Hi Ed:
Well, one could argue that the classical tradition was kept on life-support for a couple of decades
due to the record-business model. Selling records filled concert halls and vice-versa, and radio
airplay helped expose a wide audience to the music on a regular basis. A glut of content (plus wide
availability of older, better performances and recordings) killed that golden goose in the 1990's.
What compositions written since 1950 have found wide acceptance and are in the common/regular
concert repertoire aside from a few late Copland works and John Williams' movie-score pieces?
As far as popular music, listen to blues and "hillbilly" records from the 20's and early 30's. How
much was really new after that aside from adding electric instruments? Jazz did evolve, through
Swing music into BeBop, and then hit a dead end when it moved away from melody on the one hand and
melded into rock-type amplified music on the other hand. There was a blending of popular musics that
had been predominantly black or predominantly white, into both rock and R&B (more cross-polination
in rock music), so you could say that was something new in the 50's and 60's. But what since then?
Once rock got to heavy metal, where else did it have to go? There was a pop-ish "reaction" in the
80's, which still lingers today. Same with soul music, once it got to disco, where else to go? And
disco was closely related to 80's "techno-pop" which was just a degree more dance-oriented than
pop-rock of that era, so that was a general logical conclusion (or dead-end) for beat-based music.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Morman, Ed" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 8:26 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] US record business in the 1950s
> Didn't a critic named Henry Pleasants make the same point about the European classical music
> tradition in the 1950s? And Hermann Hesse's novel _Das Glasperlenspiel_ (1943) suggests that
> western culture had used up all its creativity.
>
> Cordially,
> Ed Morman
> Edward T. Morman, MSLS, PhD
> Director, Jacobus tenBroek Library
> NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND JERNIGAN INSTITUTE
> 200 East Wells Street
> at Jernigan Place
> Baltimore MD 21230
> 410.659.9314 x2225
> 410.685.2340 (fax)
>
> Have you yet checked out THE BLIND CAT, the fully accessible online public access catalog of the
> Jacobus tenBroek Library? No? Well, it's time you did: www.nfb.org/theblindcat
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
> Of Tom Fine
> Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2012 6:21 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] US record business in the 1950s
>
> There are very strong signs that Western popular music has run its course, that all to be said has
> been said and everything "new" is just derivative of something done earlier.
>
> Interesting article on that topic recently in NYT:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/arts/music/rock-in-2011-hot-chelle-rae-foster-the-people-chevelle.html
> also:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/arts/music/metal-christian-rock-dubstep-whats-the-next-grunge.html
>
> There is nothing on the horizon that is very interesting. Yes, some (few) albums in recent years
> by
> some (few) bands have been exciting and gain some traction because they are punchy and perhaps
> fresh-sounding and/or well-executed and well-produced compared to everything else, but they are
> not
> original in the sense of something very new and different.
>
> Jazz got into this dead end decades ago, and blues was there by the third generation. Also, both
> genres got picked up as IMPORTANT by academics and would-be taste dictators, so the life got
> analized out of them. They were folk musics, but the folks' tastes changed, so they died on the
> vines.
>
> One could also argue that classical got less interesting with each generation of conductors
> farther
> removed from the composers of works that anyone wanted to pay to hear. Yes, there is composing
> going
> on, but nothing is gaining much traction (yes, there are a few exceptions), so I stand by that
> statement. One of the reasons people like "golden era" recordings of Stravinsky, Copland and even
> late-1800's French composers is that there were men conducting the works who knew the composers,
> had
> discussed how to execute the works and understood the times and contexts of the works. It's a
> stretch to think that a 40-something conductor of musician today is going to understand the
> dynamics
> of early 1900's Paris or Shostakovich's Soviet Union, or even 1920's America.
>
> I would suggest that all of this ties into the general ripeness of Western culture and
> intellectual
> discussion/exploration these days. There's been a mass taking the eye off the ball, and things may
> either be in permanent decline (glass half empty) or poised for an exciting refreshment (glass
> half
> full).
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Roger Kulp" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2012 5:45 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] US record business in the 1950s
>
>
> The music industry has been dying a slow death for at least the last twenty five years.Starting
> around the time Sony acquired Columbia..Now it 's pretty much dead.
>
> I don't see any vibrant independent companies trying to breathe new life into the old beast
> either.That pretty much died with the 1990s.Most things,like Record Store Day,are no more than
> worship of the past.
>
> Roger
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Friday, January 13, 2012 8:29 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] US record business in the 1950s
>
> Hi Pekka:
>
> What is your research through the Billboards uncovering? Have you found any sort of concrete data
> on
> relative sales? I would assume that RCA and Columbia were far bigger than everyone else, but
> what's
> interesting is how big or small everyone else was. I forgot to mention in my previous e-mail that
> the other broadcast network, ABC, had a foot in the record business with ABC-Paramount. And movie
> studio MGM had a record business, but it got bigger in the 60s. As someone else mentioned, movie
> studio Warner Brothers got into the record business in the late 50's. So there were some big
> players
> dipping their hands into the business.
>
> Wow, it's depressing to think about how vibrant and competitive the business was 50+ years ago.
> Today it's two megaglomerates, two struggling lesser-glomerates (one about to be acquired), a
> small
> collection of mid-sized companies and a bottom tier of tiny, tiny players. My educated guess is
> that
> half of the US's commercially-recorded history is owned by one megaglomerate (Sony) and a good bit
> more than another quarter is owned by the other megaglomerate (Universal), leaving maybe 15-20%
> spread among everyone else.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Pekka Gronow" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, January 13, 2012 4:47 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] US record business in the 1950s
>
>
>> Lots of useful comment, thanks - especially access to Billboard on the
>> internet (overwhelming). I still prefer browsing paper volumes, but I would
>> have to cross the Atlantic to do that. Thanks!
>>
>> One detail: what was London records in the USA in the 1950s (see below) ? I
>> am not clear on this. A US subsidiary of UK Decca?? The label also existed
>> in the UK. How extensive was their business?
>> Did they produce original US material?
>>
>> Pekka
>>
>>
>> 2012/1/7 Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
>>
>>> She was talking about the overall LP market in the 50's. Mercury
>>> definitely sold more records in the US than London in that period, as did
>>> Capitol. Classical was a part of the business, a bigger part than today but
>>> still a part. A couple of pop hits could eclipse the whole classical
>>> catalog sales in any given year, remember this was the time of jukeboxes
>>> and payola-play radio. Classical didn't participate too much in that, but
>>> that business model could generate tremendous sales behind a genuine hit
>>> that caught on due to the paid-for exposure.
>>>
>>> -- Tom Fine
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Kulp" <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Friday, January 06, 2012 11:02 PM
>>>
>>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] US record business in the 1950s
>>>
>>>
>>> I definitely see more London,Mercury,and Capitol,in about that order,when
>>> it comes to 50s classical Lps after RCA and Columbia.
>>>
>>> Roger
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ______________________________**__
>>> From: Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Sent: Friday, January 6, 2012 4:23 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] US record business in the 1950s
>>>
>>> After RCA and Columbia and their subsidiaries, the shares would fall to
>>> smaller numbers. USA Decca would probably be fourth in there, but I'm not
>>> positive about that. But my impression (not based on actual sales figures)
>>> is that there was a second tier of "major independents" by the late 50's.
>>> This included Capitol (which soon sold to EMI), Mercury (which soon sold to
>>> Philips), and there may have been enough early-rock hits to Chess and Sun
>>> into this tier if we're talking sales dollars or actual sales volume.
>>>
>>> I'm sure you know this, but many if not most Billboard issues are
>>> searchable and readable via Google Books. You could also contact NARAS,
>>> since this cannot be considered "sensitive industry data" by the wildest
>>> imagination, given that we're talking 50+ years ago.
>>>
>>> You could also check European business press from the time of EMI
>>> acquiring Capitol and Philips acquiring Mercury and see if any details
>>> about the US market were provided either in corporate filings or in news
>>> articles of the time.
>>>
>>> -- Tom Fine
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pekka Gronow" <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Friday, January 06, 2012 5:26 AM
>>> Subject: [ARSCLIST] US record business in the 1950s
>>>
>>>
>>> I have been looking for data on record company market shares in the USA in
>>>> the 1950s, but I am still puzzled. There is RIAA data on total sales, and
>>>> a
>>>> lot of (mostly anecdotal) detail on specific companies. Sanjek's books on
>>>> the music business are helpful, but do not follow the development
>>>> systematically. If I had access to all issues of Billboard from this
>>>> period, that might be the solution, but I do not have them
>>>>
>>>> It seems likely that the three biggest companies in the USA during this
>>>> decade were CBS, RCA Victor and Decca. There were hundreds of other
>>>> companies, of various sizes. But which were the ten, or twenty, biggest
>>>> ones? I am not speaking of shares of hits in the charts (this has been
>>>> studied), but market shares - real or at least estimated?
>>>>
>>>> All suggestions would be useful.
>>>>
>>>> Pekka Gronow
>>>> Helsinki
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>
>
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