electrical wrote on Mon, 10 January 2005 17:06 |
Eric Vincent wrote on Mon, 10 January 2005 02:43 | For some of us, it's all about the music.
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And godspeed!
For some of us it's about doing the right thing by the people who employ us. Everyone draws the distinction in different places, and I can't be made to feel bad about where my sympathies lie.
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nor should you!
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There is an attitude among "take me seriously, I'm a Producer" types that the only good records are popular ones. Thats why producers cite their most known clients at every juncture.
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I agree 100% that popularity is not the point of music, nor should it be the calling card of a Producer ... yet i feel like your view of Producers is outdated. Most Producers I know of are working to help, and being asked to join the creative process to the benefit of music in the view of the artist.
Is a mutual relationship possible, or is it always a conflict? How can individuals in a band work together in harmony, yet a band and a guy called "producer" cannot work in harmony?
Seems to me that as time passes the relationships are getting better between producers and bands, not worse, so why the fuss? Those "take me seriously" types are jokers ... screw em, forget about 'em ... they're irrelevant to the real work of music making. Everone knows that, and if they don't, they're not worth it.
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These standards and the notion of fame-by-association don't exist in the underground/independent world where I spend my time, where results matter much more than image.
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Well, "results" by some measure matter to everyone. For some people "image" is a result, but again I say fewer and fewer as music is just too hard to keep up for the "image" anymore. And in this sense, the state of the industry today is a good thing, as it weeds out those who don't really need to make music.
Meanwhile, the underground/independent artists have become just as cliquish as anyone, have they not? The 80s/early 90's are long gone. And the commercial work of bands you engineered, in many cases, were responsible for morphing the last days of the 80s underground into a new thing that culturally, can never be regained.
Pop punk is now a genre. Alternative labels are mostly gobbled up, save the few with integrity and passion. Truly alternative musicians with no commercial sensibilities are VERY few and VERY far between. The late 80's/early 90's are over.
And "Steve Albini" is still a name on a level of Producer clout, a name that makes a good image for some independent bands in their circles ... no offense to your talents, but why do you think some of them come to you? You're a producer-level player, without the title or the same intentions as a producer, yet similar in the eyes of some artists, and the public.
The whole thrust of your disdain is wise and I resonate with much of the independent music and pro-artist mantras, yet in the end it seems outdated, and also seems ironically self-loathing due to your particular place in the history of making underground music into a pop culture genre.
No offense, and not trying to play shrink ... just looking at the argument and your place in it.