Saturday, August 8, 2009

Before Music Dies

I'd heard about this documentary about the current state of the popular music industry, that is to say, marketing-driven music, as opposed to music and musician-driven music, a while ago, but never got around to watching it. My loss. Contains some great insights although it comes off as a bit of a commercial spot for ATO Records at the end of it.

You can watch the entire movie here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPZztrRWjZ8


Features interviews with record industry execs, random music fans, and lots of famous and not-so-famous musicians such as Erykah Badu, Eric Clapton, Dave Matthews, Branford Marsalis, and ?uestlove. Also contains an amusing insta-popstar creation using the dude who wrote Jewel's big hit, a 17-yr-old model, and of course the wonders of autotune.

This also contains the famous quote from Branford Marsalis about the state of students today, that has been floating around the webtersphere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rz2jRHA9fo


I've seen Branford speaking out on various subjects a bit more recently, and he seems to have a similar combination fire, controversy, and intelligence that Wynton has, but I tend to agree with his opinions more. Kinda like my feeling on their music too, haha.

Here's a clip of him talking about race and the objectification of women:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJiUi3dcOp0


One of the more bizarre/hypocritical parts of the documentary, though, is hearing Erykah Badu talk all about how the music-industry today is all about image over content, but she is doing this while wearing her very notable but very fake afro wig. Hrm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92GM851j20k


Found via Zakari's post on Peter Hum's Facebook wall.

(updated on 2010/12/01 with link to video of Erykah Badu's comments, and updated link to movie)

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