Dear Neil:
I spent most of yesterday celebrating “Music’s Biggest Night†with a few thousand of my closest friends. As a member of the Recording Academy, it’s a singular thrill to be able to personally witness the hype machine ramp things up into frenzy of klieg lights and chaos.
But this year, moreso than the others, was it really music’s biggest night?
Here in the new music industry, the paradigm is shifting. There's a clear lack of synergy between the next-gen music makers and the major label gatekeepers. As a result, there's a clear lack of revenue caused by and resulting from illegal file-sharing by the disenfranchised youth movement. While some may claim a certain Luddite pretense by those in control of the industry, it's easier to claim...
Our industry, and our patience for hearing new music, is contracting. We're increasingly overtaxed/conditioned by technology so that if it doesn't come to us instantaneously, and stand out at the same time, we just move on. The act of musical discovery and exploration has been relegated to music purists who make up an increasingly small piece of the consumerist pie. So what's YOUR shtick? Why do...