The death of the elegantly wasted rock star

Now, I might be the only person in the world who thinks this way and feel free to hurl your entire catalogue of web 2.0 abuses at me but I miss the old school music business model. You know the days when oligopolistic record labels ruled the industry; a working class fellow like me had no chance of going anywhere with my music unless the A&R rep at EMI was a personal friend of (slept with) my alcoholic aunt and you had all the choice in the world as long as it was a top forty artist shoved down your throat by the wonderful chaps at Billboard. Those not too distant times bring a smile to my face. Why, you ask? Let me explain

In these pictures, I give to you Mr Michael Trent Reznor. You might recognise him as the symbol of the DIY, independent, self-sufficient musician. Almost universally hailed for his innovative approach towards the music business, he’s a bit of a 21st century Midas.





But to me, the Trent Reznor I continue to be obsessed with is the one from the 90’s. Back then, he was a clichéd rock star. Drug addicted, reclusive, depressed and totally messed up, he wrote two of the greatest albums ever written, The Downward Spiral and The Fragile. (How can you argue with a chorus that goes “I wanna fuck you like an animal”?) Look at the two pictures, which one do you prefer? I’m not referring to his age because obviously that’s not a fair comparison but a sensible, business like Trent just doesn’t do it for me.

In my opinion, the best albums have been written when musicians were allowed to be just musicians. Not managers, not publicists, not agents. If a musician can’t get high because he / she has to focus on their "business", the quality of the music will suffer. Not everyone needs to get drunk every night or experiment with drugs to help the creative process but most people will find themselves thinking waaaaay more creatively if they live life on the edge☺. I’ll go into detail in another blog.

With the way the music industry is going, musicians are encouraged to take their career into their hands, think of it as a business, be professional, be productive, think long term, plan ahead. Blimey, this is beginning to sound a lot like my day job. Do I really want to think of music in this way and was this why I wanted to be a musician in the first place? I’m not so sure. Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather be a successful independent musopreneur than a donkey working in an office but if us musicians are required to be jacks of all trades then surely we won’t be masters of anything. I think creativity needs to be nurtured and allowed to flourish which means give us musicians loads of money, let us sit at home, smoke weed and write a couple of lines a day. But, and I mean this with the utmost sincerity, those two lines will be the best two lines you have ever read. Charlie Parker said, “Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn”.

Does this mean that the overall quality of music will decline in the future, as musicians are too busy replying to messages on Facebook?

Are we looking at a new sub genre of rock n roll called “customer oriented rock”? (Please god, no!!)

Can musicians who are not the most adept bloggers / PR experts find a way to connect with their audience?

Is this the death of the elegantly wasted rock star?

Let us know what you feel.

Yours hypocritically,

Silk Tongue Gamblers.