Eclectic Company: Making It Big, or Maybe, Not At All

I had a couple of emails last week from artists seeking representation and investors, and that reminded me once again how sorry I feel for the would-be musical stars of today. It’s so hard to get noticed, it’s so hard to stand out from the crowd, that people are willing to grasp at anyone and anything that looks like a step up toward the brass ring of major label contracts, appearances on late night TV shows, and summer festival circuit headlining.

Even though the big music industry’s fragmentation and the proliferation of do-it-yourself recording and narrowcasting distribution options means that loads of kids (of all ages) get a chance to make their own music recordings as soon as they want to, at their own pace, and find their own audiences no matter how long that takes, there’s still a popular mentality that big is better and biggest is best. And those same proponents of that untruth perpetuated as conventional wisdom buy into the unspoken assumption that there’s a very small window of opportunity for getting on board the big biz train, so you’d better try your luck as fast as you can – whether or not you’re musically, emotionally, or business-savvy ready to do so. Which means there’re plenty of unready mediocre acts whose friends’ and families’ misplaced praise and encouragement sets them prancing onto American Idol auditions long before they’ve had a chance to season, to grow into their talents and to locate the musical style(s) that truly float their boats. That’s how come we get a gajillion Norah Jones and Justin Bieber wannabes for every Lady Gaga or Eminem – it’s far easier to imitate someone else’s easily copied style than it is to create your highly individualized own.

Back in what I like to think of as the good old days – which they really weren’t anyway, but we were young and naïve, so we thought we lived in the best of all possible times – it seemed that the big music industry allowed newly-signed acts the time and space to develop their sounds and their audiences, spending effort and resources on building careers for promising but still raw talents. That the time and space allowance began to speed up and shrink exponentially over about a five-year window in the 1970s somehow made little impression on us until it was too late. There had always been a pecking order of in-house ambitions for record companies’ stables of artists, with seemingly arbitrary decisions as to who should be famous and reach platinum record sales, and who should disappear quietly after one, two, or three disappointing releases. You could tell who were the favored by the way they were treated after their labels had reaped all the income they could from initial record sales. The favored were placed on tours opening for supremely famous acts, their records were pushed to radio station program managers for heavy rotation, and onto retailers at deep wholesale discounts, and any and all opportunities – no matter how pointless or inappropriate – were thrown at them in preference to offering those opportunities to other artists on the same label.

So what happened to the also-rans? The Flocks of Seagulls, the Irene Caras and the Husker Dus? Over time, they either quit the business, or, having been released from their big label contracts, stepped-down their ambitions and went low(ered)-profile with increasingly easy-to-make, indie or self-distributed records, and later, CDs and digital downloads, and found their loyal audiences in small venues or over the internet. They became the vanguard of the independent artist movement, and often its highest-profile players. This was especially true for cult heroes who’d been tapped for major labels to much peer and audience surprise, and then dropped when whatever had motivated the uptake had died down. It had always been true for artists whose musical styles were minority tastes, and now the also-rans joined the minority. Did that mean they hadn’t “made it”? What if I told you that some of them were able to make a fulltime living with their music? For 40 years? What if I told you that some of the big name artists the big business music industry gambled on, fell from favor, fell from sight, within five years? And that some of those too quit the business or stepped down their ambitions and followed the alternate independent route, and that their loyal audiences followed them into small clubs and onto fan websites, where they could continue to draw energy and applause?

The music industry has always been a collection of concentric circles of influence, of power, of finance, with outliers like traditional folk music, bluegrass and old-timey, performance art/music, modern classical purveyors and the like occupying an orbit that barely registers on the major music business’s radar, except when for an inexplicable fan-driven breakout moment, they reach a critical mass of concert ticket and CD sales that can’t be ignored. And then what happens to the artist who is implausibly the rage of a moment, and then just as suddenly, alone, on a stage, when the bright lights go out? The same thing that happens to those who were ushered into the limelight on the dollars spread like a magic carpet by the big music business interests, when their audiences move on to the next biggest thing.

So here we are, in Lake Charles, and small towns and cities all over the world, with kids (of all ages) dreaming their dreams of expressing themselves in music so exquisitely, so excitingly, so honestly, so well, that they draw in acolytes and fans in the multi-millions, and attract power and money in the big music industry – an industry that almost doesn’t exist anymore, except for its minor role in partnership with television, Hollywood, and international merchandising businesses. And here I am, bursting bubbles left and right, recommending that the kids (of all ages) make the long-term assessment now: Do they love it so much, are they so hooked on it, that they want to be playing music at barbecues and Mardi Gras balls, in local Holiday Inn lounges and at house concerts, when they’re in their 60s, or are they just giving superstardom a one-summer shot following high school graduation, planning to quit as soon as school starts in the Fall? Well, what’s it gonna be (mostly) boys (and girls)?