Theme Week, Part 4

Jeremy’s Sametime Status proudly presents: Jeremy’s Bucket List Week! Write a Top-40 Song that actually makes the Top-40. NOT CHECKED


Welcome back! How was training?


It was interesting. Some contradictions and fuzziness from the instructors, but I like to think that I've gained the general concepts of the material, and I even managed to include a Bird Flu reference into our practice exercise.


Very thoughtful of you. A new audience made aware of the dangers.


I thought so. Now, to talk about today's Message.

There is a very standard cry in just about every era that new music sucks. As cliche and annoying as that complaining is, it's never been more true than it is today (and yes, I'm including 90's cheesey techno in that assessment). Here's why. Music, just like everything else, has become a multi-billion dollar industry built around the same "growth economy" principles as any other industry you can find. The idea that the company has to make more sales than it did in the previous quarter prevails over all else, because if there's no growth, the stock price goes down. Like any other industry, there are two alternatives...either bring in more money, or spend less. This forces labels to try to squeeze as much music out of the same number of musicians for as little money as they can.

The end result, is a band being essentially forced to produce a CD of songs that may or may not represent the best work that band can do, simply because they're under a deadline and have to get the CD out or violate the terms of their contract. Another option is to be essentially blacklisted from the recording industry until they put out that last stipulated disc. More often than not, the final product is inferior craftsmanship from otherwise supremely talented artists.

Today's rant comes to you courtesy of the rock group "Candlebox" and their newest CD "Into The Sun." I like "Candlebox," and their 1993 CD "Candlebox" is impressive in both musical ability and range of styles. However, in 15 years, they've managed to re-release the exact same song with different lyrics and call it new music. Don't believe me? HERE ARE a couple of LINKS TO CHECK OUT which will help you see my side of things. Pay close attention to the songs "Stand" and "You," and I think you'll get the idea.

If this is all it takes to make a Top 40 song ("You" hit #6, and "Stand" peaked at #15), then there really should be nothing stopping me from getting up there too.