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| Flock Of Seagulls |
Billy
Macpherson, a musician friend with whom I recently sang a duet in the Hunters
Bay Radio fundraiser event at Huntsville’s Algonquin Theatre, gave me an
interesting article to read the other day. It was written by singer-song writer/
playwright Ian Tamblyn, and in it, he traces the gradual decline of popular
music as a valued art form. The gist of the article is that the digitalization
of music has facilitated that decline. Once an expensive venture, largely
controlled by big record companies, the recording and promotion of music had become
much easier and cheaper with the emergence of digital recording. Gradually, a new
generation of listeners, raised in the digital age, came to believe that they
shouldn’t have to pay for recorded music. Why buy the cow when the milk is free?
No longer are fans buying (or listening) to entire albums of music. Now they
buy, or download for free, only the songs they choose. While the field of
talented artists continues to grow exponentially, the rewards for being
creative and talented are getting harder to reap. I realize this sounds like
Jamie the fuddy-duddy, ranting about the “music these days”. I confess I am
a little grumpy today. Still, I think that there are more young people these
days listening to the music my generation likes than there were young people
from my generation, listening to the music our parents liked. By the way, I’m
not saying I don’t like Hip Hop or Rap – there is a sub-culture of those two genres
about which I am learning and have come to respect and appreciate – I’m talking
about what is being played as pop music on commercial radio today.
This
week, I decided to broadcast another all request theme show, and I put up a
post on Facebook asking for weird, bizarre, goofy, bubble-gummy, and otherwise
unusual pop songs that my listeners remember from their past. In my opinion, even
the terrible novelty songs from the distant past seem pretty good to me, when compared
to the soul-sucking auto-tuned, synthesized sameness of much of today’s pop
music. It all goes back to what I suggested at the beginning of this report. In
my opinion, imagination is on injured reserve. In the five hours after asking
for quirky pop songs, I had 43 responses. Typically, I will receive somewhere
between 60 and 100 song suggestions in the month leading up to one of these theme-based
all-request shows with a theme, but there may be more for this one. Next month
on Lyrical Workers, I will place emphasis on Canadian pop music. I fully expect
to get some imaginative selections suggested by my listeners. They have not let
me down so far. I know that I will have a lot of fun putting that show together.
Yes, of course Yummy, Yummy, Yummy by Ohio Express will be on the playlist.
It’s one of my favorites! What is YOUR goofy pop tune choice??
Jamie Oppenheimer,
Songwriter, Author, Blogger, Radio Producer, & Host has been writing THE
OPPENHEIMER REPORT every MONDAY since 1992 and has published the articles on
his blog since 2006. We are including Jamie's weekly reports, as a new feature
of #HuntersBayRadio, The Bay 88.7FM.
#GotLocal? HuntersBayRadio.com #WeAreMuskoka #WeAreAlmaguin
#GotLocal? HuntersBayRadio.com #WeAreMuskoka #WeAreAlmaguin
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