Who said this:

The people who run record companies now wouldn't know a song if it flew up their nose and died. They haven't a clue, and they don't care. You tell them that, and they go, "Yeah? So, your point is?" Because they don't give a s---. They don't care. They're actually sort of proud that they don't care.



Look at it this way. A couple of years ago, somewhere between a fourth and a third of the record business was owned by a whiskey company, who shall remain nameless, but were notably inept at running a record company. And they sold it to a French water company, who shall also remain nameless, but knew even less. Now, those guys haven't a clue! [laughter] They haven't a clue. And they don't care about having a clue. They are trying to run it as if they're selling widgets, plastic-wrapped widgets that they can sell more of. And they want easily definable, easily accessible, easily creatable, controllable product that has a built-in die-out, so that they can create some more.



By that, I mean, "Get me a lead singer. He's got sort of an androgynous blonde hair, very pretty. We need a guitar player, sort of hatchet-faced, wears a hat, plays very fast, very dramatic. He must be very dramatic. Get me a pound of bass player, pound of drummer. I don't think he needs keyboards; I think we look good. And we'll call them the Bosco Bombers! No. The Bad Dogs, that's good! I like that!" And then you sell it. You sell the hell out of it. You spend $500,000 on record promoting, and they make a lot more.



But they're making little cardboard cutouts. They hire a producer, they hire writers, and the people that they put out in these little boy bands. And in the current stuff now, they don't even bother getting people to play. Don't bother with that guitar player, bass player, drummer -- nonsense. That's all nonsense to them. Got to look cute, have a flat tummy, and be controllable. And then they put you in these little cardboard cutout bands.



The people in those bands can't write, play, or sing. They make them sound good with pro-tools, because if they sing out of tune, they can just say, "Oh, punch a button. Put it in tune." Which is very frustrating to people like me, who spent, you know, 30, 40 years learning how to sing in tune in the first place. It is partly their own, you know, greed and, and lack of taste, but it's also partly a condition that's endemic in the country.



The current ethos in the United States of America is all to do with surface and nothing to do with substance. It doesn't matter that Britney Spears has nothing to say and is about as deep as a birdbath. It matters that she has cute tits, and that's all that matters. She doesn't sing in concert; none of them do. Those are samples. Push a button, out comes the vocal. Do you ever notice, when you're listening to them in a live concert -- any of them, Janet Jackson, any of the rest of them -- that they're not breathing heavy? Even though they're dancing like crazy. That's because you're not hearing what they're singing. You're hearing a tape.



find out here



The Whiskey company? Seagram's.

The French Water Company? Vivendi Universal. link