Elton John Says Internet is Destroying Music

Jared writes "Elton John says that the internet is destroying good music and "stopping people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff." He laments the way that the internet and the emerging industry of digital music has created a cold and impersonal world for artists to create new music in."

Sure, Elton, sure.

And Video killed the Radio star too, eh?

Re:Sure, Elton, sure.

Its the same old story. VHS killed hollywood (and betamax, lol :( ). Radio killed live music. Cassette tapes killed the music industry. So it goes.

Someone really should go show old elton Myspace music section. There are ALOT of young local bands who are finally getting some exposure due to the internet.

And thats from myspace, the most retarded site on the net. Put some money into something non retarded, and the possibilities are mind boggling.

Re:Sure, Elton, sure.

Quite right. A lot of things are supposed to "kill music" but cassette tapes didn't do it and nor will anything else.

The only thing I can imagine would do it is some pandemic virus that makes everyone tone deaf. And even then, many tone deaf people still appreciate music.

Does anyone really expect us to buy into the idea that music only exists due to the existence of the record and entertainment industry?

Speaking of which another song springs to mind,
"Got along without you
before I met you.
Gonna get along without you now!"

Music existed before, during and after any industry.

Re:Sure, Elton, sure.

The only thing I can imagine would do it is some pandemic virus that makes everyone tone deaf.

That's funny. Listening to what passes for popular music these days, I'd've thought that already happened.

Re:Sure, Elton, sure.

Yes, and....
- No one ever listens to the radio now that albums are available.
False
- No one ever buys music now that audio cassettes can be dubbed.
False
- No one ever buys movies now that VHS cassettes can be dubbed.
False
- No one ever buys music now that CD's can be duplicated.
False
- No one ever buys movies now that DVD's can be duplicated.
False
- No one ever buys media now that they can download it on the internet.

Is there a trend here or is it just me?

Re:Sure, Elton, sure.

Yeah, except that if you RTFA, you'll see that this is not a "piracy is killing music" stab; not at all. It is about people now making cold electronic music in their bedrooms rather than going out, getting together with other musicians and feed off each other creativity to make truly great music.

And I think he has a point. Shutting down the internet may be a bit drastic, though.

Re:Sure, Elton, sure.

When I was at school, a few of my friends were in various bands. Most evenings they would be involved in online jamming sessions, where they would make music with other musicians in different parts of the world (since this was the modem era, I presume they were streaming MIDI commands). They were feeding off the creativity of other musicians who they would never have had a chance to meet in the real world.

Band web site with forums and even (*shudder*) MySpace provide a great way for bands to get feedback. If you play in a club, you have a very limited potential audience; the subset of people in a specific area who like your style of music. If you publish your music online then the potential audience is much larger, and so is the number of people who will provide feedback.

Re:Sure, Elton, sure.

I play guitar in a gigging rock band. The Internet has been great for us. People can find out when we are playing from our website, and it's also our main promotional tool when we are looking for gigs.

For me personally, over the years I've spent a lot of time on various guitar related forums (when not surfing Slashdot), I was able to learn a lot from other (better) players all over the world who I would never have had access to otherwise. I've collaborated with other musicians over the Internet by sending MP3's back and forth and mixing everyone's parts into one song. Hell, I even met my current band mates on an Internet classifieds site.

However, there is no substitute for playing with other people in a real live situation, that's where you really learn very quickly from other players, but to say the Internet is hurting musicians is pretty stupid. It kind of reminds me of the old days when they said BBS's and the Internet were preventing people from being social, when in fact it was the opposite, people were spending all their time chatting online and emailing.

Re:Sure, Elton, sure.

However, there is no substitute for playing with other people in a real live situation

100% agree there. I am also primarily a guitar player for the last 20 years. I've since stopped doing the band thing for right now and am composing/writing music on my own. While I definitely agree with you that there is no substitute for playing and collaborating with others, I think you'd probably agree that technology/computers have made the process of CAPTURING those magic moments that occur much easier and thus have contribute hugely to music creation as a whole.

Now, when you're just "jamming" with some people, you can have a laptop there recording everything so that when someone does something "accidentally brilliant" 10 minutes into a jam session, you have it captured in a very clear, editable form. I don't know about you, but for me, this has been invaluable. There's nothing worse than doing something that just works for a song/piece and then never being able to do it again. One of the deciding factors in my buying my workstation keyboard (a Roland Fantom X6 [roland.com]incidentally) was what they call "skip back sampling". That is, it's constantly recording what you're playing, so if you do something great, you hit a button and boom, you've got a perfect digital copy of what you did. Many a great tune has been born out of an odd chord voicing, an interesting poly-rhythm, or the elusive "blue note".

Re:Sure, Elton, sure.

Elton at least admits he is a Luddite. He's entitled to his opinions, I guess. Anyhow, not all artists are like him; for example, Therapy? bandmembers live in different countries, and much of their collaboration is done by utilizing the internet: sending each other MP3s of song ideas. Then they meet physically for a few weeks and record the stuff (see interview here [google.com]).

Considering that "One Cure Fits All" (2006) was among their better albums ever IMHO (and I have been listening to them since they got started around 1990), apparently this 'interweb' thing isn't necessarily as detrimental as Sir Elton believes.

This states it better...

In other news Music has stated that Elton John is destroying it.

Sir Elton may be right, but who cares?

Sir Elton may be right, but fundamentally, the Internet is far more valuable than the transient phenomenon of pop music. Most of yesterday's tastes are outdated now, and as for what survives, it's enough to tide us over until the Internet and the creative classes evolve to a more beneficial relationship with each other.

He's not even right

Check the Sun article

"In the early Seventies there were at least ten albums released every week that were fantastic. [...] Now you're lucky to find ten albums a year of that quality."

Now, where did I hear something like that before? Oh, yes: Spider Robinson's 1983 Hugo Winning Short Story, "The Melancholy Elephants" [spiderrobinson.com]—

"I do not know the figure for the maximum number of discretely appreciable melodies, and again I'm certain it is quite high, and again I am certain that it is not infinity. There are sixteen billion of us alive, Senator, more than all the people that have ever lived. Thanks to our technology, better than half of us have no meaningful work to do; fifty-four percent of our population is entered on the tax rolls as artists. Because the synthesizer is so cheap and versatile, a majority of those artists are musicians, and a great many are composers. Do you know what it is like to be a composer these days, Senator?"
"I know a few composers."
"Who are still working?"
"Well . . . three of 'em."
"How often do they bring out a new piece?"
Pause. "I would say once every five years on the average. Hmmm. Never thought of it before, but--"
" Did you know that at present two out of every five copyright submissions to the Music Division are rejected on the first computer search?"
The old man's face had stopped registering surprise, other than for histrionic purposes, more than a century before; nonetheless, she knew she had rocked him. "No, I did not."
"Why would you know? Who would talk about it? But it is a fact nonetheless. Another fact is that, when the increase in number of working composers is taken into account, the rate of submissions to the Copyright Office is decreasing significantly. There are more composers than ever, but their individual productivity is declining. Who is the most popular composer alive?"
"Uh . . . I suppose that Vachandra fellow."
"Correct. He has been working for a little over fifty years. If you began now to play every note he ever wrote, in succession, you would be done in twelve hours. Wagner wrote well over sixty hours of music--the Ring alone runs twenty-one hours. The Beatles--essentially two composers--produced over twelve hours of original music in less than ten years. Why were the greats of yesteryear so much more prolific?
"There were more enjoyable permutations of eighty-eight notes for them to find."

Sir Elton John's musical talent may be argued either way, but it doesn't change that he still is an Ignorant Idiot [wikipedia.org].

Oh no!

Are we not fawning over "celebs" enough? Not constructing enough temple record stores, to be preached to in a condescending manner if we pick up the wrong album? Are we actually daring to put their music in the same store as a lesser known artist? Or, perhaps his music might even be sharing the same server on itunes as one of us common ruffians?

What's been lost is trivial to what's been gained. I had a grin a mile wide when I realized that some of my favorite artists, talented but not at all well known or mainstream enough to get a label's attention, could be purchased from the same itunes interface as the latest plastic pop idol.

Yeah, blame technology

Antisocial people can make music by themselves without the need for the Internet. Sociable people will make music together with or without the Internet and may even use the Internet to help communicate when collaborating on a project. Technology is a convenient scapegoat, as usual.

Re:Yeah, blame technology

And it doesn't even have to be one or the other. We moved into a new town fairly recently, and it only took a few weeks for my wife to join a band here. Nor did that fact stop her from continuing to market her solo stuff online. Much in the same way that I can use a telephone on occasion, and yet the scary technology doesn't in any way prevent me from talking to people in person. I'm just hoping that I don't wind up like so many old people when I reach that age, railing against technologies I don't understand.

artists are having a hard time not being heard.

There's _ALOT_ more out there, and now there is selection where once there was only Elton John and other mass distributed mediocraty. You want to make a change, you do something about it. If you cant, work with it and stop bitching about things you don't improve. Bitching is noise. Progress is beautiful.

Re:artists are having a hard time not being heard.

And I think that's exactly what a lot of people are terrified about. I've bought a fairly large amount from itunes, and none of it's been from a riaa label. Pandora, lastfm, and word of mouth over the internet actually give me the chance to discover new music that would have been locked in a garage or small town ten years back. And itunes, and similar, the chance to purchase from them. It's a win for the consumer, but a huge loss for both the labels and the select few they decide to favor.

Wrong generation?

Maybe Elton John just doesn't get the new ways to create, play, and distribute music? To be fair, Elton John's generation and those before destroyed live music in the household, as who needs Joe-Fred johnson to strum his banjo when you can hear professionals first on record, then radio, then TV, etc... So why shouldn't we move the music to another "space"?

I wonder if someone were to give Elton John an internet literacy test how he would do. Considering the British judge Justice Opensha had to ask what a website was while presiding over an internet "terrorism" case, I wouldn't be surprised if Elton John considered the internet nothing more than a Kazaa screen.

Judge != Elton John

Sorry, but I really felt the need to respond to this. British newspapers like to make out that judges are ignorant because it plays to the prejudices of their readers. In fact, the judge had to ask the question because both sides were talking about "websites" but without any definition, and (as any fool on /. knows) websites can be many different things. Judges are not allowed to intervene and tell the court what things are, they have to get the information into the trial record by asking questions.

In the same way a judge was once ridiculed for asking "Who are the Beatles", but it was necessary because again they were being talked about in a trial, but anybody subsequently reading the trial report would not get a clue what "Beatles" were. Because of the way the British legal system works, on case law and precedent, judges have to assume that a judgement may be brought up many years in the future - when, say, the word "website" will be long gone but the thing itself still exists.

Incidentally, in that case the question did show that the lawyers on both sides were themselves unclear what they were talking about - not unusual in these cases.

Exposure

There's so many bands I wouldn't have started listening to if I hadn't heard samples or web broadcasts of them on the net. It's certainly broadened my musical taste having digital distribution of music so easily available.

Should we get off his lawn too?

Seriously I'm seeing acts both prosper and thrive due to the internet. Even the more established groups like They Might Be Giants have done well thanks to the internet in reaching their fans. If anything there's probably a larger danger of background noise in the amount of chaff produced, but seeing various internet "memes" pop up from time to time I'm confident that the good stuff will always rise to the top.

Taking an even more commercial example, I wouldn't have heard much about pop-artists like Rogue Traders unless I'd seen an excerpt of Dr. Who from the UK which lead me to wiki the Aus act and find more info than a lone single - which is only reaching US market AFTER 2 YEARS - would provide. The single is available from iTunes - but I'll eagerly await the full album.

In the retro column, 80s artist Thomas Dolby released a live set recorded in front of a live audience in San Francisco onto iTunes a while back. He's got several businesses and projects going but it's nice to see him quickly produce and bring to market (thanks to the internet) some new material. This wouldn't have gotten the time of day by the traditional business model.

Good riddance I say.

BTW - check out SeeqPod. It's cooler than snail snot and the mobile client is SWEET. I've not only found hard to finds, and music out of circulation, but excellent mash-ups that would NEVER BE ALLOWED TO BE DISTRIBUTED BY THE CURRENT OUTDATED RIAA BUSINESS MODELS.

OTOH

That's all well and good if you happen to be in or very near one of the small handful of cities that are 'music centers', but for would-be musicians who aren't in those places and have no reasonable means to get there, the music industry was just as cold before the internet as it is now, if not colder.

Sigh

Blaming the transmission medium for making the environment "cold and impersonal" is like blaming high HIV transmission rates on semen. fairly silly. The environment is what you make of it.

Sorry, it was

the two guys who created the Spice Girls [wikipedia.org] that killed good music, and that was before teh Intarweb had gained rampant popularity. It's all been downhill from there.

hahaha completely wrong

what is he talking about
just because he doesn't understand how to use the internet to meet people, doesn't mean he can make stupid statements like this

I have an entire network of friends who, using only their computers, instruments of choice, and the internet, make great music between each other
we're literally friends, and this is real music

if anything the internet is what will finally set music free
giving everyone an equal chance to put their stuff up

it may dilute it all a bit (an effect I hope for with a lot of genres)
but in the end we'll have more options as listeners
and musicians will have more options for making money

I suggest

Elton John check out The Foreign Exchange [theforeign...emusic.com]'s album Connected [amazon.com]. Take note:

North Carolina-raised MC Phonte, one-third of Little Brother, and Dutch producer Nicolay formed the duo and crafted the ethereally lush hip-hop album without ever meeting face-to-face. Using the marvels of modern technology, the group traded verses and tracks over the Internet.

Your move, Elton.

And rock n' roll singlehandedly killed communism

I have this sneaking hunch Elton John doesn't have a very normal outlook on reality. From TFA:

We're talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music and that's not going to happen with people blogging on the internet.

Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet.
Let's get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging.
I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.

You know that old quotation "When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail". Well I guess when your life is devoted to ridiculous sunglasses, Disney soundtracks, outrageous/silly costumes and mediocre pop music, you start to get an overinflated sense of music's role in society.

Next week on slashdot: sculptors suggest we rip out highways so that people can better appreciate sculptures and fountains.

Re:And rock n' roll singlehandedly killed communis

I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.

Right--we did it for ten years, already. It was called the Seventies. It started with the Beatles and ended with Disco, and Elton John helped that transition.

Let's just all be quiet and hope he goes away.

Poor guy...

I think the lad's gone old on us.

Ticket prices

Right Sir Elton, i'd love to be able to afford to see my bands live, but most of them are assholes like you and charge $150 a ticket, hence it's not possible to see more then a couple a year at best.

Re:Ticket prices

Come on, have some sympathy. First Slashdotters say that big artists should make most of their money from live performances. Then why they try to make millions that way, you deny them that too!

The Internet is helping me make it as a musician

I've been a software engineer for twenty years, and I'm sick to death of it. But I have always had a great love of music - I taught myself to play piano by ear starting back in 1984, and learned to improvise. I composed several songs by improvising, and with the help of a pro audio friend, recorded them back in '94.

But at the time all I could do to distribute my music was to manually duplicate cassette tapes. I just gave a few to friends and family. CD burners were still horrendously expensive, as were CD-R blanks.

When I got my own website, I offered some free downloads in Sun's old .AU format. I think it's 8-bit, so it didn't sound that good, and the downloads were quite large. But MP3 and psychoacoustic compression was still a ways off.

The copyright on my music said "All rights reserved" at first, and I specifically forbid sharing my songs over the Internet, but instead requested that those who wanted to share my music direct others to my website.

But I had always been a big fan of Richard Stallman and Free Software, and I knew that the right thing to do would be to copyleft my music.

I'm not signed with any record label, not even an indie one. I'm completely on my own. But my music gets downloaded by hundreds of people each month, with the downloads growing over time.

By learning to play by ear, I didn't learn to read sheet music. But for several years now I've been taking piano lessons and learning to read music, with the aim that when I can pass the entrance audition, I will enroll in music school to major in musical composition. I want to compose symphonies someday.

The Internet is, frankly, a miracle to me as it is enabling people throughout the world to get to know me and my music. When the time comes that I play professionally - or hopefully, symphony orchestras play myy compositions - I expect that there will already be a base of fans who will buy tickets to my performances.

Please download, share and enjoy:

• Geometric Visions: The Rough Draft [geometricvisions.com]

I call it "The Rough Draft" because I always intended to compose more pieces for at, and when the time came, to re-record it and to have a "glass master" CD pressed.

The lot of it is under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 2.5 license. There are various formats as well as sheet music in PDF and Lilypond (source code) format. (I would be honored if any of you learned to play my music.)

I've been playing at Open Mics for a couple years now. I recently moved to Silicon Valley, and often visit Santa Cruz on the weekends. If you'd like to hear me live, check my live performance schedule [geometricvisions.com]. (It presently says I'm in Vancouver, but I'll update that in the next day or so.)

I'm also planning to buy an amp so I can play my keyboard on the street. When I do, I'm going to have a sign hanging off of it advertising "Free Music Downloads", and will have a box of my free music download handbills [advogato.org].

Last weekend I spent four hours walking up and down Santa Cruz' Pacific Garden Mall passing out the handbills. I got many reactions - most people think it's too good to be true, that there is some kind of catch, but most who accept the handbill are quite delighted.

You could really help me out if you shared my music over the Internet.

Experiment?

From TFA:

"I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span."

If only there was a period in history when the internet didn't exist, so we could make a comparison to it.

I'm An Old Duffer Also But I Disagree

Over here in the UK I read a magazine called "Classic Rock" because I'm a middle-aged old duffer into Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Black Sabbath and, yes, even the occasional (classic 70s) Elton John album.

A couple of months ago, a freebie brochure-cum-mini magazine fell out listing all of the rock music festivals going on in-and-around Europe over the summer - no lies, but there were *at least* 70 music festivals!

I guess one reason for this is the ludicrous prices of concert tickets and the rip-off sellers like Ticketmaster that charge *extortionate* booking fees simply for putting a couple of tickets in the post - the fact is that a festival is going to give you "more bands for your money".

I don't like a lot of the modern music but I don't see any shortage of live gigs to go to and the whole live music scene is very vibrant - hell, even heroes of mine like Uriah Heep and Magnum, all of them approaching their 60s, are touring quite regularly *and* charging reasonable amounts for tickets.

The sad fact is that Elton John is a "has-been" and has now become more media celebrity than musician - these days, he's more known for his gay marriage to his partner, wild parties & sucking up to Disney to write film soundtracks rather than the classic music he did during the 70s like "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Captain Fantastic".

Nope, I can't stand music downloads & most modern music either but the fact is that I can still buy CDs at reasonable prices (not in rip-off stores like Virgin or HMV) and there is more than enough live music for me to go and see - so what anyone else does is up to them, I'm in my 40s and well catered for...

My god

Clearly Elton John hasn't listened to the radio for the past fifteen years. Ignorance is bliss.

But for the internet, I'd never have discovered the amount of music I have that actually has real art value.

Looking at this bass ackwards

Don't be too critical of Sir Elton...

Transformative technology doesn't unfold smoothly. The dominant paradigm is shattered, twisted, shocked by the changes inflicted upon it. To the person born to and comfortable with the dominant paradigm, it would look like the death of everything they know and love. They would be quite rightfully frightened and saddened by what they see. But that is born of their devotion to the past, and their inability to see the future. To the catepillar, butterflies look like the end of all things.

In this messy, rattle-trap process of revoltion, evolution, many new things pop into and out of existence overnight and the new stable state, the new paradigm begins to develop. It is not a pretty process, and the along the way, it's easy to become judgemental and lose sight of why people moved down this path to begin with.

I can only imagine what it will be like when great artists can meet together virtually, collaborating with hardly more than a moments notice, anywhere in the world. What amzing art they will make for the ears, and the eyes, and all the senses, and the spirit, and the mind. What will be the possibility of an artist who can sing neural songs of profound thought and experience, and what will be possible for our children's childen when they have access to every beautiful thing ever devised at almost infinite speed and resolution. The internet of today is a tinker toy. It's an externalization of the human brain, still in it's most primative state. Nobody is surprised that a salamander or even a gopher is not sufficiently sophisticated to be a channel of great artistic beauty. Why should it be any any wonder that as amazing as it is, our ability to truly connect is stil l terribly limited, that our ability to "ART" is constrained by this tiny, narrow channel. The possibility however, that is something an artistic soul should rejoice in.

Relenquish nothing, instead we need to push forward faser, harder, we need to stop thinking small. Watching the enterprise of of today's technology wasting precious time and energy polishing turds and calling it business... this is the real trajedy. Let's build something worthy of human artists, worthy of the art of being human. That would be the fulfillment of real transformation. That would be a worthy aspiration for a true network of human beings.

He is right about BLOGGING

He has something right about blogging - the current state of affairs was made possible by the Internet. People think that they protest by expressing thoughts online, commenting and writing. Newsflash - you don't protest by blogging, or commenting, or making videos. You protest in the streets.
The reason why you have less angry people on the streets, protesting and marching against RIAA, against the Wars, against bad leaders, is because the Internet creates an illusion of "we are doing something by getting together and expressing it everywhere". It's just an illusion. People that would otherwise make a huge difference by marching, protesting, suing, find it much more comfortable to Blog, which is just meaningless masturbation.

Re: BLOGGING and effectiveness...

Nope.

Street marches have the data content of an Atari 2600. You get about 20 signs, 5 leaders who know their stuff, and a whole lot of extraneous violence which requires real police to break up. Then that day's rally is over, and no one cares *any more*.

A sharp, accurate protest blog backed by just a little luck and money can take down titans. Sony is one example. Don Imus is another.

For the love

Best music is done by people who just want to play. It may well be destroying it commercially, but who ever said it was good for companies to own our culture?

American Idol

I would think shows like american idol are destroying the music industry. They are putting out so many new artists each year of mediocre talent. All the ones that are runner ups have albums, and the winners get albums, etc. And even the winners are questionably deserving. Sure there's been Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood... but to get those two talented people we've seen well over 80+ american idol's being pushed in the market place. This distracts from other musical artists.

Sir Elton's £30m spending spree

from the Beeb: Pop superstar Sir Elton John once spent £30m in just under two years - an average of £1.5m a month, the High Court in London has heard. The singer's lavish lifestyle saw him spend more than£9.6m on property and £293,000 on flowers between January 1996 and September 1997. Time's is hard, 'ay Elton? Flowers and knightships don't come for cheap!

Re:His old stuff is awesomely gay

having to maintain an erection while "Tiny Dancer" is playing on the stereo is beyond the pale

I'm getting back in bed. Things are looking rough today...

Re:His old stuff is awesomely gay

No, by "kick her to the curb" I mean I told her I was working undercover for the National Security Agency on a project so sensitive that I could no longer allow my feelings to interfere with my work. I told her that I just cared too much for her to put her in danger by letting her get close to me, and that perhaps, when all the world was free and I was no longer bound by my oaths of allegiance to my agency and the country, I would look her up, but until then, it was best for her own safety to not see me any more.

Being an Elton John fan, she believed me entirely of course.

Isn't anyone going to respond to my initial assertion that the Who contributed more great music before they recorded Tommy than Elton John did in his entire career? Townsend, Entwistle and Keith Moon were gods of Rock's Second Era, and Elton John was a schmaltzy singer-songwriter whose work was just a few steps above Christopher Cross or Morris Albert. Bernie Taupin was a skilled lyricist, but even he knew when it was time to hang 'em up.

And now Elton John is pissed and is blaming the Internet because he's not still able to support his lavish lifestyle from royalties on stuff he recorded 35 years ago. Boo friggin' hoo.

Re:And what's good lately?

I mean, the biggest act of GenX - Nirvana, was an overrated distortion band built around the central premise that Daddy was too mean in my posh suburb and so I had to go and shoot myself.

[citation needed]

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

Yes, I do know Who actually wrote it

- So who did?

- Yes!

(Sorry.)

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

Try creating music that people like

And sadly like most SlashDot nerds, you still sign along to the Lion King even though it makes you want to cry.

Sadly kiddies on SlashDot have no clue of the impact Elton has on Music.

Let's see, hmm, a true music writer with perfect pitch, ya that just doesn't work in today's Britney, lipsync crowd. ;)

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

Sure. Mozart had an impact. Then he died when he was thirty five. We'll never know if he was really any good because we'll never know whether the stuff he would have produced when he was fifty or sixty would be just as good.

Elton John is saying something much more interesting than the usual "file sharing is killing the music industry" line, and it's silly to dismiss him because he hasn't moved with the times onto hip-hop or something like that.

What he's saying is that the music industry is in a creative crisis, and that the source of that crisis is a kind of breakdown in communication between artist and artist and artist and audience. This really is a different take on the problem. What makes it an interesting (not necessarily correct) viewpoint is that our tools for communication are better than ever. However the time-shifting convenience of those tools make the communication less immediate, less in the moment. It's like a chess grandmaster who stops playing tournaments and stays at home playing against a computer. He can spend every waking moment now playing chess, but he is no longer contributing to chess culture.

Personally, I'm not sure I buy this. Have artists stopped playing in clubs? Or giving concerts?

I think the biggest problem in music, at least in the US, is the end of independent ownership and management of radio stations. Radio is the most important tool for disseminating musical innovation, and once the distribution channels are centrally controlled, innovation is squashed by corporate gatekeeper. There is less room for individual advocacy, as local management and jobs disappear to be replaced by robot stations playing a predetermined format. Go any place in the country, turn on the radio, and you get just varying proportions of the following formats: Pop hits, oldies, country, sports talk, right wing talk, Christian radio. It's like every restaurant in the country had to be a McDonalds, Red Lobster, KFC, or Chili's.

In this context, the crushing of Internet radio is the worst thing imaginable, because it is crushing the last legitimate outlet for individuality in music distribution. File sharing may be a problem for the music industry, but unauthorized sharing is really the only outlet left for individual music advocacy.

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

I think the biggest problem in music, at least in the US, is the end of independent ownership and management of radio stations.

I'd say it's more than just that. The biggest problem in music is the end of independent ownership and management of everything related to music on any kind of large scale. You name it, it's either owned or controlled by the RIAA mob, or it's basically irrelevant to the majority of the industry. Plenty of small-scale stuff happens, all the way down to people just talking to each other about it, but none of it reaches the necessary critical mass for any of the ideas generated to travel far beyond the (social) vicinity of the place where they started.

The root cause of all this is obvious: whenever anything significant starts to happen, people start thinking about how they can make money from it, and then they start thinking about how to maximise their profits from it, and then the RIAA mob makes them an offer.

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

It's interesting to hear this from the perspective of a very mainstream composer. Fascinating that he feels so disjunct from his listeners. Because for most independent and small artists, the Internet has brought them much CLOSER to their audiences. The increased communication, sense of community, and the niche culture of the Internet has been hailed as a boon by small artists. Suddenly the major label barriers to audience access have fallen down.

Perhaps what Elton is really describing is the disconnect of the artist who does not concertize. Smaller, independents described above make the majority of their income in live performances. Online communities and media all drive these artists' fans towards the concert hall. Elton is still operating in the paradigm where the album is the primary unit of communication with your audience. You do concerts and tours, but really only to promote a new album. Fans' reactions are taken on a per-album basis. There's no question that this model is getting less effective, and that can feel like a disconnect if you're stuck operating that way.

And BTW, Elton may be a real composer, but let's not compare him to Mozart. In his short life, Mozart revolutionized music. A poster here commented that he never got old enough for us to see if he was "really any good." As a classical musician, I can tell you that 600 compositions is MORE THAN ENOUGH to tell if a composer is "really any good". And Mozart was one of the greatest.

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

The thing to keep in mind is, the internet is much more important than popular music. The music industry as it is today could suffer a horrible, painful death and we would still be better off than before the internet came around. Music was around long before "the industry", and it'll be around long after.

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

Read his remark: "it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span." Do you think that's a serious call to shut down the Internet? I don't. I think it's an off-the-cuff call for musicians to interact more with each other and audiences. Do I personally agree that the Internet will turn all musicians into Moby? Nah. Then again, Elton John might just have insight into the musical world that you and I do not.

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

Sir Reginald is totally displacing here. The Internet is not the problem with modern music; on the contrary, it's the only thing keeping music alive. The large record companies are killing music by providing an endless supply of "marketable" pop claptrap. All of the musical innovation today comes from independent artists who have virtually no chance of ever getting a lucrative record contract. Guess where these indies distribute their music? Guess where they collaborate?

When it comes down to jamming, they still do it in basements and garages, like they've always done, but the sharing of ideas is possible like never before because of the "problem" that Elton is complaining about.

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

Sure. Mozart had an impact. Then he died when he was thirty five. We'll never know if he was really any good ...

Mozart created a body of music that has survived over 200 years after his death. And you still won't say whether he is any good?

DAMN your tough!!!

Finding band members

Funny, Elton... Backpage and Craigslist helped a buddy and me find a bass player, a drummer and a singer. We now have a band with our tunes on MySpace which gives us more exposure than we could ever have without the net. So, find new members, share your music, find the best deals on musical gear, tout your gigs, reach the world, download software to help recording... How is that killing music Sir Platform Heels and Funny Glasses?

Re:Finding band members

The point he's making is that the internet isn't killing music. It's fostering it's creation and it's dissemination to the world.

It may wind up killing the species of "musician" who get unbelievably filthy rich off a couple of hits and then can sit around the rest of their life commenting on how technology is destroying the vehicle they rode to their destination. But that's a small price to pay for the swell of music now available at humanity's fingertips.

The internet is not killing music.

It's only killing corporate dominance of music.

Re:Finding band members

You missed what I believe he was trying to imply. With the internet, yes it's easy to find more band members, equipment, etc. Yes it's easy to get your music available for millions of people to listen to. The problem is, it's not in the public eye. It's just on some obscure MySpace page. Yes, anyone with internet access who wants to listen to it could potentially do that, but first they have to find it. And that's what makes radio so effective even now. Anywhere you happen to be, there's only so many stations you can pick up. And if you're the type of person who listens only to FM, where most music is played, that number drops down to only a few dozen. So if your tune gets on the radio, you know that the people interested in hearing the type of tunes you're playing will hear it.

And with so many bands playing and releasing their music on the internet these days, that's never going to change, even if someone made a website to function as a central depository to catalog music. There's just simply way too much of it available. Chances of more than a few hundred people ever hearing your music are pretty much non-existent, unless it's heavily promoted.

So I guess that's why he's saying the internet is killing music. Yes, it gives you a world-wide venue, but it makes it harder for people to find it. Of course, making your stuff available on the internet does not automatically preclude your band also having a local presence, but it often happens by default as it's so much easier to simply upload your music than it is to find local gigs, haul your equipment around, etc.

Qui bono? (Who benefits?)

It may wind up killing the species of "musician" who get unbelievably filthy rich off a couple of hits and then can sit around the rest of their life commenting on how technology is destroying the vehicle they rode to their destination. But that's a small price to pay for the swell of music now available at humanity's fingertips.

You hit the nail right on the head.

Who has been agitating for more and more protectionism for a small group of tycoon musicians? Why, the tycoon musicians, of course! Most musicians do NOT make it into that small charmed circle in which people like Sir Elton and Sir Cliff live. Most musicians work day jobs and try to sell recordings on merch tables at small clubs.

The Internet and sites like CD Baby are allowing musicians who would otherwise labor in obscurity a bit of international visibility. It might hurt a few who played the game and won the RIAA lottery but the vast majority of musicians actually benefit by the low barriers to entry and possibility of making modest income.

Re:Finding band members

You're only a counter example if you don't suck :)

Biased opinion

Elton has a bias against technology. He says so in the article. He doesn't use it. So how can he possibly know what its affect on music is? His reputation carries a big weight because of his past brilliance, but we have to be careful that we understand the limits of his insight.

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

Elton John has the gall to say there's a breakdown between artist and audience when he's charging $150 per ticket to see him? Fuck the arrogant bastard.

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

Everything I've seen with him in the media over the past several years shows me he's turned into a bitter old man. He had the immature rant at the airport, had it out with Tina Turner (the dude is called a "diva"), and broke down in public at one point. He's entitled to his opinion, but other classic artists have embraced and revered changes due to the Internet. He's deciding to see the glass half empty, as it appears he's done in general anyhow....

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

today's Britney crowd
In my opinion, the new music world should be about choice The internet creates choice. And if that internet destroys the musicindustry(I'm talking about formatted music like britney's) GOOD: bring on all the new types of music!

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

Hey, Elton's actually made music that isn't the same canned love-song crap. The songs he writes are autobiographical, about people important to him, about things important to his lyricist, etc. And he's an amazing live performer. Yep, I'm a big fan of his and I'm continually amazed by his live work.

But "close down the internet"? That's just ridiculous. Not happening, and I don't agree. Sure, sometimes you get a lot of "me too" art of all sorts (drawings, music, whatever) but I think the fact that anyone can publish and create anything they want more than makes up for that.

If it weren't for the big name behind this silliness, I doubt anyone would pay it any mind. And I think it's silly and not worth the electrons it's "printed" with.

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

You mean Bernie Taupin writes songs that are autobiographical, about people that are important to him. It's Taupin that wrote all those love song lyrics of the past...usually written to his girlfriend at the time. Elton put them all to extremely beautiful music.

I know, you did say "things important to his lyricist"...but I just wanted to make sure Bernie Taupin's name got out there.

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

The Internet is destroying the music industry, the mass produced, factory production line, one hit wonder music, the crap that only the most inexperienced and susceptible to mass marketing techniques temporarily thought they enjoyed, good riddance.

The rebirth of music, created by real human beings to be shared with real human beings, music that only represented the minority of content readily available in the 20th century will again become the majority and the only people to miss the parasitic music publishers will be the parasitic publisher executives.

Elton is just isolated by wealth and mass media manufactured fame, and is lamenting his lost ability to share the creative process with the grass roots artists, as he approaches his end of times. The Internet will usher in a new era of live music in preference to dead recordings.

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

The Internet is destroying the music industry

..and loving it.

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

FTFA:

I don't have a mobile phone or an iPod or anything.

I am such a Luddite when it comes to making music. All I can do is write at the piano.

And there's the problem. He's stuck in his ways, and the internet is a threat to those ways. Lets be clear - the internet is helping new artists make music and distribute it (for free and for money) without requiring a restrictive contract with a record company.

Consider The Boy Lacks Patience [theboylackspatience.com]. He's an amazing performer, and he is all the things that you said Elton John is. Yet, despite that I lived in the same city as him for about five years, I would never have heard of him if it wasn't for the internet.

Re:Sucks to be you, Elton

he songs he writes are autobiographical, about people important to him, about things important to his lyricist, etc.

where does Crocodile Rock fit into this, exactly?

Re:Fuck! The Dude is, like, a 100 now

People who "try" to commit suicide and fail that badly (can't gas themselves, don't cut their wrist in the right place, whatever) are generally doing it to try to get attention and try to get help with some issue they can't just outright tell people about, not to actually kill themselves.

Sadly, I've known people who cut themselves up for attention-whore purposes ... so I can't really jeer at it that easily.

I like a lot of his newer stuff, but then, musical tastes are very much an individual thing.

I guess that's why they call it the blues...

...Time on the 'net could be time spent with you
Clicking on banners, searching for lovers
Sneaking my laptop under the covers
And I guess that's why they call it the blues

Ah, Elton, always on hand with crappy lyrics badly modified for current events...

That's not even relevant

I'm tired of whiny (star) musicians being all like "Wah, the internets ate my moniez". If they really loved music, they'd make it even if they had to pay for it, like most of us who like to program/mess with computers and do it even if it costs us money (open source/new gadgets/etc). This just shows me that they're in it for the cash and have no regard for the music they make.

Re:That's not even relevant

What I am tired of is people who don't look at history, or read the freaken article. EJ is not saying that he hates the Internet because he is not making enough money. Elton John a few years ago said he quite recording. What Elton John is saying is that he is tired of the lack of creativity that the Internet is spawning. In fact on that level he is 100% right.

Let me compare this to something I am much more aware of visual art:

There have been many art movements: expressionism, surrealism, abstract, etc. Yet all of these movements predate 1950! Since the 60's there has been no major visual art movement in anything! It is a rehash of everything we have done in the past. If anything this era is predicated on taking the stuff already thought of and mixing it up. You could argue that, the act of mashing up art is a new art movement. Though I would agree with Elton John in that there is very little new ideas and thoughts coming up in art.

In music I have been watching the VH-1 classic music channel, and it is interesting: 50-60's rock, 70's hippies, 80's bad hair day, 90's all against the world, 2000's? Paris Hilton? Britany Spears? You have got to be kidding me. Yes there are good artists in 2000, but they are not gaining the traction that good artists used to get. It seems that the people are not interested in quality, but quantity, and that I feel is the problem Elton John is harping on.

He talked about getting rid of the Internet, would that be a bad idea? Considering that I make my money with the Internet I actually think it is a good idea. I grew up loving the outdoors since I grew up in cottage country (late 80's early 90's). Yes we had video games, and electronics, but it did not match up the excitement of windsurfing, fishing, ice skating, swimming, water skiing, etc. Yet how many kids do that these days? In Canada recently they discovered that young kids do move around quite a bit. It is once they reach the teens that they stop doing anything. Once teens becomes teens only 15% remain active. That has to scare you quite a bit. And what it implies is that teens don't use their brains anymore. They just consume, consume, consume... Creativity comes from having to exercise your brains and experiencing things that are not packaged in nice neat bundles.

So you see Elton John does have a point...

Re:That's not even relevant

...2000's? Paris Hilton? Britany Spears? You have got to be kidding me....

Perhaps you do not travel in the circles that I do, or perhaps you are simply trying to compare to "popular" music, in which case you can be forgiven for such lines of thought, but there are whole worlds of music out there that can fill entire stadiums, that will never make it to the airwaves simply because they are not "radio friendly."

Check out bands like Bathory, who created the Black Metal music scene, or Destruction, credited with the Thrash movement. Examine Thyrane, or Mayhem, or Children of Bodom, perhaps ...And Oceans for a good example of the merging of Black Metal and Symphonic orchestras.

It's simply amazing what one can find once one turns off the radio.