Is there too much music on MySpace? I know that this is a strange question from someone who has his own music page, but bear with me…
Real musicians who want - or indeed need - to make a living through their music are being lost in amongst page after page of poorly written, badly produced, bedroom recorded, tat. Perhaps that is the real reason why hard working, talented musicians are not being "discovered" is that they are lost in the morass of these lazy and mediocre fame seekers. Band pages come and go more often than trains out of Central Station and, due to the ease of which a page can be designed and redesigned, what may have been the page for a folk/country duo one week has been turned into a thrash metal site because the musicians have the no actual direction and just want to indulge themselves in whatever genre happens to be fashionable.
In the old days, when it took time and money to produce a record, the apathetic and witless rarely got past the studio door. Now, anyone with access to a second hand computer and the
Internet can flood us, online or via cheap and nasty CDs, with second-rate drivel drowning out those with something worth listening to. By all means, get a guitar and have drunk sing-a-longs at parties but don't waste my time and expect me to dip into my pocket if you are doing it 'just for a laugh'. I've got enough clocks made out of old CDs and there are whole sections of landfill made up of abandoned home recordings without you adding to them.
The irony in me writing this is that I don't think that my own music is that good and I certainly won't be wasting a live audience's time or money any time soon. When I created my MySpace page however, I did have ambitions above my station and, indeed, the majority of online 'friends' did actually seek me out. In my own defence, I am a real music fan liking everything from Metal to Rock to Country to Folk and back again. I also do CD reviews occasionally - which partly prompted and informed this sermon - and I've a show on Celtic Music Radio (1530AM radio in and around Glasgow and online at www.celticmusicradio.net).
I'd love to get more new and, where possible, local music to play on the show because, despite this rant, there ARE talented, genuine people who should be brought out from under the weight of dross keeping them down. However, if you're not going to take your music seriously, don't ask me to either.
Finally, to paraphrase a well known saying - if you care about your music (and the ears of others), consider it like a new puppy - "it is for life, not just for Christmas".
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