Opinion
Being current vs being you
David Chislett | 6 May 2014 8:30 AM
The challenge facing any musician in the music business of today is selling the music he or she writes to the record companies and the public. Fashion is fickle and changes fast, and the bigger music companies have made entire careers out of selling what is popular at one specific moment in time.
Trend-spotting
This state of affairs has resulted in musicians spotting trends and tailoring their own music to fit these in order to become commercially successful. This is an issue that harks directly back to why it is that the music is being made in the first place. If the objective of a band or musician is simply to make a living out of the music, this kind of reaction is not only understandable, it is to be encouraged. The trouble is that it is not infallible.
By the time a new trend has broken on the airwaves of radio stations around the world, it has gone through a long period of gestation. It has grown from something new that was happening on the streets of a town somewhere in the world and then spread to more and more bands. In order for it to reach the attention of a record label, it typically must have been going for about two years. For another band in another part of the world to then jump on this bandwagon means that this other band is missing out on whatever it is that is brewing where they are at the time. The current wave will fade and stop and then the copycat band is left playing a style of music that is no longer popular.
90s grunge copycats
It happens all the time. In the 90s a swathe of copycat grunge bands featured on the Johannesburg live scene. The only ones that survived were the acts, like Sugardrive, that went on to forge their own unique sound. The same can be said of the American hip hop copycats here in South Africa. Now that the demand is for local accent, content and attitude, the American wannabes have evaporated.
Trends are always an influence
It makes more business sense to be committed to the direction that is emerging from the work that a group is doing, than for that group to be trying to copy what is currently hip. The timeline involved almost always means that the copying band will lose out.
Trends will always be felt as an influence in any event. To enslave the direction of new music to what is already mainstream is to condemn that music to history before it has had its moment in the sun.
Originally published in David Chislett's One, Two, One, Two: A Step By Step Guide To The South African Music Industry. Download a free copy of the book at www.davidchislett.co.za.
[David Chislett]
David Chislett is a multi-talented South African speaker and writer. He graduated to national radio in 1994 when Barney Simon used him as a live radio correspondent on 5FM from London. David delivers a key note address, “Unleash Your Inner Rockstar” with Martin Schofield which teaches the hidden secrets of success from the music industry to businesses.
