Just how tone-deaf are America’s great entertainers?
Featured in the Grammy Awards this weekend was an appeal by the Recording Academy asking President Donald Trump could they please have some more money ( http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/musicians-ask-trump-for-money-help-after-grammys-bashing/article/2614639 ).
Amazing. You go on national TV and express your loathing for the president, for the people who support him (that would be us), and then try to panhandle them for money. “You dirty racist xenophobic biggit! Would you please help us out?” Not an approach which most people would find effective.
The Academy honcho invoked “our collective responsibility”–“our?”–for using the arts to unite America. When they’re not calling us “deplorables” and “Nazis,” etc.
You have to go all the way back to the Old Testament to find a less persuasive argument. In 1 Kings Chapter 12, Rehoboam, the son of King Solomon, seeking to persuade the ten tribes in rebellion against him to come back into his kingdom, proposed to the people, “My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions” (v. 14). Nice pitch, Rehoboam. Didn’t quite win them over with that, did you?
Rehoboam had the makings of a modern American music celebrity.
These people are out of touch with reality. They don’t get it, they don’t understand that there is real trouble around them, and apparently, they don’t understand that insulting someone, ridiculing them and opposing them at every turn is not the road to a listening ear.
Apparently they want revisions to the laws governing intellectual properties and the payments of royalties. I read the article, and some of it was either an outright lie, or a distortion of the facts.
Royalties are paid to the legal publisher of a song. If someone writes a song, they are the publisher by default, although many, many artists sign away publication rights to all of their future work when they get a record deal.
Apparently, they want the session-musicians, engineers, etc, brought into the deal. Historically, session-musicians are paid for their time, as are engineers, etc. There’s no doubt that these people make significant contributions, but the laws of supply and demand make it unwise to stand one’s ground about compensation. Simply stated: there are more good session players and engineers than there is demand. Raise a fuss and they’ll call the next person on the list and, more importantly, never call you again.
IMO, the recording industry has more than its share of dishonest, conniving people, robbing artists of their due pay. Sadly, musicians have a tough time making a living these days, but that’s hardly the president’s fault.
Much of today’s commercially produced music is not all that good. Some rap seems to be little more than obscenities. I don’t intend to pay for such a product, and I doubt that I’m alone in this. The day I can turn on the radio and hear something worthwhile will be the day I break loose with some “coin”.
I gave up on the radio as a source of music, years ago.
Spoken by a man who knows whereof he speaks!
I know just enough about the music business to know that I don’t want to make my living from it. 🙂
Meanwhile, I’m wondering if I ought to title my next book, “King Ryons Makes Obann Great Again.” Might perk up the sales.
I LOVE it! If you do, I’ll buy two copies; ’cause I’ll be reading that one twice. 🙂