Fran, Yes, you're getting old. But don't worry, we all are.
I don't agree that, over the last decade, rock's creativity is running out of steam. If you're looking to near-monolithic bands (like U2 and R.E.M.), then it might seem that way. For both of these bands, their music is now better regarded as *product*: you won't see another *Joshua Tree* or * Document* from them. You need to look to the fringes of music for the really exciting stuff. The way I see it, there has never been a better or more creative time in music in my lifetime (some 31 years and counting). Previously, if you made music, you needed a record label to get it released. A team of people in suits spoonfed the masses a narrow and utterly homogenised selection of tunes and charged far too much money for it. These days, anyone can record a great song in GarageBand, then release it to the entire world in a couple of clicks. For the Nine Inch Nail's last album (which was free to download), they launched a remix website. Here people could download master files for the songs (to GarageBand, Logic, or Ableton) and rework them and share them with the community. And thousands of people have done exactly that. It's like open source music. I think there's an exciting new paradigm in music (the idea of non-ownership) with websites like Spotify. Last.fm is a thing of genius, connecting people to bands based on what they listen to. BBC 6Music has a radioshow called Introducing, which only plays unsigned bands which have put their songs up on MySpace et al. The iTunes store (love it or loathe it), has opened up the market to anyone: in a click, I can export my song from GarageBand or Logic and earn cash from it. Ian --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
