French polymath Jacques Attali & the "Crisis of proliferation" 'drowning in music'

[Beef Oven!]

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34268474

[teamsaint]

has he been round your place having a look at your CD collection?

[Demetrius]

Like every Prophecy, that this came to pass was left up to chance. He didn't predict the way music would be spread over the internet. It seems that he supposed that the market would at some point become saturated with music; for that, the listeners would have to turn away almost completely from new releases and just keep on listening what's been around since the 60s to 90s. Thats not the case, new pop/punk/rock/rap/... music is still very successful. It also still generates a huge amounts of money for the music industry, despite illegal downloads. Today, music goes viral and you then cash in via merchandize, insanely profitable concert tours, advertising etc.

Whether 3D-printing will really become a Star Trek like allround-replicator hinges on a lot of things - most of all the cost: if it costs me 15 $/Euro/Pound/etc to print me a mug, and 10 to just order it or buy it in the store next door, it won't happen. You also need your 3-D equivalent to ink - if you want ceramics, than that gets a teeny bit complicated.

Every visionary looks at the big picture. As there is no big picture, the tepid mass of details and conflicting forces that is reality regularly produces results that either don't come close to what the visionary "foresaw" or otherwise come close due to mechanics that widely differ from the reasoning the visionary employed.

[Lat-Literal]

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34268474

Not sure that I want to go there as economics is not my strongest point. However, I am wary of someone who has the label of a "prophet" in areas such as these. In 1976, album sales were enormous on account of a deliberate policy of market segregation. The "kids" - single and salaried given limited opportunities for higher education - had bought into rock n roll, Tamla Motown and later, in something of a haze, Haight-Ashbury. Only the latter really straddled the single and the album in what was the first Summer of Love. As early as 1970-1971, the industry was asking what changes would be needed when "everyone" moved on to dining room furniture and nappies. One of the answers was giving big promotion to the prematurely adult, if undeniably special, James Taylor on long-play. Another was throwing most things apart from the kitchen sink into selling the more advanced Carole King who had a glorious tapestry for thirty somethings to contemplate as they mused on the pluses and minuses of being grown up. The new teens still "did" a few 45s before progressing more rapidly onto LPs, one irony being that they were being led by an industry that was more strategic than the Pied Piper. Note here the absence of classical music. Your link is essentially about sales. Anyhow, by the mid-1970s the principal difference between the "pop" generations was that adolescents enjoyed discovering LP rarities which, given that they tend to flock, inevitably meant that a lot of those became massive selling "cult classics". The "oldies" opted for something more tried and tested and were narrower still. This is not to denigrate the music or those who were its consumers. Some of the finest popular music of all time was made in the 1970s and there is a strong case to put forward that it was the most extraordinary decade for popular music. The range of music that was accessible in the mainstream seemed considerable, not least because of a reasonably healthy and diverse singles chart that puts anything after the mid-late 1980s to shame. But to some extent it was an illusion because so much fell by the wayside. It really took the blossoming of compact disc to remind anyone who was interested there had ever been a Link Wray, a Nick Drake, an Arthur Lee and Love; even a Gil Scott-Heron.

When Attali wrote his book - in 1976 - and the industry was so big it was surely epitomized by the sheer number of trucks and jets required to ferry its superstars from one concert hall to the next, record executives in Canada, Germany and elsewhere were worrying more than celebrating. Perhaps that is a requirement of those types but it had not been quite the easy ride the figures suggested. The oil crisis hadn't prevented increasing sales but given that oil was needed for vinyl there were significant issues about how to meet the demand. It could hardly be said such a dilemma was the worst sort of headache in the world but in a strange way it morphed into more significant worries about piracy. It wasn't so much the bootleg as time moved on but the cassette tape. The damn thing had the visionary powers of anticipating that Napster and Spotify were on the horizon. People seemed in a half baked way to want to do whatever they liked. Record sales dropped so that in 1980 questions could be asked in serious broadsheets across the United States about whether "Tusk" could "save music" in view of the incredible appeal of "Rumours" a few years earlier. Clearly teenagers were not uppermost in minds in the boardrooms which - as every new generation is the future of consumption - suggested that loss had been accepted without battle. Those of us with a mind to listen to Malcolm McLaren rather than immediately switching off from him may romanticize 1977's cultural re-invigoration - and to hell with the commercial consequences - until being eased out of our bath chairs. The truth of it is that he had more than one eye on sales and yet in financial terms punks were an irrelevance compared with the disco crowd. They made the album an anachronism and sent the money people with a taste for triple albums into an all-over-the-place "how can we deal with this?" jelly-like whirl. The solution, while temporary, was simple. The Bee Gees became "Saturday Night Fever", "Saturday Night Fever" was inserted into Abba and it was accepted that Brian Wilson would stay in his sandpit until Eugene Landy turned up with sufficient powers of prophecy to see that he could, when well, be re-marketed. That itself would not be a game changer but it would sit comfortably in a new era where both punk and disco could be perceived as having been short-lived trends. The new way was to facilitate a climate in which the discerning purchaser would be very open to any good sell.

Trends continued to "happen" for some years. They had some clout just as "Tusk" was not by any means an absolute disaster but what is most striking about the 1980s is "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. Not only was it his last great record or his first bad one depending on personal outlook but it established a pattern in which it hardly mattered what breadth of music was on offer. As long as you were Michael or Phil Collins or Lionel Richie and shifting shed loads, music was apparently of huge value. Given how the CD provided a fillip just as that notion could be brought into question, it wasn't until the late 1990s that sales really began to tumble. Time to introduce Napster which was pirate ish from the outset and by 2002 determined in law to be the aural equivalent of bin Laden. An accommodation ultimately followed because of You Tube and I Tunes and Spotify and the futility of being King Canute, however many record labels you might own personally. The key issue, I guess, is whether it is billions of units of "Hello! I Must Be Going" which represents a "drowning in music" or the opportunity to hear most things ever recorded by Don Cherry, Diblo Dibala, Dowland and Dohnanyi or for that matter Deniece Williams. I am in no doubt that not even M Lamar Keene could have predicted these developments and Friedman wouldn't have been able to say how it was going to impact on the long-term value of music if at all.

Easy access to the broadest range of music is a concept which is a "counteract" by definition. That is, what is lost commercially with the former can to an extent be addressed by the latter on the grounds that some will be grateful for free lunches while others will be inclined to spend, spend, spend the more they know. It is, though, accepted that there is most to lose in the mainstream and that it is in the mainstream where sales matter most. While ten year olds will buy into the latest boy or girl band, believing that whoever is in those acts is essentially in a relationship with them, the 16-18 brigade have their own partners but are not quite at the stage of wanting artistic looking soundscapes on their walls. The latter, therefore, will see the internet as a way of getting the latest dance track off the back of a lorry without any risk of prosecution. It hardly matters what it looks like in its solid form. Does that matter? Everyone gets older, change occurs quickly and even when it comes to 30 year olds, few in 39 or 40 years time will need to claim that they were uniquely right in their musical outlook in 2015. What I think really concerns industry types today is that there is no identifiable grass roots novelty which they can latch onto and then control. But then they have only got themselves to blame for being followers rather than leaders in an era when it is technological trends that are chic, people dance to their wallets in the streets, no one has the time to rock around the clock and the antiquated philosophy in big business is often so zombie like it can no longer sink its teeth into anything.

[Beef Oven!]

Not sure that I want to go there as economics is not my strongest point. However, I am wary of someone who has the label of a"prophet" in areas such as these. In 1976, album sales were enormous on account of a deliberate strategy of market segregation. The "kids" - single and salaried given limited opportunities for higher education - had bought into rock n roll, Tamla Motown and later, in something of a haze, Haight-Ashbury. Only the latter really straddled the single and the album in what was the first Summer of Love. As early as 1970-1971, the industry was asking what changes would be needed when "everyone" moved on to dining room furniture and nappies. One of the answers was giving big promotion to the prematurely adult, if undeniably special, James Taylor on long-play. Another was throwing most things apart from the kitchen sink into selling the more advanced Carole King who had a glorious tapestry for thirty somethings to contemplate as they mused on the pluses and minuses of being grown up. The new teens still "did" a few 45s before progressing more rapidly onto LPs, one irony being that they were being led by an industry that was more strategic than the Pied Piper. Note here the absence of classical music. Your link is essentially about sales. Anyhow, by the mid-1970s the principal difference between the "pop" generations was that adolescents enjoyed discovering LP rarities which, given that they tend to flock, inevitably meant that a lot of those became massive selling "cult classics". The "oldies" opted for something more tried and tested and were narrower still. This is not to denigrate the music or those who were its consumers. Some of the finest popular music of all time was made in the 1970s and there is a strong case to put forward that it was the most extraordinary decade for popular music. The range of music that was accessible in the mainstream seemed considerable, not least because of a reasonably healthy and diverse singles chart that puts anything after the mid-late 1980s to shame. But to some extent it was an illusion because so much fell by the wayside. It really took the blossoming of compact disc to remind anyone who was interested there had ever been a Link Wray, a Nick Drake, an Arthur Lee and Love; even a Gil Scott-Heron.

In 1976 when Attali wrote his book and the industry was so big it was surely epitomized by the sheer number of trucks and jets required to ferry its superstars from one concert hall to the next, record executives in Canada, Germany and elsewhere were worrying rather than celebrating. Perhaps that is a requirement of such types but it had not been quite the easy ride the figures suggested. The oil crisis hadn't prevented increasing sales but given that oil was needed for vinyl there were significant issues about how to meet the demand. It could hardly be said such a dilemma was the worst sort of headache in the world but in a strange way it morphed into more significant worries about piracy. It wasn't so much the bootleg as time moved on but the cassette tape. The damn thing had the visionary powers of anticipating that Napster and Spotify were on the horizon. People seemed in a half baked way to want to do whatever they liked. Record sales tumbled so that in 1980 questions could be asked in serious broadsheets across the United States about whether "Tusk" could "save music" in view of the incredible appeal of "Rumours" a few years earlier. Clearly teenagers were not uppermost in minds in the boardrooms which - as every new generation is the future of consumption - suggested that loss had been accepted without battle. Those of us with a mind to listen to Malcolm McLaren rather than immediately switching off from him may romanticize 1977's cultural re-invigoration - and to hell with the commercial consequences - until being eased out of our bath chairs. The truth of it is that he had more than one eye on sales and yet in financial terms punks were an irrelevance compared with the disco crowd. They made the album an anachronism and sent the money people with a taste for triple albums into an all-over-the-place "how can we deal with this?" jelly-like whirl. The solution, while temporary, was simple. The Bee Gees became "Saturday Night Fever", "Saturday Night Fever" was inserted into Abba and it was accepted that Brian Wilson would stay in his sandpit until Eugene Landy turned up with sufficient powers of prophecy to see that he could when well be re-marketed. That of itself would not be a game changer but it would sit comfortably in a new era where both punk and disco could be perceived as having been short-lived trends. The new way was to facilitate a climate in which the discerning purchaser would be very open to any good sell.

Trends continued to "happen" for some years. They had some clout just as "Tusk" was not by any means an absolute disaster but what is most striking about the 1980s is "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. Not only was it his last great record or his first bad one depending on personal outlook but it established a pattern in which it hardly mattered what breadth of music was on offer. As long as you were Michael or Phil Collins or Lionel Richie and shifting shed loads, music was apparently of huge value. Given how the CD provided a fillip just as that notion could be brought into question, it wasn't until the late 1990s that sales really began to tumble. Time to introduce Napster which was pirate ish from the outset and by 2002 determined in law to be the aural equivalent of bin Laden. An accommodation ultimately followed because of You Tube and I Tunes and Spotify and the futility of being King Canute, however many record labels you might own personally. The key issue, I guess, is whether it is billions of units of "Hello! I Must Be Going" which represents a "drowning in music" or the opportunity to hear most things ever recorded by by Don Cherry, Diblo Dibala, Dowland and Dohnanyi or for that matter Deniece Williams. I am in no doubt at all that not even M Lamar Keene could have predicted these developments and Friedman wouldn't have been able to say how it would impact on the long-term value of music if at all.

Easy access to the broadest range of music is a concept which is a "counteract" by definition. That is, what is lost commercially with the former can to an extent be addressed by the latter on the grounds that some will be grateful for free lunches while others will be inclined to spend, spend, spend the more they know. It is, though, accepted that there is most to lose in the mainstream and that it is in the mainstream where sales matter most. While ten year olds will buy into the latest boy or girl band, believing that whoever is in those acts is essentially in a relationship with them, the 16-18 brigade have their own partners but are not quite at the stage of wanting artistic looking soundscapes on their walls. The latter, therefore, will see the internet as a way of getting the latest dance track off the back of a lorry without any risk of prosecution. It hardly matters what it looks like in its solid form. Does that matter? Everyone gets older, change occurs quickly and even when it comes to 30 year olds, few in 39 or 40 years time will need to claim that they were uniquely right in their musical outlook in 2015. What I think really concerns industry types today is that there is no identifiable grass roots novelty which they can latch onto and then control. But then they have only got themselves to blame for being followers rather than leaders in an era when it is technological trends that are chic, people dance to their wallets in the streets, no one has the time to rock around the clock and the antiquated philosophy in big business is often so zombie like it can no longer sink its teeth into anything.

Yes

[Lat-Literal]

Yes