Top-Down Management
Published August 14, 2002
How's this for a European sensibility, although I would have hoped for better from the British:
- The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Yes, Eurythmics, Culture Club: What do they all have in common? They're British and they all topped the American charts, mid-'60s to mid-'80s, mop-top pop to camp new romanticism.
After 10 lean years in the U.S., the industry here is proposing extraordinary measures to restore its stateside standing. Essentially, by early next year it wants to establish a rock and pop embassy-cum-trade mission in New York to be called the United Kingdom Music Office.
This recommendation is the keystone of a report--"Make or Break: Supporting U.K. Music in the USA"--that hammers home some bleak statistics. On market share measured by rankings in Billboard's Top 100 album chart, U.K. artists scored 18% of the action in 1965 (beat boom bands), 26% in 1972 (the prog and heavy rock era) and a whopping high of 32% in 1986 (glam pop, abetted by Dire Straits, in the early days of MTV, when British videos ruled).
The last decade, however, saw the Brits hit the skids, bottoming out in 1999 with 2% of the market, provided in its entirety by the Prodigy's "Fat of the Land" collection.
"What that figure tells us is we can't be too proud anymore," says Paul Brindley, the report's co-author...
Oh, and by the way, I have always hated Oasis:
- A GOVERNMENT-backed campaign to reverse the poor performance of British music stars in America has been derailed after a vitriolic attack on the US industry's power- brokers by Noel Gallagher.
The Oasis star, currently touring the US, delivered a foul-mouthed tirade in the New York Post against US record company executives.
Gallagher, who is recovering from whiplash injuries after a car crash, said that he refused to shake hands with the families of record company executives, marketing men and radio promoters. It is common practice in the US for artists to "meet and greet" industry figures with their families after shows. Stars who shun this swiftly gain a poor reputation and can be "frozen out".
Gallagher said: "You meet people and meet people's wives and meet people's f****** wives' sisters and all that s***. And it's like, you know what? You can go f*** your wife and your f****** wife's sister. If that means that I get a No 1 album, then you can stick it up your a***."
He added that the Oxford-group Radiohead, a rare British success in the States after getting a No 1 album, had only reached the summit after making compromises. Gallagher said: "You don't get to No 1 in America without sucking somebody's d***."...
- Top-Down Management
- Published: August 14, 2002
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- Writer: Eric Olsen
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The idea of a "United Kingdom Music Office" - as if UK pop/rock/whatever is some kind of passive product that needs to be pushed on foreigners out of some sort of benign governmental interest - is just another sign that the whole business has got itself stuck up another blind alley and something akin to punk is required to unblock it again. Any band that gets itself aligned with this might as well get their moms to drive them to gigs for all the credibility it will give them.
As for Oasis, it's only their lunkhead antics that get them noticed these days. Since their first album they've just been ripping off other bands riffs - it's just been one long Mott the Hoople B-side.... If their music had a tenth of the thudding, obnoxious thuggishness of their public utterances they'd be worth a listen.
If any good music is coming out of the UK it's going to get to America via unofficial channels - which is how it should be and has always been. (And whether it makes the "music business" any money shouldn't be of concern to anyone.)
Maybe they should create a webcasting station for their acts. After all, there is an untapped market...
I think Oasis are not a bad band at all. In todays world music is not an art, it is business - especially in the US.
Music should speak for itself and bands from the UK or anywhere outside of the US should not need to stick their heads up the back sides of record company executives, marketing men and radio promoters in order to be successful. I think the US have many talented artist but at the same time they have many brown noses.
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And British rock is almost dead. I might be getting old, but I don't think our music has ever recovered from the scorched-earth times of punk in the late 70s. Any music with any level of musicianship or compositional skill is decried as "self indulgent" and "rockist".
One problems we Brits have is the clique of Stalinist music critics that very much toe a party line when writing about new bands, and too many people pay far too much attention to what they say. They've always valued 'style' and 'attitude' over content; therefore too many bands are devoid of real content, and the 'attitude' is the juvenile behavour of louts like Oasis.
I find the near-deification of Oasis totally mystifying; every note they play is pure cliché, the lyrics are drivel. Yet our scribblers claimed they were the saviours of rock.
Meanwhile any music with real content is forced underground, and must struggle to be heard. Almost any decent British band seems to be better-known on continental Europe than in their own land.