitely is valid and I am not going to argue with that.
However, my disagreement with you, and many others (and not necessarily those on this board) is this whole attitude that "good music is the one that most people listen to", or sells. In other words, the one that has commercial success. There is a lot of good music that has absolutely no commercial value. There are entire genres that probably have a following of probably 10,000 on the entire earth. However, that doesn't stop some of this music or the artists that create them being great at what they do.
If all music was designed to make sure that it grabs the listener in 15 seconds or less, then we would be missing out on some great stuff. Again, there is music out there, great music, that is not going to appeal to the masses, and I am fine with that. So are many other people.
And yeah, you can call me a snob, and you will be right. I am a fuckin snob, and have an innate disdain for the masses. In fact I am appalled by the masses on a daily basis. Here's an example why:
Yesterday I was watching CNN, and they being the non-news agency, public shock and awe, get ratings bullshit that they are, they figured it was a news-worthy story to share that Senator McCain's daughter was being called a "slut" by some idiots on Twitter, because she took a picture of a book that she was reading. She was holding the book in her hand, and inadvertently took a picture of her (rather nice) cleavage showing through her tank-tops that she was wearing in her home, to be comfy... So, just because she wears tank-tops and shows a bit of a cleavage makes her a slut in the eye of the public (i.e. the masses), then yeah I really don't have much of an opinion of the overall intelligence level of the masses.
If that makes me a snob, then fine. In fact, I am proud of it!
Personally, I favor the type of music that requires active listening, rewards patience on the listener's part, requires them to be in a certain mindset before hitting that "play" button. 90% of this kind of music has absolutely no commercial value and will never reach silver, much less gold or platinum. However, if all you care about is the stuff that will make you wanna shake your booty, or make you wanna go "whoa" in the first 15 seconds, then you are missing out on a lot of great stuff out there.
I have mentioned a while ago that one of my favorites is Fennez. His music is an interesting mix of "Musique Concrete", noise and experimental electronica. Many of his stuff consists of slowly evolving soundscapes, and are probably best listened to while you are alone, laying down on the floor, in the dark, with your eyes shut, and allowing yourself to be completely immersed in his world. It will reward you in ways that no Celine Dion album will do (and yes, I like some of her stuff, go ahead and laugh).
So, yes I enjoy listening to the stuff that the masses don't listen to, and have never even heard of, and at the same time I cringe at most of the stuff that's on radio or TV.
I am a music snob AND proud of it.
I am going to go ahead and set myself up for a lot of criticism and likely to ridicule by people like you by presenting
Dispair (Water Torture). This is one of my tracks that I most certainly like, which has absolutely NO commercial value, exactly because it does the opposite of what you recommend for commercially viable recordings. However, I am proud of it because it accomplishes it's objectives, putting the listener in a scene where he/she feels like she's undergoing chinese water torture, sounds dellirous and if it puts you in a coma for about 3 minutes, even better, is a sound-design tour-de-force, is quite creative and unique and if you don't suffer from ADD, it rewards you with a nice surprise at the very end to snap you out of the coma that you are likely to be in by the end.
It is purposely designed to make the listener feel uneasy, and even irritated.
So, yeah... there is no commercial value there, it doesn't grab you from the first 15 seconds, it doesn't make you "feel good", doesn't put a smile on your face... on the contrary. In fact 90% of the population is gonna hate it. However, there are a number of lunatics such as myself that love to both create and listen to this kind of stuff, and we spend money to purchase music of this sort, and spend hours listening to it.
And before you go on and say "well you like it because you created it, so it must be good to your ears", I'll say that there is a ton of stuff on my hard drives that I would never ever let anyone else listen to, because they are utter shit, and the only reason I keep them around is because there are times, when I go and grab maybe some loop, pre-recorded track, sound effect or a hit from those... so, they are good as a musical "parts bin"
Finally, I DID say that I was all ears, and am willing to listen to any industry pro that is willing to share his knowledge. However your sour attitude is... well I don't care for it.
just for you sunshine
