RE: Quantity vs Quality in the age of AI overlords
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Well, back then only the labels decided what music we all could have access to. So we didn't have any freedom like now. Yes, we are enslaved by the algorithms (but there are alternatives) but you can virtually find any music you want to listen. And as a musician you can produce and publish any kind of music you want with no one stopping you from releasing it.
Also you must consider where do you live. Because if I was growing up in Italy in the 70s I absolutely wouldn't have the minimum chance to become a professional musician, even less releasing my own music. And I think that is true for 99% of the places in the world.
Even in the greatest America of the past people still needed to move to some big city to get a bit of a chance.
Now I can produce my Futuristic dystopian cyberpunk metal music in my bedroom from the Venetian countryside and I have thousands of people from all over the world listening to it. And there's no label gatekeeper teeling me I can't publish it because it's not perfect and it wouldn't work on the radio
For the majority yeah! But there were still traveling musicians and people outside of that system. Some of the early blues guitarists come to mind. Punk rock is another. Early electronic music and rap too. A lot of the times the labels tried to take over a movement after it started gaining some momentum, not too different from today. But yeah the majority of listeners it was about what the labels fed them.
It wasn’t easy to make a good living without the labels, but there were people who managed to survive doing it!
Also I guess it depends on what you mean by professional. I know some bands who tour and play some big shows but they can’t manage to do that constantly so they teach their instruments, are they professional? They can make a living between those two things.
It’s definitely an interesting topic! Cool music btw!
When I say professional I say it in a very entry level way. Just having the chance to record your stuff in a decent way would've been far away from available for the 90% of the musicians today. To distribute your work was even harder, because you had to make some copies of a demo and send it to every label you know and then prey every God to be the chosen.
It's true that all this led to an enormous quantity of music that should've been kept locked in a drawer. But I prefer knowing that my music discoveries are in my hands (and depends also on how the band promote itself) than to go to a record store and being forced to choose from what the labels decided I must listen to.
And yes, I know that often the bands went directly to the store and give them a bunch of their albums, so you can find a way to some independent music. But here's again the difference on where we live. Because if I lived in New York or LA, I could find some new born Guns n roses or Ramones album. But I live in Veneto, Italy. There's no chance I had found such amazing bands going to my local record store