From: wilbanks@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Dylan Wilbanks)
Subject: Re: Major Label Music is EVIL!
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 20:43:04 GMT

Mr. Q <bobc@FUTIQUE.SCS.unr.edu> writes:

(First off, I'm back from vacation and ready to start yet another LONG 
year of college as I struggle towards my double degree in Classics and 
Environmental Conservation. At this rate, I should be done sometime in 
the early 2000s.)

I have given a lot of thought to this question and I think I have the answer.


				MONEY.

CConsider: What a coporation wants to do is continually make a profit and 
grow to please the investors and stockholders who put down their hard-earned 
money to give the company the seeds to grow. I am not saying that all
companies listen to the stockholders; I remember one company who rejected the 
Valdez Principles over the proxy recomendation. But, off that tangent: 
Corporations make money by investing in an area and using it to actualize 
profits. Petroleum companies, for instance, send out geological teams to
probe for oil; if there is oil, researchers and accountants determine the 
profit in it (if any - believe it or not, not every oil field in the world 
is profitable - an interesting case is the Glen Pool strike in 1902, south 
of Tulsa, where so much oil came out it saturated the market, making it 
for a time unprofitable to drill), then the drilling crews and roughnecks 
come out and drill; the oil is refined, and finally (and most importantly)
it is marketed and sold. 
Now, let us superimpose this over a big corporate record company: Talent 
scouts are sent out all over to look for CDs and go into clubs looking for 
"the next big thing"; their information is researched for profitability
(Yes, even in record companies - they're just like everyone else); the 
band is signed, and a team of engineers and producers (all with coarse necks)
record the sound, then it is mixed for maximum playability, then videos, 
ads in trade magazines and fanzines bolster the appeal; finally, after all 
this refining and marketing, it is released on the market, just like any 
other product. 
The whole point of this system is to actualize profits, aka MAKE MONEY. 
The corporations must follow the law of supply and demand, too: As a result,
they must create a demand for the music they put out; EmptyV and such hype
is how they create it. This is what the crux of the indie-alternative 
debate is: It's not necessarily the corporate labels we're bashing , but the 
overblown hype of it all. Thus, we listen to local and indie bands, who 
haven't recieved the massive hype and sellability spins of the Big Six 
(WEA, PLG, BMG, Sony/Columbia, and the other two I have forgotten). Music
must remain music, IMHO, not a device by which to generate money. Not that
I'm against money or "selling out", but music must continually evolve and 
change, or else every record out there will sound like Skid Row. And that is 
a nightmare we may all soon face. 
Indie net? Hell yeah.

*****Flame follows*****
>(by the way, according to CorrectGrammar, only 54% of U.S. adults will
>understand this message.  One needs to be at grade level 13.4 to make
>heads or tail out of what I'm saying.  I guess that means all the
>alternateens won't be getting my message, after all.)
Too bad your program doesn't measure shitty writing style.
*****Flame complete. Scores:*****
USA 8.5
CAN 8.0
CHN 8.0 
GBR 8.0
GER 7.0 (Must be a former East German judge.)
JAP 8.5
AUS 8.0
EUN 8.5

-- 
Dylan Wilbanks, Classics major, AND NOW Environmental Conservation!
"Look! An X-man movie's coming out!"          |Currently at:
c.10 year old in a Tulsa movie theater,       |Box 1143
looking at a poster for _Malcolm X_           |Boulder, CO 80306
Newsgroups: alt.music.alternative,rec.music.misc,rec.music.industrial