J201 Ned Mills

It was not surprising to hear how hard the music industry is when I heard John Shipe talk about it in class. Especially coming from a small yet popular artists such as Shipe it makes everyone realize that the dream of becoming a musical pop star in any genre as it takes more then just hard work and time but also a lot of you’re own money. John Shipe enlightened us in the fact that he is somewhat popular, more in the Eugene area, but this comes with great sacrifice. The spotlight is something which to me is very unrealistic to attain not only because of costs but because the conglomerate of music labels has created a music world which influences the artists songs to their standards and not the artists who creates it. The industry is about money, plain and simple. The music no matter how it sounds will always be dominated by the almighty dollar as labels like Warner, A&R, Universal, and Sony are corporations, music is simply their product. Like the video in class stated, songs are no different then a bag of chips, something which is a product influenced by the consumers wants and needs and nothing else. This not only takes away from the artists in a sense of creativity and original sounds but it also takes away whole genres as whole sections of music are thought to be old and therefore those artists will not go far. Of course I am not saying it is impossible to branch out, maybe in your own label such as John Shipe, but mediocre artists in major labels, ones who sell 100,000 cds or so, will have no pull or sway in any decision that goes on as they are simply lucky to be there.  The cost to artists such as these is so great that studio costs and tour costs are simply to much and many drop off failing to even break even at the overwhelming economical demands of major labels. Smaller artists such as John Shipe are what keeps kids growing up interested in new forms of music away from the sounds of the Black Eyed Peas or Miley Cyrus, bland and generic music which today is forcing these artists to work even harder just to stay afloat. I am not sure where music is headed but if it keeps up this way small artists will be swamped and will be forced to conform or to die out.