Music before the internet

Talking about the things that have gone into extinction that I wish could be brought back, one of the things I would love to talk about is the music style of those days. I mean the kind of marketing that was done in the 90s and 2000s, which I witnessed.

Back in the days, what announced and made songwriters and music artists famous was just their pure craft and nothing more. In those days, when an album was released, it only got a good sale if it was worth it. There was nothing like internet marketing as we have today. One could release a 'bad' album and it'll not leave the wall of that person's room.

Some weeks ago, I came across a photo of the side of Psquare’s hard copy album, “Game Over.” It was the side that displayed the tracks on that album, and the post asked people to rate how good the album was in those days. I saw the post and I smiled because I had the album on CD when it was released, and we knew every track on the album and could sing all of them. In those days, if a song was a flop, no one would hear about it. Those days made us enjoy good art from these guys.

But now, I bet you that an artist will release an album today, the album will be the talk of the town, top charts, but if you ask someone to mention up to four tracks from the album, they wouldn’t be able to mention them. Is that a lie? No, it's not!

If you’re doubting me, who knows up to four tracks from Ruger’s recent album? I bet you don’t know any apart from “Jay Jay.” The question is, did the album not make waves? It did. It topped music charts, but we don’t know 50% of the album.

These days, the manner in which songs are promoted is spoiling or has already spoiled the fun. These days, song artists no longer give their total effort in making songs because they know that all they need to promote the song is their high influence, especially on social media. It’s just like the "Big 4" we have currently—most of their works are off, but because they are already made and the internet is there to sail them, everything they put in the microphone comes out hyped.
For those of them that started in the days of CDs, in the days when social media was not used, you’ll agree that most of their tracks from those days are more ear-tingling and entertaining than what we have today.

Recently, Olamide and Wizkid teamed up to produce a song, and I was expecting it to beat what they did in their younger days, but no way, “Omotoshan” is still a legend compared to what they released recently.

I have seen people compare songs of those days to what we have today, and I would just smile while reading through those comments because, actually, we have our different opinions. I’m not saying that this era is not good enough, but the truth remains that if not for the internet age, most of them wouldn’t have seen the light in the music industry.

Let me not go far. If you know when Wizkid started his music, you’ll know at least four tracks from his first album “Superstar,” and all the tracks were big hits.

Ohhh! I had a friend back then who had a big amplifier and speaker in their house as a music system, and he loved “Love My Baby” from that album. He would use the remote on the VCD to put it on repeat, and it would be so loud. Ohhh! Good old days!

Thanks for reading.

Image source: MetaAI