Billy Joel: "If you’re a real musician, that’s all about music, not sales, charts"

[pachinko 9,701]

Why is he praising taylor 

[Taylucifer 5,047]

on Billy being a swiftie and livie, we see each other

[Gorehound 3,169]

13 hours ago, Teletubby said:

“Who makes albums anymore anyway?” - “I think the only person making new albums these days is Taylor Swift or Olivia Rodrigo. I don’t know other people who make albums."

"If you’re a real musician, that’s all about the music, not about record sales, charts and numbers … There’s a lot of pressure to sell records, market your material."

 

I get what he’s saying about the industry at large, that if you’re a real musician it’s all about the music, not about record sales, charts and numbers etc. But he’s kinda showing himself to be pretty out of touch with the modern music scene.

1. Outside of commercial pop, music has never been so diverse and shifting, with countless new sub-genres (in Pop and out) being created and explored all the time (just listen to Future Sounds on Radio 1 in the evening as a small example of that.) So unless artists want to totally sell themselves to become huge pop stars and therefore make vapid NPC music to only chase the charts, artists are really into music style rn over sales.

2. Albums have actually become very popular again. I mean, just look at the resurgence of Vinyl records. They’ve become very popular in commercial music and hugely popular in the Hipster scene, and hone in on the concept of an album being a full body of work. Streaming aside, albums will never die out.

 

If he’s basing his whole argument on just a handful of extremely popular and tame commercial pop singers like Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo then he really hasn’t done his homework. Music doesn’t begin and end in the Pop charts. That’s only 0.2% of the scene.

[Gorehound 3,169]

4 hours ago, Emvee said:

It truly is unbelievable to me that out of all those talented and interesting artists out there, the most vanilla of all vanilla is what’s getting all the attention. 

 

That's always been the case tho. The vast majority of the GP have always had terrible taste in music. They're not real music lovers and just enjoy the safe NPC vanilla stuff they can sing along to, dance to, put on in the background etc. It's extremely passive and most of them are incapable of accepting or enjoying anything that sounds different to that). So the industry prioritises that over other genres and spoon-feeds it to them constantly cuz that's where the money is. But that is only really in the Pop scene. Pop is called "Pop" because it's "Pop"ular.

I live in London and I love being a part of the music scene there, especially the Hipster / Alternative and Underground scenes and there's thousands of interesting artists and genres that are thriving there outside of commercial radio. And most of them reject commercial pop music and consider it the lowest from of music.

Edited June 19 by Gorehound

[huttont 4,854]

14 hours ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

To some people, ig. I love the album format because I like the idea of releasing a cohesive body of work that tells some kind of unified story, but I can see why the way people consume music in the digital era might phase that out. 

Exactly! I pretty much exclusively listen to full albums bc I love hearing the artist tell a story 

[Nite 4,017]

I think the resurgence of vinyls is going to help keep the Album format alive. I get why so many artists rather go for EPs or Singles though if people primarily listen on Spotify or other streaming services. Music has been largely playlist-yfied and I think a lot of artists get the bulk of their streams from being on popular playlists, smart shuffle or playlist suggestions. I know I always get the same damn artists suggested and auto-played no matter what I put on my playlists, to the point where I had to block them on Spotify to avoid it 

But people like having something physical to hold onto when it comes to their favorite artists and now we've got vinyls for that. I always like listening to albums from start to end, especially Gaga's albums have always been great in that regard. Maybe not super cohesive until Chromatica, but always interesting. 

[Killa 15,080]

10 hours ago, JoeCool said:

Joel no doubt has a great catalogue from the 1970's until 1993 River of Dreams which was his last album.

 

He really just goes off legacy well like a lot.  Especially his Madison Square Garden residency.    So yeah he's kinda projecting a bit with his comments.  

Actually this was my First thought but i wasn't sure when It was his last project. Talk Is cheap really

[NewUsername 10,785]

15 hours ago, Killa said:

The hell does that mean. 

Well he stays being the biggest influence on gagas singing style and writting and an icon. 

Indeed!
Whenever I hear Piano Man, I swear it's like a Gaga song!

[Wolf Boy 3,117]

Who releasing albums anymore?

Erm, everyone?