[atlantaprog] Re: Cheapness

In a message dated 10/28/2003 10:59:09 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
cobwebstrange@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> Yes' 2001 release, "Magnification," peaked at #186 on billboard and I doubt 
> 
> it made it to any of the singles charts.  I haven't seen Porcupine Tree's 
> "In Absentia" on the charts at all.  The only band that I know of that you 
> guys may consider progressive that has actually been selling really well 
> lately is Tool.  

Magnification didn't get a fair shake because Beyond Music went belly up 
right after the album was released.  Yes are actually getting some decent push 
from the industry since Wakeman signed back on.  They are on the cover of this 
month's issue of Billboard and have been getting shockingly good press in all 
sort of places for the last couple of years.  Whether or not this will 
translate 
into albums sales next year when they finally release a new album has yet to 
be seen.

I think Radiohead are quite amazing myself.  The crowd at the Radiohead 
concert ranged from late teens to early forties, which just goes to show that 
people will still get behind fundamentally sound, intelligent, passionate rock 
music if they're given the opportunity.  Tool are really good musicians, but 
their 
music bores me because it's so emotionally monochromatic.  They don't know 
how to convey anything other than anger and depression.  If they really wanted 
to shake things up they'd stick a song on their next album called "Land of 
Kittens And Flowers" or something like that.  I have the same problem with 
Trent 
Reznor.  

I'm also pretty keen on Coldplay and The White Stripes, both of whom seem to 
sell a fair number of albums.  

>   From what I've seen, the guys in their late twenties 
> and early thirties are still listening to the music that they were listening 
> 
> to in high school and college, so if they are buying albums, they're buying 
> the re-mastered version of "1984" or the new Police DVD. 

It's an untapped market.  The industry markets to teens and to baby boomers, 
but largely ignores everyone in between.  There are smart, educated people out 
there with jobs and disposable entertainment income who love to rock out a 
bit, but are completely turned off by current popular music.  You have mostly 
prefab teen idols, and angry teenage boy music on the radio and then a bunch of 
reissues and boxed sets of old stuff from the sixties and seventies that are 
mainly aimed at the boomers.  They're starting to do a few 80s reissues, but I 
see no real point in buying a reissue of an album that was originally released 
on CD in the first place.  Most remasters sound exactly the same to me, only 
louder and more compressed.  I love hearing new stuff.  I used to hit a CD 
store every Tuesday just to pick up new releases.  Unfortunately, the industry 
has moved away from signing and marketing the kind of artists that I appreciate 
so I'm down to maybe one new release a month now and I get more excited over 
finally getting a copy of Ogden's Nut Gone Flake by The Small Faces on CD or a 
Miles Davis reissue than over current music.  It's still music I haven't heard 
before, so from my perspective it is "new."  I pretty much guarantee that 
twenty and thirty-somethings will come out and support rock and roll music with 
a 
dash of mystique and aura, less posing and no friggin' turntables on the 
stage, and lots of songs.

CH

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