Music as a Part of Human Civilisation - Article Example

We suck young blood” Is Radiohead’s summary of the recording industry a fair one? Introduction “And the night shall be filled with music, /And the cares that infest the day/ Shall fold their tents like the Arabs/ And as silently steal away” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Music, a form of arts, is an expression of human thoughts, feelings, and emotions, through the sound medium, and is thus as Eric Olson had once famously claimed “Music is what life sounds like”. The term music has derived from the Greek word mousike which means ‘arts’ that have created by the 3 Greek goddesses or Muses (Mneme, Melete and Aoide) (Scheinberg, 1979, 2). Though music varies according to social norms and cultural traditions, there are certain common fundamental aspects of music, seen worldwide, and are comprised of rhythm, pitch, sonic qualities (like texture and timbre) and dynamics. Music has been a part of human civilisation right from the time of the antiquities (ancient Greek and Indian civilisations), and has always been considered as an integral part of life. Music as ‘arts’ have undergone changes from time to time, evolving and adapting itself to the complexities and cultural context of each different era, the social norms, varying religious dictates and technological innovations. In the context of the modern 21st century, we find that music has finally moved out from the realms of being relevant to only arts and culture, and has taken the form of a highly organised and technology oriented, profit making industry, controlled by a music companies and event managers. The definition of music has also undergone a sea change, and today almost any sound can be considered as music. Being transient in nature thus music cannot be defined with any fixed notations, “The border between music and noise is always culturally defined—which implies that, even within a single society, this border does not always pass through the same place; in short, there is rarely a consensus ... By all accounts there is no single and intercultural universal concept defining what music might be” (Nattiez, 1990, 48-55). Discussion “The music business is a cruel and shallow trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men lie like dogs. There is also a negative side” – Hunter S. Thompson Analysis of “We Suck blood”: The song We suck young blood, sung by the 5 member band Radiohead in 2002, was a part of their album Hail To The Thief; was produced by the group and Nigel Godrich. To relate this song to the present day music industry, we will first have to analyse the lyrics that run as follows: Are you hungry? Are you sick? Are you begging for a break? Are you sweet? Are you fresh? Are you strung up by the wrists? We want the young blood  Are you fracturing? Are you torn at the seams? Would you do anything? Fleabitten, motheaten? We suck young blood  We suck young blood  Won’t let them creep in on me Won’t let the nervous bury me Our veins are thin Our rivers poisoned We want the sweet meat  We want the young blood” (“Hail to the thief”- We Suck Blood by Radioheads). This song at the time of its recording was said to have represented the entire showbiz world of Hollywood, including ‘talent-hunt programs’ in various television shows, where money is valued more than human relationships. In the song the tone is very clear, Beware! We are out to get young children (the underage kids performing in any of the talent shows, are proof enough). This cautionary tone is visible in almost all their other songs, like A Wolf at the Door, or in ‘Dollars and Cents’ from Amnesiac that runs: We are the DOLLARS & CENTS/ and the PoUNDS and Pence/ the MARK and the YEN/ we are going to crack your little souls/ we are going to crack your little souls. Here the term is not autobiographical, and refers allegorically to the commodity or the saleable product Radiohead, that is presented to the consumers, well packaged. “A product we buy with pounds and pence that is going to physically crack (open up or break down?) the listeners’ supposedly diminutive souls. Again and again, the message of the music: Beware” (Tate, 2005, 3). In fact the songs give us the feeling that the modern 21st century music industry has turned this ‘fine arts’ into a mechanised item or commodity, which can be bought at a price. As one listens to the various songs by Radioheads, they do not forget, or rather, are not allowed to forget that what they are listening to, is nothing more than a mere physical commodity, a factory made product. If we forget this basic transformation of the 21st century music, or the rather ‘down-gradation’ of music, then we becomes pillages to what Baudrillard framed as, “We make believe that products are so differentiated and multiplied that they have become complex beings, and consequently purchasing and consumption must have the same value as any human relation” (2001: 17). Erin Harde in his essay, ‘Radiohead and the Negation of Gender,’ points out another interesting aspect of the Radioheads that this group has very consciously portrayed, so as to stand out against the image of the 21st century music industry. Radiohead in any of their songs (including, We suck blood), do not paint an image of overt sexuality, or any sort of gender characterisation (though they do not definitely portray any androgynous image either), “and this negation of gender is anomalous in an industry hyper-concerned with representations of sexuality” (Harde, 2005, 52). Thus, from the song We Suck blood, and other musical renditions by the Radiohead, we get an image of the 21st century music industry, where music is no longer refined ‘arts,’ but has been turned, with the help of technology, into a mere commodity, bought from factories with money. Their songs also portray the music industry as a place for the blood thirsty ‘wolves’ (metaphorically referring to the publishers, promoters, event managers, and the industry owners), who are out to get fresh young ‘blood,’ (in the name of talent hunt), or anything that sells, in order to get rich dividends. Thus we find that the Radioheads feel that the music industry has become like any other business organisation, where profit making is the main aim; and refinement, culture, or quality, has taken a back seat. It is for this money making deal that any sound, in today’s context, can be termed as music, and overt sexuality is openly encouraged from the music artists (especially women artists), in order to sell their ‘products’ more. Here, to find out as to whether the Radioheads are portraying a correct picture of the modern day music industry, it is imperative that we take a brief look at music through the various ages. It is also necessary that we examine the history and diversity of popular music, and understand the sociological significances of popular music. An examination of these factors, when compared to the situation in the today’s music industry, will help us to analyse the authenticity of what the Radioheads portrayed. History and diversity of popular music: From times immemorial, human beings have lived in societies that are often separated by large physical distances. This separation created a divergence in language and culture, and formed a profuse variation in tradition and social norms amongst the various civilisations; which also created a plethora of musical forms and notes (Titon, 1996). Thus diversity in all forms of music has always been a part of tradition, though music till the early 20th century had always depended mainly on classical forms. The popular culture of music or what we know as pop music made its first big appearance during the 1950s, after the WWII. At this time, “there were the beginning of increasing corporate dominations...There were technological changes based around electronic systems and the young working class people became significant movers in musical creation” (Longhurst, 2007, 88). This trend of corporate domination still continues in the music industry (ibid), and it is these corporations that the Radioheads rhetorically mentioned in their lyrics as ‘wolves’. The popular music culture which started with the ‘rock n roll’ brand of music was diverse in its very origin. A hybrid from its birth, rock n roll developed from older music forms, and was kitsch of fold songs, old country songs, black songs, and older pop versions, like the ragtime, Broadway songs, swing music, and jazz songs, (Frith, 1990, 88-130), as shown in Fig A below. , Fig A: The diverse nature of pop music (Source: Longhurst, 2007, 89). 1950-60s pop music was dominated by the Nashville sound and soul music, which gave way to the turbulent political and social times of the early 1970s, and was reflected in the music too. At this time, rock n roll (a comparatively discrete musical from till now), further diversified into a mixed form that was called rock music, and included a huge range of styles like the punk rock, hip hop music, and heavy metal music, and they was also large rise in a form of anti-mainstream (underground) musical score, at this time. This was also the era of hippie style, which showcased an immoral life and rampant drug abuse. It has been perceived by the experts, that this era represented the ‘disfunctionalisation of music’, where there was a distinct face-off between society and the artists; when the latter opted to break free from all bindings of the church, the patrons, the people, and the state. The artists decided to follow no social rules other than those created by themselves, and established music as a form of separate entity in its own rights. With increased autonomy music also became fragmented (Martin, 1995, 16), and with this came the form of wild style (minus the hippie element), and this face off continues even today, and is seen in the many of the modern artists, like Britney Spears’ wild lifestyle. The 1990s saw the entry of another form of pop music that was known as the alternative rock, and became popular through the Grunge, that formed an alternative rock group and played the guitar that had a distinct brooding note, and was based on the punk and heavy metal form of music. The 2000s saw the return of the hip hop music style, and there were a number of popular boy bands, while many female artists like Britney Spears came to the forefront. The pop culture has always been American in nature and origin; and this American pop music gained immense popularity worldwide. It has been said that this rock brand of pop music “transformed the very concept of what popular music was” (Garofalo, 1997, 94) , and was the first when of its kind where urban culture was heavily interweaved into music. The rock form of pop music has been blamed for heavy negative social influences that included drug abuse, having an overtly sex appeal, and in general advocating an immoral life (ibid). This brand has been referred to as the ‘MTV generation’ where they gave an attitude of living life as one pleases, and a complete indifference towards society in general, and pop music is one such arena “in which sexual politics are struggled over”(Shukher, 2008, 252). Thus a look at the history and diverse form of rock culture that gave rise to the present pop music (especially, starting from the 1970s till date) does indeed portray a negative picture of those associated with the music industry, predominantly the artists and their lifestyles. It is now necessary that we take brief look at the music corporations and the artists in their relationships pertaining to economics, to find out whether money indeed controls the entire show. Economic aspect of the popular music: the advent of modern day technology has completely changed the way music industry would function in the future; and has also led to a “dematerialised and depersonalised relationship with social and cultural reality” (Rojek, 2007, 29). Late 19th and early 20th century saw the presence of sheet musicians, which were replaced by the record player; and in the 21st century we find that Internet has changed the way we look at music. Owing to the easy availability of recorded songs through the Internet, sales of CDs have fallen drastically and people now prefer live performances. 21st century consumers are not willing to spend money on recorded music, and revenue figures show that sales of CDs and cassettes have fallen by 25%; $38.6 billion (1999) to $27.5 billion (2008), with the newspapers predicting the downward spiralling to continue (Arango, 2008). Such losses in revenues have resulted in large-scale job cuts within the industry, while many recording companies have gone bankrupt. The music industry, at one point, had tried fighting the system of file sharing within various web portals, but failed to stem the global tide of technological innovations, like i-pod (Matthew, 2010, 29). A majority of the music revenue now comes in from digital channels, thus increasing the earnings of technological companies like Apple Inc. (IFPI publishes Digital Music Report 2010, January 2010). Recent slowdown in sales have forced the recording artists to depend mainly on live performances and selling of merchandises associated with their names. It has led to complete dependency on tour promoters (Live Nation) that strike any deal to make money at these shows. Being at the mercy of these event mangers, the artists have more or less turned into brand commodities similar to the merchandises that they sell to earn their livelihoods. The record companies in order to survive have come with the 360 deal (instead of record deals), that help them to use all forms of possible avenues to make money, using the artists’ names.  Thus we find that music industry has indeed turned into a profit making business where the artists, the producers, the record companies are now hell bent on only making money, irrespective of what quality of music they serve, thus proving the Radioheads correct, in their summary of the music industry. Conclusion: The music industry from the 1970s onwards, have witnessed the coming in of high end technology and breaking away of the artists from all social and cultural restraints. Both these aspects have combined to change the very nature and definition of music, forever. Today music means pure business, and the artists are mere commodities, that survive as long as they can sell. One can only hope, that this profit making drive and the creative nature of the artists somehow co-exist with mutual benefit, so that there is some hope for the future generation to listen to some really good quality music (Negus, 1996, 36). Bibliography Arango, T. November 25, 2008. Digital Sales Surpass CDs at Atlantic. The New York Times. [Internet news article] Retrieved from, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/business/media/26music.html?_r=1 Baudrillard, J. 2001. Selected writings. Contributed by Mark Poster. Pondicherry: Stanford University Press, 17. Frith, S. 1990. 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