Things That Give Me A Million Boners

immutableinscrutable:

In the wake of recent future-of-music discussions—Louis CK’s direct-ticketing move, which may indeed revolutionize touring for artists with that large of an audience, and the Emily White/All Songs Considered/David Lowery thing—I’ve been having arguments about record…

1.) Who wants “More Radioheads”? Radiohead is one band, and they’re the best at what they do. Why would you want imitators? Yes, they wouldn’t exist in today’s music industry - but they do exist. And that’s great.

2.) I agree with the sentiment here, but every time someone writes an article like this, I always try to inject a bit of perspective: The reality is that great new music will always find a way to exist. The structure of the music industry is irrelevant. Maybe the structure of the industry that produced Radiohead is disappearing, but the structure that produced Led Zepplin is already gone. Ditto that for The Beatles. Radiohead found a way to make amazing, groundbreaking music in the structure they found themselves in, and so will the next wave of great new bands. Yes, bands won’t be able to copy the way Radiohead did it. But Radiohead wasn’t able to copy the bands that they looked up to, and I think that’s one reason that they’re so awesome. People won’t stop making music or forming bands. Will they stop touring? Maybe. But is touring as important as it was in the 90’s? Who knows. To misquote Goldblum in Jurassic Park: Music always finds a way. I’m not worried.