Cake singer: music will be "really great hobby in 5-10 yrs."

[James Steele]

Anybody hear about this:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=77220" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Will music be reduced to a mere hobby over the next decade, even for bands like Cake? That's not the rosiest of forecasts, though Cake lead singer John McCrea is admittedly pessimistic. “Can you put food on the table with music? Probably not. I see music as a really great hobby for most people in fiveor 10 years," McCrea told NPR's All Things Considered this afternoon."I see everybody I know, some of them really important artists, studying how to do other jobs."

You may remember that Cake has the lowest-selling number-one album of all time, at least for now. The group recently shifted 44,000 first-week units of Showroom of Compassion, but hey: a number one is still a number one. And McCrea pointed to the accomplishment as a perfect collision of the band's optimistic and pessimistic sensibilities.

Still, Cake did that on their independent Upbeat Records, though they've also benefited enormously from the major label machine in the past. And that can make all of the difference in the world.

And, it may help Cake keep the show going for a really long time. In fact, McCrea was pleasantly surprised by Compassion's results, and this is definitely a group with name recognition and a following. “We had to sort of re-evaluate our whole business model," McCrea continued. “We knew that it probably wasn't a good idea to be on a big label right now—but we also thought that we could be crushed like a bug releasing an album on our own label. Thankfully we were wrong, but we didn't have high hopes."

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Music has already become a hobby for many trying to "make it" in the real world of 'popular' music. IMO it appears that the musical styles of pop are getting simpler musically and more complex on the engineering/producing side. The promoted "artist" often has no real extraordinary talent and relies on auto-tune, theatricality, or a giant ovary to be carried into the Grammys (and considering she's also butt ugly, that makes some sense). Cleverness and novelty wear thin very quickly. Real craft requires skill and it is up to the artist to educate the public to some degree (like the Beatles did, for example). Much of what I see and hear from the pop world (and I try not to see too much of it and hear even less) is not particularly well crafted. It is message based, not music based, and relies more on appearance than talent. Sure, Jagger, Towensend, Hendrix, et al, also relied on appearance and shock value, with one little difference - they had skills and a powerful musical message. Today, all pop songs seem to have the same message about the high ego level of the messenger.

Fortunately for us classical & jazz types, there are no real short cuts to accomplish competent orchestration, well crafted voice leading, accurate notation, and actual realtime performance of challenging music. It's just as hard for us to make a living as it was 200 years ago ☺ .

Pop music? I left that behind when disco came around the horn. I thought: "this is the beginning of the end." I think I may have been correct. Then again, NO ONE can predict the future or what will happen next. So what's a boy to do?

[Phil O]

I just find it all kind of depressing. MLC, you mention the Beatles. Those were exciting times. I haven't been moved that way by any new (pop) music for a very long time.

Phil

[FMiguelez]

I just find it all kind of depressing.

Me too.
I actually think 5-10 years is in the optimistic side... I'd say a little less.

[buzzsmith]

I just find it all kind of depressing. MLC, you mention the Beatles. Those were exciting times. I haven't been moved that way by any new (pop) music for a very long time.

Phil

+1

[buzzsmith]

I'm just waiting (or has it already happened?) for a top 10 song to be created entirely within GarageBand.

It was Electronica, but I just finished mastering an entire album that was created only in GB.

(I have to admit, for the genre, it sounded pretty dang good...unless you like melodies.)

Buzzy

[HCMarkus]

Nail hit squarely on the head MLC.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Nail hit squarely on the head MLC.

Thanks. The one thing that separates the artist from the practitioner: innovation.

[bongo_x]

I just had this exact conversation with my brother last night. People who aren’t in the music business just plain don’t believe it. The world will be filled with millions of “pretty good” records soon.

My other big point about this was expressed by the editor of Electronic Musician, people aren’t collaborating much anymore. There’s no one to tell you “that part sucks” or “how about this idea”, much less fill in the blanks in someone’s skill set. One person rarely has all the skills needed to make a great recording. We’ll be listening to Frank Sinatra for a long time because we’ll never hear the new Frank.

bb

[FutureLegends]

Is it not just returning to the 'roots'. Historically, being a musician has been hard work, more in the league of being a craftsman. You had to work 5-7 days a week to make a living. It wasn't until the 40s or something that highly paid super stars started to appear and that excalated to reach some sort of summit in the 80s/90s. That has lead to everyone wanting to be a musician (or a rockstar rather). But you can't have to many carpenters in one town or they will have to start working for close to nothing too to get any jobs at all.
Simply put, there's to many damn bands and most of them suck.

[James Steele]

Simply put, there's to many damn bands and most of them suck.

I had a discussion about this with somebody the other day. In a perverse way, the major labels served as a "filter." So did the cost back then to record, etc. Both factors weeded out people. I remember when IUMA appeared. I initially thought "How cool! We can hear bands without the major label filtering!" Well, I know there used to be a lot of dolts whose uncle got them the job in A&R, but by and large, most of what I recall hearing when I randomly started playing bands I'd never heard of on IUMA was just awful. In some ways, the majors did us a favor by keeping us from hearing 99% of that stuff. Hate to be harsh.

What has happened is it is just over-saturated. Another case in point. Anybody been over to MySpace lately? It looks as if the folks running MySpace are succeeding in what appears to be purposely RUINING the site by making it so difficult and slow to maneuver-- it's just so bad bands are trying to cut their losses and move over to Facebook. I got 52,000 friends/fans over there. I'd have to run a little bot program day and night for two months to try and send a message to all of them to find me at Facebook... assuming they even GO to MySpace any more.

But beyond that, if you decide to be a masochist and go over to MySpace, you will find your In Box STUFFED full of spam messages from various bands from all over the country. "Hey check our CD!" "Download our music FREE this week!" Honest to God, seriously, will the last one out just turn off the lights. The party really seems to be over now, there's just a whole bunch of people who haven't figured out yet that the host has gone to sleep and all the booze is gone. I mean I continue to slog along because I just like doing this, but it's just a sad situation. I also think in large part it's the "fans" that helped kill it, because these are people who wouldn't dream of busting into your house and stealing your television, but they'll steal from the bands they profess to "love." Filesharing really has been a devastating plague in my opinion. It's funny... but I was telling a friend the other day that in hindsight ANALOG was the greatest copy-protection devised and we may not have realized it at the time.

Any way, I get newsletter emails from various industry indy musician luminaries trying to spin this positively, but frankly it's hard to see it. You want to make some money-- join a tribute band, right? You tell me why big name music stars and struggling like hell to get *acting* gigs now and cross over into films? What should that tell you? I wish I could see something positive. Anybody who has something to throw out there that's a silver lining I'm willing to listen.

[HCMarkus]

Another nail struck squarely James.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid all these nails are being driven into a coffin...

[bill_cosby]

bummer.

[johnnytucats]

James,

I gotta say it's pretty funny to hear someone infer that the glory days of MySpace are over.

[James Steele]

James,

I gotta say it's pretty funny to hear someone infer that the glory days of MySpace are over.

If I'm wrong about what seems to be an obvious assessment, I would truly welcome your setting me straight. I can see where they are TRYING to go with it and it might be a good strategy on paper, but the execution and degraded user experience has caused many people I know to flee that place. Again, I'd welcome a little expansion on your comment as I'm not quite sure about the point you're making?