Thursday, August 12, 2010

When The Public Unexpectedly Likes A Song

As reported by the fine blog Hypebot.com, metal vocalist and film maker Rob Zombie spoke to AOL's Noisecreep, saying:
"Truthfully, when you make a new album ... you go, 'OK here's eleven new songs, five of which we'll never play live. And here's the two or three singles that will always be in the set. 
I think they [the record industry] dropped the ball a long time ago and they're never going to recover from it. Nobody wants to actually purchase music any more ... it's a weird time because the music scene is alive and well, it's just the music buying public is not. 
A year from now, I don't even know if they'll be pressing CDs anymore or, if they do, stores won't even bother carrying em."
Certainly what RZ says is true, but all throughout the history of music, songs that the composers and artists thought were just throwaways turned out to be some of their biggest hits. The fact of the matter is that you never know what the public will like. Big hits like Gloria Gaynors, "I Will Survive, " The Spinners "I'll Be Around," Rod Stewart's "Maggie Mae," and Oasis "Acquiesce," are just a few of the songs that caught everyone from the artist to the management to the record label by surprise, and there are hundreds more like that.

That's why returning to a singles-only marketplace can be dangerous for music, because some of the best songs are the ones we never expect to be popular.

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