Longing for the day ...

Why stick to just one approach?

Watched the final episode of The Hit Game last night and it drove home to me yet another aspect of what's wrong with the music industry: The fixation with making artists stick to one "brand" of music. I thought the Unplugged phenomenon had thrown that notion out years ago ...

Last night Bazz, the music producer, was faced wih a conundrum. He had these three incredibly talented girls who could sing in harmony like angels and had produced a techno-R&B-ish demo. But he heard them singing together around the piano and wanted to showcase their ability. What a perfect solution!! Show them doing it the way they learned (and they were good!!).

But the faceless dream factory executives were confused. What was this band about? Were they an R&B/pop act or an accoustic act? Since they obviously had no comprehension of how music works (much less what makes it good) they just didn't get it! And, worse, they assumed the fans wouldn't get it either.

I got it, the girls got it, Bazz the producer got it ... but the people who held the future of this act in their hands simply got confused when faced with the genuine article ...

What's wrong with the girls doing it both ways? That's the greater musical challenge and appeals to twice the market. I think it's brilliant they can do it - Lush had the opposite problem, being unable to perform away from the studio. The gentle irony here is that these people obviously haven't learned from the one of the great successes of the 1990s: the Unplugged album. Clapton, Nirvana, Kiss and more, all unplugged their instuments and played accoustic versions of their hits, proving that a great song is a great song no matter how it's played.

Let them sing their songs as many ways as possible. That's what I'm working on! First demo coming out soon.