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EDITOR'S
RANTS
AND
RAVES |
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OK, HERE IS
WHERE IT COMES DOWN TO THE DIRT. WHERE WHAT I CONSIDER TO BE
THE TOP 4 MAJOR CONCERNS IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY WILL BE ADDRESSED AND
COMMENTED ON.
AND IF YOU
DON'T LIKE IT.........
KISS MY
A$$!!!!!!!!!
OK, WHAT WILL
BE ADDRESSED HERE?
1) THE
STATE OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY : AS IN WHO AND WHAT SHOULD DECIDE
WHAT IS ON TOP.
2) THE
ROLE OF MEDIA : MISCONCEPTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITY DUE TO MEDIA
DISTORTION
3) THE
MUSIC INDUSTRY AND IT'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS FANS AND
CONSUMERS.
4) THE
PARENT'S RESOURCE MUSIC CENTER : *cracks
knuckles*
THIS IS THE
BIGGIE, OPINIONS ON THEIR PURPOSE AND HOW IT REFLECTS ON THE
CONSUMERS/FANS. |
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THE STATE OF
TE MUSIC INDUSTRY:
Ok, my first
statement is this: Since when did a bunch of 12 year old, NOT
WORKING, children suddenly get into the position to decide who or
what in the hell is considered music?!
Yea they buy
cd's, but it's their parents money, and these parents are
buying into a fad! It suddenly seems as if the fact that those
of us who work our asses off, go out and buy the cd's WE decide on
have no say!! BULLSHIT!!! Now I'm not sayng a 12 year
old has no concept of music, I'm saying that it's rediculous for the
record industry to sit there and say that the opinion of a 12 year
old means
more that the
opinion of someone who is twice that age, who has been buying music
longer, and who have basically been around since the conception of
now shit stations such as MTV. Apparently MTV has forgotten
who made them so noticed, bands such as Poison, RATT, Queensryche,
and the such. MTV is, in my opinion the leaders of the fads
which bore those of us who have a sense of taste, who also have a
sense of reality as to what will be around and what will not.
The truth is in what concerts and bands are STILL around after 15-20
+ years, despite little orno airplay from the MTV's. The
reality is that MTV ignores most record sales, most requests, most
noticable concerts if they don't fall within the "Boyband" genre,
and let's face it, MTV ain't what it used to be! It's no where
near as good as it was! So those of us who don't buy into the rap
crap and teenie bopper push over, lollipop sucking phases are told
to shut up because we know nothing. Yea, right, they wish we
knew nothing. The reality is this: if you yourself are
not the one makin the money to buy the cd, YOUR OPINIONS SHOULD STAY
OPINIONS, after all, you don't make the money you spend, so
maybe you should be the one's to shut up and put up. These
parents are trying too hard to make their kids happy. There's
nothing wrong with a child not always getting what they want, and
maybe there would not so much emphasis placed on the temporary fads.
Just my opinions of course. |
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THE
ROLES THAT THE MEDIA PLAYS AND THE MISCONCEPTION IT CAN CAUSE
can
have terrible effects. Media sources these days are far to
quick to place links to terrible things, yet because it's on the
news, it therefore must be true.....right?? WRONG!!!!!!
Let's look at the facts shall we?? A teenager commits suicide,
and right away, the parents and those close to the family are very
quick, too quick, to blame the music, when it actuality, the music
has very little, if anything to dowith the situation. Music
has become the scapegoat, the source for blame when a parent would
rather NOT LOOK TOO CLOSELY AT THEMSELVES. Example: When
a teenager in the mid west deicided to commit suicide, it was blamed
on the fact he listened to Ozzy Osbourne. The song *Suicide
Solution* was then picked apart, and assumptions of lyrics and sound
effects were made, and if you get the right facist nut ball to pick
the song apart, the effect that does not in actuality say anything,
will be made out to be saying get the gun, shoot shoot shoot
shoot.
Reality is this, I have the CD, I've listened to the song
forwards AND backwards, and yes, I have a program on my computer
that allows me to do this, and I've never heard such words come off
that or any of Ozzy's songs. People choose what they want to hear,
but if they're not careful, that can and will come back on
them! Another instance of media misconduct, an AC/DC concert
in which several teens were killed due to poor seating
arrangments. EXCUSE THE HELL OUT OF ME, BUT SINCE WHEN DOES
THE BAND
SUDDENLY BECOME RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS WHEN IT'S THE VENUE'S
JOB TO PROVIDE ADEQUATE SEATING AND TO TAKE PRECAUTIONS AGAINST SUCH
TRAGEDIES?! Also, when here in my home state the entire thing
with the night stalker, the band AC/DC becomes linked and the media
itself chose to say the eltters stood for something OTHER than
thesimple meaning........HELLO?! AC/DC, two entirely different
kinds of power supplies! That's ALL there is to it! The
media has yet to take the responsibility for their actions when this
sort of issue comes up, and I'll be damned if the media is going to
sit there and act as if they are not above reproach! That's
another crock of crap. If ya don't know all the facts and
you're not willing to have the balls to go out and find out the
story behind a song or a band's name, then all I have to say to you
is shut the hell up and crawl back in your hole. Stop using
your personal tragedy as a way to bring noteriety to yourself,
that's a sickness right there, and that is disgusting. It's
sad when anyone feels the need to take their life, especially when
it's someone so young, but it isn't right to sit there and place the
blame on music when there are just so many other factors that can
be, and usually are invloved. The truth is, music very rarely
has anything to do with the situation, but when the media builds up
a pack of lies, anything can become what sounds like the truth, but
only if you choose to not listen closely to what is being
said. |
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THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND IT'S ATTITUDE
TOWARDS FANS
is just another thing that burns my
hide, so to speak. The fans/consumers are what keep the industry
going, but somewhere along the line, that was forgotten in the
pursuit of the almighty dollar. No longer is it taken into
consideration that while some areas a CD may cost a mere $13.99, in
other areas, that exact same CD will cost close to $30.00.
This is a extremely disgusting reality, to say the least. The
price of a CD should be the same, no matter where you live.
There's also a new persepctive brought about by the onslaught of
such issues like Napster and the such. This is an entirely new
technology that the record industry actually fears greatly.
WHY???? Because, this technology, if used right,
eliminates the need for a record company, whose main job is actually
only to worry about distribution. Think about this for a
minute of you will. If a band, say like Bon Jovi decided to
not go with a record label but instead chose to distribute their
albums on their website, they cut out the middle man, AKA the Record
Company, therefore bringing them a higher portion of profit while
enabling them to charge much less for a product. This method
not only benefits the musicians, but also the consumers who are
currently faced with outrageous costs that are not realistic.
Right now a musician makes less that $1.00 for every CD sold, the
record compay pockets the rest, but because of the small amount the
musician makes, the fans/consumers are faced with making up the
difference. This means higher CD costs, higher ticket prices,
higher costs for items such as T-shirts. I personally thinks it's
assanine to charge $75.00 for a lousy T-shirt that only costs maybe
5 dollars total to make becase of mass production. The bands
and musician's still don't get a large portion of that money, the
record company once again pockets most of it. Now imagine if
the bands were able to get all of that money for themselves, costs
would actually go down and sales would go up! One thing that
irritates me to no end is a statement once made on a Fox News
Channel by Lars of Metallica where he said people were too lazy to
go out and pay $13.95 for a cd, well where I live, that cd he sees
for $13.95 is twice the price, so I think he's a bit out of touch
there to say that. people are not lazy, they aresick and tired
of paying high prices for new music that is garbage. Most
music coming out now sucks, at the most there might be 1 or 2 decent
songs on the cd and to me, 1 or 2 songs ins't worth spending
$30.00. Where there are still some bands, Queensryche being
one, who thank god have the balls to constantly put out kick ass
music time and time again, most bands now are not doing that!
Fans are not lazy, they are more likely tired of sending too much
money on garbage, and the costs of living keeps increasing while
wages do not. There is a total disrespect for fans from many
of the musician's as well as the record companies, yet this
is, at times, called disloyalty on the part of the fans, when it's
the bands that are disloyal. Many of those bands that were
there in the 80's are amongst the RARE few that show total respect
to their fans, then AND now, so I guess those of us from that genre
who are "stuck" as it's called a lot, have something there, a
loyalty to the bands and a loyalty from the bands, who defy the so
called rules stating that in order to be a fan, you have to spend
the large sums of money while getting treating like
shit. As a result, many bands choose to play smaller venues,
which cost much less, are more personal, and the bands doing this
are still the ones that never stopped kicking
ass. |
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THE PARENTS RESOURCE MUSIC
CENTER: Ok, here's the
biggie, saving the best for last. Since when do a bunch of
Senator's wives have the right to form an organization that is
basically saying that we as parents, if ya got kids, do not know
what is best or what is appropriate for ourselves and our
kids???? Since when do they have the right to push their own
personal views and beliefs on the rest of us? They don't, but
because it's the government, they think they have the right,
nevermind the fact that this borders on invasion of privacy,
invasion of our personal rights, invasion of our freedom of
choice! The government does not have the right to tell us how
we are supposed to raise kids, hey don't have the right to dictate
to us, how, what, when, where, and why, especially when it's in
reference to how we spend our lives, what we do with our lives, how
we spend our money, and what we choose to buy. When this
organization brought forth the parental advisory sticker, that was a
slap in the face, telling us that we don't know what's good for us,
and if ya got kids, you don't know what is good and/or appropriate
for our kids. That's an aweful thing to state about the people
who have the power to vote your husbands into or out of
office. This is extremely offensive considering that we as
consumers have the power to vote, to work, we are able to choose
what to wear, what to drive, but the government says we're not
capable of deciding what kind of music to buy for ourselves and/or
our kids.There has to be a limit as to what the government can and
should decide, and that limit does not, nor should it include to
right to tell us how to live our lives and how to spend our
money. They don't make our money, they don't pay our taxes,
they benefit from our taxes, but they don't pay them, so where do
they take it upon themselves to say what is best for us as an
individual? That's a right this so called best interests group
doesn't have, and if you look beneath the false covers, all it is is
this: A bunch of people who use the organization as a way to
force their own personal beliefs and thoughts onto everyone else.
When anyone with government influence does this, it's the first step
on a short staircase to a dictatorship. That scares me more
than a CD that has a few bad words and some sex oriented
lyrics. I think most people are quite able to determine what
is bes for them without the help from a few nut cases who have
nothing better to do that to judge everyone else by their own
standards. And as the old saying goes: WHAT'S RIGHT FOR
YOU WILL NOT BE RIGHT FOR OTHERS. Therefore, if you feel the
need to tell me how I should live my life, how I should spend my
money, on WHAT I should spend my money, go crawl back under your
rock and hide, I know what is good for me, and you do not have the
right to tell me otherwise, and if you think that just because you
have some sort of influence in government, that gives you the right
to tell me all that, I as a voter have certain rights too, and it's
not just as a voter, it's as a human being, and no one, government
or otherwise, has the right to say
different. |
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Note:
These are my own personal views, and I do not at ANY time ask anyone
else to agree with me. I'm a fan of music and a consumer of
music who is fed up with the treatment of fans all over. I'm
tired of being expected to pay the higher prices just to show my
loyalty to a band, when my loyalty should be based on my love of the
music, not about the fact that since the costs of living everywhere
has gone up while wages have not, I do not have the ability to go
out and spends hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on concert
tickets, anywhere from $50.00 to several hundred for memorabilia,
and up to $30.00+ dollars for a cd. These are very
unreasonable expectations that are placed upon the fans, and the
bands as well as the record companies need to remember this one
factor that is, in all probability, the MOST IMPORTANT thing of all:
WITHOUT
THE FANS...........YOU ARE
NOTHING!!!!!!!! |
