What's up ... Pop?
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @erinpcapuano 
Music has always been the soundtrack to many people’s lives, allowing all 5 senses to be completely immersed in the pleasure of a good melody, a hot riff, or an angelic voice. Artists since the dawn of music have taken real life personal situations and turned them into art in an effort to cleanse themselves of their inner demons.
As listeners we become engaged in the story of a man reconnecting with his son on Cats in the Cradle or longing to help Tracy Chapman escape her hometown life in Fast Car. We are constantly searching for a song that brings meaning and clarity to our already blurry existences. Music can be a door opening up to invite us into a new chapter of our lives or the closing of a door to our past.
Artists such as Carly Simon, James Taylor, Bob Dylan, The Carpenters, Paul Simon and Carol King were modern day storytellers. Each song projecting emotions, real life situations played out in cities and towns all across this wonderful country. Today those same storytellers are still writing, and singing only their tunes are very much the same. In 2006 they can still sing Anti-war themes and civil rights songs to accompany the current world we live in.
Today, there are few singer/songwriters left if you take the time to listen to the radio. They are few and far between being replaced with generic assembly line “artists.” Today our storytellers are musicians such as Sarah Mclachlan, Sheryl Crow, David Gray, Alex Lloyd, and only a handful of others. Some of which you’ve probably never heard of due to the lack of financial backing for Indie artists.
Indie artists who are trying to claw their way to the top are Kelly Dalton, Jennifer Marks, Jennifer Woodhouse and many, many, many others. They are the DIY generation, creating, producing, and distributing their CDs out of their home or using such services as CDBaby.com. They are paying out of pocket to further their careers and getting very little attention for it. We are a corporation of Black Eye’d Peas lovers who refuse to see the truth behind the lies. What you hear on the radio is not the reality of music as it is today. We have gone way beyond the good ol’ days when the talent was the most important aspect to being marketed. Looks weren’t everything and sex didn’t sell.
Little by little our perception of “good” changes and the standards are lowered on the airwaves. Radio stations such as 100.3 Z100 New York City become engulfed in the “pay for play” practice and start valuing money more than their integrity. I can guarantee on a daily basis you will hear the same song on that station every hour on the hour. Television stations such as MTV feed into the need and the addiction to overplay songs and over-expose new artists it’s become common practice to pollute the music industry with artists who were made rather than born that way.
The word “Indie” was often used back in the day when CBGB’s was the venue to get discovered since then those clubs are all but zero’d off the map in an attempt to reconstruct the music industry. New York City is and always has been the music capital of the world it’s seen on every street corner, in the village, uptown and every space in between. The small clubs and restaurants that offer open mic nights or Indie shows continue to foster the need for creativity and contribute to the free promotion that artists need to move forward in their career.
Websites are getting into the action with tons of ways that Indie artists can create, produce, distribute and market themselves online. Webzines like www.lilithschild.net and www.collectedsounds.com, online distribution sites such as www.cdbaby.com and PR companies like Ariel Publicity www.arielpublicity.com are able and willing to work with Indie artists. It’s an easy and cost effective way to promote your music. Many artists find the freedom of the web to be a welcomed experience, the lack of monitoring and free speech leave the field completely open. File sharing is an Indie artists best friend, unlike mainstream artists most Indies will welcome the sharing of their music on sites such as Limewire and myspace.com.
In most cases it is this practice that gains them an underground following. YouTube.com has slowly become a breeding ground for Indies as they venture into making a cost effective low budget music video. They can easily post their video on the web and gain an enormous amount of exposure that they would normally never get. In a world where money rules it’s hard to believe some artists actually make a living in the music industry as it stands today.
Do I think we’ve become completely void of any real talent on the airwaves? No, but I do feel that our standards have significantly been lowered. When Nelly Furtado can get up on stage and sell out in front of millions of people by “selling out” her music there’s a problem.
Nelly is a fine example of a money hungry music industry whom is no longer interested in exceptional story telling but would rather settle for a g-stringed girl singing a song about being a slut. To think that we’ve come this far in technology so that it can allow for more people to have a chance, their one shot have that overshadowed by an industry that no longer cares about conserving the life of stories is a crying shame.
We can only hope the next generation of storytellers can hold up a sinking ship by continuing to be who they are, standing by their belief system and setting a fine example for our next generation, artists such as Avril Lavigne who have proven to not only be a great performer but an excellent songwriter these are the pride and joys the gleam of light in a dark dark world that has clouded our view of good music. Every person has an obligation to continue the strength of Indie artists by standing up and shouting out. Shout on Indie artists, shout on!
Artists to look out for are…
- Jennifer Marks
- Jen Foster
- Jeryl
- Kyler England
- Jennifer Woodhouse
- Kristin Cifelli
- The Annie Minogue Band
- Alex Lloyd
- Kelly Dalton
- Arden Kaywin
- Melissa Ferrick
Just to name a few ...