Traffic wasn't bad, but for a good chunk of my journey, coming up to a roundabout on my way to Lower Sunbury, I was on the right hand side of the road, which apparently isn't the norm in England. I'm one of those nightmare cyclists, I cycle on the pavement, knocking innocent pedestrians out of the way on my bike. I passed my cycling proficiency test ages ago, but I don't really care about regulations as long as nobody gets hurt. I mean, being a cyclist is a lot like being a teenager, where people don't want to treat you like a child, but they also don't want to treat you like an adult. Sometimes it gets confusing, should I act like a pedestrian, or like a car?
Anyway, I've never really cared about cycling. It's just not interesting. There's lots of things I love in the world, but two things stick with me: design and music. On the way, I managed to listen to an instrumental of A Day In The Life by The Beatles, I was thinking, like, what made them such a great band? I think, like anything, they can't take all of the credit for their huge success. Sometimes when a band gets big, things just snowball and they become something greater than what they set out to be.
Recently, music has branched off into two different templates. The first, where an act gets big and then continues to thrive on their success. This is the Lady Gaga's and Justin Bieber's of this world. For most people, music is an afterthought. In some cases this is because they don't have the interest. It's hard for people to find new music that doesn't have some kind of marketing scheme behind it. I mean, this is fine, but what it means is that only marketable music makes its way to the top, leaving a lot of great acts out of the spotlight. This is a great thing really. Some artists are marketable and some aren't, that's just the way it is.
I often get people complaining to me about how bands are underrated or unappreciated by the masses. This is with good reason, but I don't see how things are going to change any time soon. People are always going to listen to pop music in one form or another. I guess you could describe some people's attitude towards music as passive. The other way music survives, is on a much smaller scale. This usually happens when there is a kind of music that is in a niche, or music that is part of a new wave of artists. Because there isn't much money in these artists for the major labels, it leaves a void in the industry, that is filled with self promotion and DIY culture. Indie labels are a great way for these artists to get their stuff out there without a great deal of artistic compromise.
Usually what happens, is a movement will start out small, and then find its way gradually into mainstream music, as new sounds are gradually accepted into the culture. This has happened to all music at some point, from The Beatles through punk fast forward to now. I guess, music breaks out because artists are trying (or not trying at all) to break out of convention in an effort to be noticed in a sea of musicians who are all tending towards the same artistic point. A very wise musician once told me that although new music is great, it will never be marketable, because people don't like hearing things that are entirely alien to them. People like it when music invokes nostalgia to any extent, because they're comfortable with that.
I'm sure taking this into account will give you the upper hand when songwriting with marketability on your mind. This is what music is about to me, it's like a language. Where new ideas are like new slang, and words you're already familiar with help make the musical sentences easier to understand. Much like reading A Clockwork Orange in Nadsat, when I hear "art music" I don't really make the same connection as I would with a blues artist for example. It's the humanity in the music that makes it worth listening to for me. I'm a massive supporter of people who make music because they love it, no matter what form it takes.
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