Control in the Music Industry

Control in the Music Industry

When the Second World War ended, a new form of music gripped the world in an expression of sheer joy and endless happy energy replacing the seemingly reserved music of the past…Rock & Roll was born and with it, an industry that would cater to the wishes of the population and then later, control the art form and suppress the voice of a young generation through censorship.

After enduring an “Economic Depression” and then a “World War”, America experienced a revolution in new inventions and an economic windfall brought on by the ravages of War and the demand for rebuilding Europe. North America’s infrastructure was virtually unscathed by the Second World War, so economic prosperity was truly exponential. Prosperity seemed to reflect the mood of the people which showed itself in popular music...it was the Golden Age of America.

What Happened?

As an amateur musician, former concertgoer, and former DJ, in my youth, I can tell you that concert's, before the great collusion of 1985 / 86, were meant to promote the artist and album sales.

Radio D.J’s not only played music but also promoted concerts back then. The public could also buy singles in the 45-rpm format that cost about $1.00 to $2.00 per tune. The smaller record labels made their money with single cuts where the larger labels pushed the artist to make albums.

The artist received money for their music from the record company based on sales of their albums. The artist also received revenue with tours, T-shirts and a portion of the vending sales at the venue.

On average, concerts cost a whopping $7.00 per ticket in the 1970's. That amounted to about 2 hours of minimum wage back in those days. In today’s concert world, ticket prices vary from $50.00 to $300.00, depending on the artist performing. Now THAT is inflation!

Before CD's; if a big record label did not like an artist, the artist had the option of going to a smaller recording label. There were hundreds if not thousands of them.
A great many popular artists started on small labels, but once the artist became popular through radio airplay, the larger labels stole the artists away with the promise of more money. They were offers that the artist could not refuse, but also hidden in the fine print of the contract was a production headache for the artist, and the systematic killing of an art form. The possibility of “Large payoffs” to the artist that the smaller labels could not compete with kept the small record companies small and out of the top.

Visions of Total Control:

Control of the music industry began when the top companies went into collusion in 1985 / 1986. They (Warner, Universal, EMI, BMG, Sony, Polygram & Friends)  used a new form of technology at that time, (Compact Disc's) to kill all the small labels.

The small record label remained small and then died when the big five record labels in the US jointly announced their imminent change over to CD's...

Once the bombshell announcement was broadcast, the major labels had a field day of buying up all the little labels. I believe the phrase is, “Like shooting fish in a barrel”.

The next step was to buy up the Radio stations and syndicate their Top 40 list.  It is not surprising to me that the same conglomerates were at work here.

To gain control of a large diverse Industry, a new technology was needed to kill off the small record labels, while controlling artistic freedom and the people’s voice. CD’s, and radio syndication provided the answers these C.F.R. members needed. After all, music had a huge effect on people that gave the younger generation a voice. A voice that grew in power by the number of radio listeners…this worried the power elite, because they were in jeopardy of loosing control over the people.

Freedom of Speech:

Human protest is generally reflected through music, so controlling the art form was the Council of Foreign Relations (C.F.R.) ultimate goal...no more “War Protest Music”, or any kind of protest music...the one thing they did not anticipate was the internet, file sharing and Napster.

Napster brought music back to the people; the old Vinyl was digitized including the music not brought into the CD age which was available once again for everyone. In my opinion, downloading a song from the internet is no different than using a cassette tape to record from the radio like we did back in the 70's and 80's. I have no problem with it, in fact I recommend it and argue in defence of it. Music should not be controlled by a corporate few, but by the artists themselves...I have no problem buying an mp3 from an artist...I'm a DJ so I make my own CD's.

At any rate, it was a deviant way for the large labels to end the free speech movement in music when they embraced a new, and very expensive technology. Before the collusion, records cost between $5.00 and $7.00. The cost of CD's...$25.00...profit was also their goal.

What this all amounts too is control and censorship of an industry where decisions made on who is heard and who is not, was dictated by a very small group of people. What came out of the mainstream music industry then was a controlled art form. New artist’s no longer had a way to showcase their music to a large audience, because pop radio was bought up and forced to play the big record companies top 40 hits. The peoples voice was silenced, and corporations reaped the benefits. You might question why the names of the major labels are members of the “Counsel on Foreign Relations” not I. Control is what they wanted, control of everything you do, everything you see, hear, speak, and feel. Welcome to the age of big mother F…

Stewart
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