I can vividly recall Irish comedian Ed
Byrne mocking the 25th anniversary edition of Michael
Jackson's Thriller album. I'm a big fan of Byrne and his words
rang particularly true with me on this subject. “For such a curio
one would have to go to an HMV” he taunts in an affected foppish
accent. News flash! Thriller – in all of its garish 80s pop
splendour – is available everywhere, all the time. So who are these
bloated, indulgent re-releases made for exactly? Perhaps we are
witnessing first-hand the symptoms of existential anxiety on the part
of the music industry. There are rafts of statistics that prove that
people are less willing invest in physical copies of albums than ever
before. All of this begs the question: is the industry
self-eulogizing in order to stay prominent in people's minds?
To return to my previous example;
surely anybody who has ever wanted to own Thriller already
does so. It is – by one definition or another – as classic album
and an all-time best seller. We have already established that it is a
readily available musical article and has been since its release 30
bloody years ago. A small percentage of people who bought said
anniversary edition were just shelling out some pocket money (kids
still get pocket money, don't they?) to fill out a gap in their CD
collections. This is an admirable use of one's disposable income and
I thoroughly recommend that you do it more often. But buy-and-large
the purchasers are highly invested (i.e. gullible) life-long fans of
the artist who feel compelled to own every edition of every record
that their idol has ever made. And there we have, in a nutshell, why
the music industry is in such dire straits: they have relied on the
same market for too long and they are steadfastly unwilling to give
them anything new to enjoy. It is, after all, much easier to market
something to somebody if you already know they like it.
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Did anybody without financial incentive to do so actually ask for this?
What is worse is that this manic march
to self-edification has gotten notably faster. In 2012 the 20th
anniversary edition of Rage Against The Machine's self-titled album
was released. As someone with five years experience working in music
shops, I think I can safely that not only is that particular album
readily available to all at a reasonable price but also that it is
still selling fairly well for an older record. The desire to remaster
the audio of music from the 60s, 70, or even 80s holds some merit so
that it can match modern audio standards but we are talking about
something that was made in the early 90s for God's sake! Will your
ever-so-slightly fancier stereo system really benefit from an
ever-so-slightly crisper sounding “Know Your Enemy” or “Bullet
In The Head”? I'm sure Zack de la Rocha is far from pleased with
this unseemly turn of events and would have some choice words on the
matter. At least with Thriller they put in some effort in the
bonus tracks department. It was over-stuffed with two-bit modern
artists trying 25 years too late to get on the Thriller band
wagon but the material was still there. In a world where practically
every album is made to have bonus tracks you are going to have to try
harder than just a few poxy live recordings to drag my hard earned
money out of me.
At this rate in 2013 we will see the
10th anniversary of Kings Of Leon's Youth and Young
Manhood in your local music shop right next to the 5th
anniversary of Chinese Democracy and
the 3rd
anniversary of Gorillaz Plastic Beach. Are
these good albums? Yes (mostly), but how many editions does one album
really need? Is there ever a good reason for an anniversary
edition? Absolutely. Many King Crimson CDs available to you and I
today were basically extinct until the remastered editions came out
some years ago. I also believe that era defining records – Sgt
Peppers, Dark Side of the Moon, etc – deserve ONE (count them,
one) edition to honour their legacy, but surely no earlier than 30
years since their release. Those are my two examples and I'm sticking
with them.
So what can be done to dig us out of
this creative abyss? Personally, I think the solution lies in the
industry investing in new artists and albums. When Adele's 21
has ruled the albums charts for TWO STRAIGHT YEARS it is no wonder
that us music lovers are forced to live in the shadows, muttering to
ourselves about how hard it is to find good new music these days. The
music industry's reliance on the same cash cows has lead it to the
current state of creative bankruptcy and we are all feeling the
pinch. Us fans (sometimes) have money that we are (kinda) willing to
spend on a worthy cause when we can find it. All that the bigwigs
need to do is provide us with one. If this paradigm does not change
traditional music channels and outlets are going to die the death
that we all fear they will.
Honour the past but never at the
expense of the future.
Support good music and fuck the rest.
Sincerely
“Professor” Ricardo Kerr
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