The tangible concept of the corrosive relationship between culture and consumerism is easily illustrated by simply examining the main differences contained in the core ideas behind the two opposing subjects.

At the root of capitalism is the need to produce. To produce–under the capitalist cannon–there MUST be demand. To generate the largest amount of demand possible, one must create a product that will possess the highest level of widespread appeal–maximizing demand and therefore maximizing production–keeping the capitalist wheels in motion.

When mass consolidation concepts of business are intertwined into the supply and demand-driven basis of the industry, the originality and variety of products produced only grows more benign. Because many of these large corporations look at the music division of their larger umbrella corporation purely as something that should be a profit producer, the other main governing factor, in addition to maintaining high demand to create high supply, is cost control.

The most effective form of a cost control–in the record business–is to not waste expensive promotional money on a band with no shot of enticing the public and hence unlikely to generate an economic return. In the 90's, after Nirvana blew open the collective minds of the industry to new and innovative music, spending by the large conglomerates quickly got out of control. In an attempt to commoditize "grunge," A&R reps everywhere threw money at anything walking around in a flannel and long blond hair. The result was a lot of wasted money on expensive videos and promotion that showed little to no return (see the Dandy Warhols and their video for “Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth,” with dancing heroine syringes, directed by David Lachapelle).

Coming to the jarring realization that, no matter the genre or concept, the majority of bands will not become popular because talent is–in a relative sense–truly a rare commodity, regardless of how much money is thrown at them, forced the Big 4 to develop a new business model: create a much more economically safe and unceasingly formulaic approach to signing and releasing art. Find bands with broad appeal, tailor their music to whatever is in fad, and market the band just enough, careful not to let your costs exceed your break evens for a project–this became the basic creed for doing business in the record industry and from a for profit perspective it works repulsively well.

Culture–when it is of true and pure creativity–roots itself in a totally different set of parameters than do economics. Music, specifically, cannot be constructed with the thought of appealing to a wide range of people because that goal, while obviously increasing record sales, makes true expression by the artist impossible and makes the work totally devoid any integrity or intrinsic value.

This is the quandary that the U.S. faces when examining how to transform itself from the consumerist cultural wasteland it has now become. For there to be a record industry, record companies must sell records and make money. To do this, the priorities of companies that sell the music cannot be focused on the integrity of what they are selling if integrity is not what sells. When a product is too specialized it has limited appeal and therefore limited sales. From a capitalist standpoint, it does not make much sense to throw money behind something with limited appeal because it simply will not move as many units and, in many cases, has difficulties even recouping the cost of production.