The music industry lacks originality, this much is obvious.
Success in one genre begets imitators and a crush to assimilate into the mainstream.
Every niche is pummelled into a trend that could extend its shelf-life but is
as likely to smother it in its infancy.
The status quo that prevails means slightly less of Status
Quo (sorry) and more conventional pop and manufactured dance sounds, traditional
four-piece bands playing rock are the novelty, trawling the undergrowth to
collect a sufficient number of fans that they may have some kind of longevity. As
I’ve often said, it was never easier to make and distribute your music, never
harder to actually get it heard by a lot of people.
A few years back I wrote of seemingly deliberate attempts to confuse two pop-soul singers, John Newman and Sam Smith: same
haircut, same artwork, similar dress, copycat collaborations and eventually the
same kind of success. It didn’t harm Smith that’s for sure but did it damage
Newman? At the time he seemed to think so.
Of late I’ve been perplexed by similar sounding band names
to those that already exist or once existed, a process that’s beginning to
suggest we don’t have enough nouns in the English language. This feeling was
confounded by the discovery of a new act called Bird, who happens to be a
female singer-songwriter, not to be confused with Birdy of course. As with Sam
& John, Bird and Birdy are not dissimilar or certainly not individual
enough and operating in significantly different musical spheres to avoid
confusion.
Additionally the way we now find our music – often on
streaming or search sites – will cause a confusion that must have been
contemplated. I’m beginning to long for a system such as that which operates in
stage and film, where to belong to the actor’s union Equity you must have a
unique professional name. Clearly it’s too much to ask for, not only do the
record companies want identikit sounds they also want brand confusion, it’s a
clear or confused route to success.
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