| we are post-something alright. I made the same conclusion and it's weird that there is no new Bruce Willis on the market that made it in the last decade. We have people like Pedro Pascal who are good but not a-billion-dollar-garanteed-hit good. When it comes to music and cinema what changed is we replaced major labels and cinemas with Spotify and Netflix... both are not paying as much as in the old days - up front and in the long run. Music Albums are no more, most of us are just listening to singles right now – so why release an album at all? But the LP was basically invented by the Beatles who said we put out ten songs at once - before them like in the Elvis generation everything was released as singles! No one thought that you can make the kids buy an LP which was typically a collection of greatest hits until that point. Nobody thought 30-million-sellers like "Dark Side of the Moon" or "Appetite for Destruction" were even possible. Artists these days need a build in audience which cater to the taste of their audience and then they maybe get the label contract or publisher deal - but I guess most just don't bother at that point and release their things on their own. We live in a super fragmented market - I stumble upon these bubbles everyday where I think "so this person has a career for a decade appearently and I just learn now about it?" Even if it is completely up my alley... But everybody can record an album these days that sounds like it was produced by bloody Bob Rock on a 1.000 dollar notebook... when it comes to music everything sounds pitch perfect - which it is thanks to Audiotune. And even "live music" is hardly "live music" anymore in a lot of cases these days. And most of it is derivative and banal. Back in the days a major label could and would take some kids out of the gutter - who had no other choice to succeed but the Billboard 100 - and put them in front of 60.000 people where everybody just loved the same things. I mean these sort of things still happen but they are few and far between. Why bother putting in the 10.000 hours to make a career in acting or music if you can get a business degree and make 6-figures anyways? But I think it makes sense for these musicians to sell their publishing rights because its an easy way out. A lot of these people are old and its easier to give a couple o million dollars to your kids than a music catalog which they probably don't even know how to handle. I mean every musician worth a dime knows about the Frank Zappa family feud so maybe it's all in all better to give these music rights to people who actually know what they are doing. |
I always considered Dwayne Johnson to be the 80s action hero analog for today. At least the closest.