John Mellencamp Thinks the Music Industry ‘Sucks’

John Mellencamp slammed the music business — with the exception of Taylor Swift — during a 25-minute rant Wednesday at a UJA-Federation of New York luncheon honoring Republic Records co-founders Monte and Avery Lipman.

Another source said, “He was saying that Swift’s the only one doing anything to save the business, and, ‘I applaud that young lady, she stands up for our rights. A bunch of us stand on the sidelines.’”

Swift just pressured Apple into changing its policy regarding royalties for its new streaming music service. Mellencamp even called out major artists, including, seemingly, Bruce Springsteen, by asking, “What’s that guy in New Jersey doing to help?,” an attendee said.

I’ve read all the posts - and all I can add is:

There is a good movie, available for rent/purchase which is a bit of a glimpse inside the music industry.

Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo.

It’s called Begin Again and is rather nice.

Just an FYI.

Not if you dig for it. There's never been more good music readily available. You just won't hear any of it on the radio.

Every few weeks I tune across the FM dial and re-confirm that this is true. Mostly what I hear are just two basic songs. One has instrumental accompaniment consisting of little more than a synthesized rhythm track that goes "chink, chink, CHINK, chink; chink, chink, CHINK, chink; chink, chink, CHINK, chink; chink, chink, CHINK, chink; ..." and the other simply goes "chink, chink, chink, chink, chink, chink, chink, chink, chink, chink, chink, chink, chink, chink." And then we have "classical radio," which is little more then slaughter-the-classics, massed-strings easy listening.

However there are vast numbers of excellent bands on the internet. Many are world-class but are unknown except to friends, family, local townsfolk where they live, and the people who hunt for them on the internet. Nowadays, almost all of my CD and music download purchases are directly from such bands (or almost directly via Bandcamp).

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