As I fellow Pink Floyd fan I keep asking myself: will there ever be another Dark Side of the Moon? Not the REDUX by Roger Waters which was a bit strange for me (not bad just weird). Will AI make something that great? I hope not. Or maybe something very good will be release and I will hate it because I became old? Maybe we are not stuck culturally, it is just that movies and books are not interesting anymore in this fast paced online culture. Maybe the new cultural product are so alien to us we can’t even comprehend. Look at what kids are into these days (Skibid Toilet?) I asked my 12 years old cousin what kind of music he liked and he told me that it was the soundtrack of a RPG game called Undertale (it’s good music, elaborate, but I could never have guessed that answer).
So I think maybe culture is evolving into something really strange to us and the old media is stuck in a loop. Maybe that happened before. Have you seen that video of tribal people listening to pop music for the first time? Maybe that’s us when the next Dark Side of the Moon comes in.
Well DSOTM reflects its period, particularly the expansion of the universities in the 60s which allowed for a circuit for bands playing a more challenging and intellectual form of rock music. Odd that that circuit doesn't really exist anymore, even with more students than ever.
This situation is largely driven by our delirious copyright system.
Media companies "harvest" old intellectual property precisely because society grants them this rent on 50+ year old IPs, rather than letting it go into the public domain. It's not surprising that new creation is not prioritized when this rent seeking is protected and enforced by our courts and police.
When I write something like that, I sometimes get creatives coming at me for trying to take their lunch. Let's be clear: the vast majority of artists will never get any payments significance on 20+ year old work they produced. Almost all of this rent goes to giant media conglomerates and a select few royalty like Beyoncé or Paul McCartney. The average artist defending the ridiculous 100 year long copyright is as clueless as working class people defending Trump tax cuts without realizing that they are only getting breadcrumbs compared to the super rich.
Well I'd be furious if someone staying pirating my book. It may not be a bestseller but that copyright means a lot to me. I think the issue isn't corporate control of copyrights but the blind acceptance of what they call pop culture, when indie labels can be so much more fun and interesting and creative.
While I won't agree with you that Metallica's last good album was Justice (I personally love Garage, the cover album), I see much of what you say in my own writing community. The chance of any of my friends even getting published is tiny. But some have. A few are living the dream. Sort of.
What is the answer? Burn it all? God that feels good to say, but it isn't honest. I paid to go across country to see David Gilmour, and it was worth every goddamned dollar. Do I shoot myself in the ass in the name of progress? Do I pass on the Predator animated movie that cam out today? I love that stuff!
No, what we do is we have to make our own markets. This platform is as much of an example as any. We have to search out people with ideas we like, that sometimes challenge us, and support them. Buy the book at your local indy seller, get the album from a source that supports the creator, watch it on vod when it doesn't play anywhere near where you live, instead of waiting for it to stream. Subscribe to a hundred Substacks. Get newsletters. You get the idea.
We don't have to fast to fight the churn, we have make the churn our own.
As I fellow Pink Floyd fan I keep asking myself: will there ever be another Dark Side of the Moon? Not the REDUX by Roger Waters which was a bit strange for me (not bad just weird). Will AI make something that great? I hope not. Or maybe something very good will be release and I will hate it because I became old? Maybe we are not stuck culturally, it is just that movies and books are not interesting anymore in this fast paced online culture. Maybe the new cultural product are so alien to us we can’t even comprehend. Look at what kids are into these days (Skibid Toilet?) I asked my 12 years old cousin what kind of music he liked and he told me that it was the soundtrack of a RPG game called Undertale (it’s good music, elaborate, but I could never have guessed that answer).
So I think maybe culture is evolving into something really strange to us and the old media is stuck in a loop. Maybe that happened before. Have you seen that video of tribal people listening to pop music for the first time? Maybe that’s us when the next Dark Side of the Moon comes in.
Thanks for the text it was a great read!
Well DSOTM reflects its period, particularly the expansion of the universities in the 60s which allowed for a circuit for bands playing a more challenging and intellectual form of rock music. Odd that that circuit doesn't really exist anymore, even with more students than ever.
This situation is largely driven by our delirious copyright system.
Media companies "harvest" old intellectual property precisely because society grants them this rent on 50+ year old IPs, rather than letting it go into the public domain. It's not surprising that new creation is not prioritized when this rent seeking is protected and enforced by our courts and police.
When I write something like that, I sometimes get creatives coming at me for trying to take their lunch. Let's be clear: the vast majority of artists will never get any payments significance on 20+ year old work they produced. Almost all of this rent goes to giant media conglomerates and a select few royalty like Beyoncé or Paul McCartney. The average artist defending the ridiculous 100 year long copyright is as clueless as working class people defending Trump tax cuts without realizing that they are only getting breadcrumbs compared to the super rich.
Well I'd be furious if someone staying pirating my book. It may not be a bestseller but that copyright means a lot to me. I think the issue isn't corporate control of copyrights but the blind acceptance of what they call pop culture, when indie labels can be so much more fun and interesting and creative.
While I won't agree with you that Metallica's last good album was Justice (I personally love Garage, the cover album), I see much of what you say in my own writing community. The chance of any of my friends even getting published is tiny. But some have. A few are living the dream. Sort of.
What is the answer? Burn it all? God that feels good to say, but it isn't honest. I paid to go across country to see David Gilmour, and it was worth every goddamned dollar. Do I shoot myself in the ass in the name of progress? Do I pass on the Predator animated movie that cam out today? I love that stuff!
No, what we do is we have to make our own markets. This platform is as much of an example as any. We have to search out people with ideas we like, that sometimes challenge us, and support them. Buy the book at your local indy seller, get the album from a source that supports the creator, watch it on vod when it doesn't play anywhere near where you live, instead of waiting for it to stream. Subscribe to a hundred Substacks. Get newsletters. You get the idea.
We don't have to fast to fight the churn, we have make the churn our own.
Good article.
Right on