Stop supporting bad music.
iTunes has become a monster in the music world overnight. Now purchasing music is as easy as a couple clicks and a credit card payment at the end of the month. The only problem with this system is that on iTunes, you can pick and choose the songs you buy, so another one-hit-wonder is born every second.
At savethealbum.com, artists Devendra Banhart, Colin Meloy (The Decemberists), Bloc Party (no, not the student government administration) and others provide testimonials about their favorite albums. Love or hate these artists, their hearts are in the right place. They just want to prevent Hanson, Chumbawumba and Fall Out Boy-esque bands from destroying the music world.
Music artists don’t sell their souls to the devil for that one hit song; they sell it for the album. A song is just a part of the album. The album is the artist’s masterpiece, and if you only buy one song, it’s like only buying a section of a painting. You can’t appreciate it nearly as much–if at all.
By only purchasing the hit songs of bands that make it to the radio, you are allowing for bad music to succeed in the same way as bands that continually release amazing work. James Blunt will have his day in the sun for whining about a beautiful girl, but The Flaming Lips are still thriving from a song about Vaseline they wrote in 1993.
Now that’s success.
I’m sure that if you look in your iPod under most bands, you only have a couple of each one’s songs–the hits. This type of music support is the cause of such nonsense as “MmmBop” and pretty much any emo song. If an artist sets out to write a catchy tune about how sad he or she is so that the masses will eat it up, the only product will be garbage. When you support these artists, that’s what music turns into.
Next time you sit down at your computer to get some new tunes, listen to more than the hit song before you buy from a band. See if it is actually talented or if it’s just another pretty face or whiny bastard the record executives want you to adore.
I’ll admit, we all have different tastes in music, and there isn’t anything wrong with that. The only problem is that, if you don’t sit down and critically listen to the music you claim to love so much, you are supporting artists who are nothing more than puppets to make money for opportunistic record labels.
Spend the extra cash, buy the album and let artists who deserve your money make it, not whiny punks who learned how to jump and play power chords.
