Morissey expounds on the Internet
Obviously, it’s much worse because the entire “industry”— as it must be called— has been destroyed in a thousand ways. The Internet has obviously wiped music off the human map— killed the record shop, and killed the patience of labels who consider debut sales of 300,000 to not be good enough. People no longer know the top 75 charts, and what they do know of them they don’t trust because chart-placings are so fixed— everyone on the planet mysteriously flies in at number one now. The music press has died because of Internet People Power— everyone is now their own expert critic. As a consequence there are no risks taken with music anymore— no social commentary songs, no individualism. This is because everyone is deemed instantly replaceable.
via pf
Morrissey advances several strange arguments in this excerpt, but his stance on the internet really left me befuddled. No one takes risks anymore? There’s no individualism? I would argue exactly the opposite. Recording and publishing music is so accessible now. That’s not to say it’s all good, but there are definitely people taking risks and putting themselves out there.
I also thought that his stance on the Top 75 chart was curious and off base as well. Regardless, the interview is quite interesting and worth a few minutes.
