Originally Posted by DonnaJ /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I'm old. I've come to bore you with history! These are things I've noticed since the 70s when I started paying attention to things like this (I was born in '63) Back then business was about longevity. You wanted to turn out quality products that would have customers coming back for decades. You dumped your earnings back into your business, either having it grow outwardly, as in opening new stores, or making your product available to more stores, etc or your growth might be in creating different or better products. A sign of changes that were happening in the 80s is the movie "Wall Street"...greed is good. Now everything is about short term, grabbing all the money you can, and not giving a damn if the company goes under as long as you got yours. Things used to be built to last, now it's all about planned obsolescence. You're either getting products that are shoddily made so that they break and you have to replace them, or they advertise in a way that has you always chasing the next best thing (Apple comes to mind here). There are a few other things I noticed, this whole "greed is good" mindset means that you are always ripping people off, in order to do this and get away with it, a couple things have to be in place. First you have to own the government so that there is little or ineffective regulation and little or no law enforcement. That's what Reaganomics was all about, DEREGULATION! Let the market control itself. Corporations own our government now. The other thing is that you have placate the people so that they are not paying attention to what is happening until it's too late. They know we have a short attention span, and that's where things like reality tv, National Enquirer, and what everyone is talking about here with the flash and dazzle instead of actual talent being the most important thing. We know more about what celebrities are doing, and we're creating celebrities out of losers and paying attention to their sad lives, instead of what our government and corporations and other businesses are doing. Like the Wizard of Oz says, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"
What does this have to do with music? Music is cultural, and what I've given is a short history of American culture. It's all about marketing now, almost every aspect of American life is marketing. It's about wonderful packaging with who-knows-what, possibly rotting garbage inside. Marketing is a total mind-f*ck. Business wants you ignorant and they own the govt. So schooling has gone downhill with our children learning to be the best worker drones and consumers possible. Out the window goes things like music, art, history, anything that would increase intellectual growth and critical thinking skills. You'll also notice it's become increasingly difficult to go to college in a world where you can not get a decent paying job without a college degree.
This doesn't mean that quality isn't important to some businesses, and again, music is a business too, but it's getting to that point. What I am hoping for is a backlash. Those of us my age or older have destoyed the future for our children and grandchildren and now all I can hope is they are smart enough to see that and to insist on quality over flash and dazzle; in music and other entertainment, and in their products, and in their government etc.
I'm a total Debbie Downer today, ain't I? lol
/emoticons/
