Copyright © 2005 Brian Beshore

The big recording label’s woes over the digital revolution are only going to get worse. For a decade or longer, the major recording companies have grown rigidly opposed to anything or any idea that is truly new.

Whatever innovations they have belatedly begun, they have been pushed into for the protection of their own greedy interests. Without the internet and the digital revolution, all the major players would still be plugging along with business as usual. Let us examine this sordid case.

Record companies have gone from using the same tired old formulas that worked Yesterday, to actually believing that they could engineer a group and, through pure hype, cause the general public to believe it’s good. This attitude is evidenced with the recent legal troubles of Sony, over bribing and paying DJs to give their artists air-play.

This sort of thing is bound to happen when a general consensus of history only reaches back to about last week. People think they know history, but history is distorted by the media.

Here’s a story to demonstrate what I mean. Johann Strauss Jr. was known as the “Waltz King.” He wrote the Blue Danube Waltz. How square can you get, right? Well, he was a very popular guy. When he came to America, he was idolized by the ladies. They all flocked backstage to get a lock of his hair. This became such a problem that Johann resorted to clipping locks of hair from his dog for fear of going bald. Now, doesn’t this smack of Beatlemania? Strauss never even paid young girls to scream at his concert or had his agent call in to local radio stations to request his music be played!

My main point of all this is, that if you really look back in history, the real big successes were the ones who took risks and did something new and different, and is this likely to happen with our current star system? We all know the answer to that. What we get is only new in name.

The really galling thing is the way the middleman mentality strives to re-assert itself on the internet by holding up the argument that the “artist” deserves to get their royalties. I couldn’t agree more! The only hole in this argument is that any new recording artist who signs on with a major record label is already getting ripped off!

About the Author:
Brian Beshore is the former lead singer for the Jabberwocky. He attended the Peaobody Music School in Baltimore. He now runs a website devoted exclusively to new artists; http://www.dizzyobrian.com