The Rolling Stone is running an interview with Tom Petty in which the good man pretty much slams modern life on planet earth… or at least the music industry, rampant greed, decline of common sense and moral compass, and total lack of inspiration. Couldn’t say it better.
What happened between 1979 and now? How did we get here from there? More importantly, will music ever be good again? Will the industry just keep getting greedier and more apathetic? Ack packet via Weblogsky.
Music: Brian Eno :: My Squelchy Life
Oh, there still is good music out there – it is just different from the music 20 years ago.
But have to I admit that it’s much harder to find nowadays (though internet radio helps).
And I can’t help wondering: since Tom complains about people talking in the VIP seats instead of paying attention, did he ever use a break between songs to poke fun at them?
While this is perhaps not as in-depth or articulate as one might have liked to see, it’s still good to see people out there saying this sort of thing. The specifics about the music industry and other media are, of course, what one would expect given his background. I agree with his allusion that the problem is more widespread. It’s concerned me for some time that profit is the last single moral of our society. It seems that more and more often, the major laws and international agreements being struck are all about profit, and the free market has become a Not So Tiny God(tm) which people believe will bring righteousness and positive change simply by force of its great impassionate ‘democracy’.
The unfortunate thing, of course, is that the people who I most often hear saying things like this are the kind of people who are only being listened to by those too jaded and cynical to be affected anyway.