Thought I'd share this with everyone. I love David Crosby. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/music/interviews/crosby.html
Crosby has always been known as a pretty cool guy with a prodigious amount of talent, though the suits at the record labels can't stand what they claim is his "star trip" attitude. But hey, the guy is a survivor, and he's made a lot of incredibly fine music.
You're right...the price of concert tickets has gone through the stratosphere....and it seems that a great many well-known artists are charging an arm, a leg, and your left kidney for a ticket. I suppose aging rockers can't handle lengthy tours, so they play just a few shows, but charge enough so that their take equals that of a hungry band after a six-month world gig-a-rama.
"The times, they are a-changin." I think some of these people need to get over it, the music is different...the industry has totally changed as well. We need to accept that. The Byrds wouldn't make it today...ok....Metallica wouldn't make it in the 60's, that's the way it is. It doesn't mean the industry or fans are bad. To be honest, there are very few artists that I listen to from modern music today and I really do dislike the pop movement of the past 10 years or so but it doesn't bother me. Music is supposed to entertain people and I think it is for the fans, if they like Britney, Justin, Linkin Park, and whoever else is out there then so be it. I think calling the fans today "ignorant" or "stupid" is just being bitter, yeah maybe they are only listening to what is being spoon-fed to them by MTV, but that is their problem if they don't want to explore music further. Some might say this is a glorious age in music others might say it is a wasteland, it all depends on what you like. If you don't like the prices of concerts then don't go to them, that is the only way the corporations and artists will realize they have gone over the top with the prices...that is one of the reasons I will not be seeing The Dead this summer. The music industry today is frustrating to me and you but it might be great to another.
Its not that the music is different, its just that thats not what its about anymore.. Music is about image now, the meaning of the song doesnt even matter, cause hell, the artist didnt even write it.
This just shows how out of touch he is. There are PLENTY of good bands, writing thier own music, putting out music on their own labels etc. It's probably FREER now because you can do everything yourself instead of sucking up to a big label to get recording time in a studio. What's all this dissing of image, doesn't David Crosby have an carefully cultivated image with the moustache and hair, how does he not see that as trying to appeal to a certain demographic? I agree with his assessment of ClearChannel, what an evil empire.
He makes some valid points - nothing I haven't heard before, but points nevertheless. But I don't listen to what cornball hippy, dinosaur-rocker millionaires - who are decades past their prime - have to say. Frankly, I look at the guy as being kind of a joke. The guy is like the hippy poster boy of the 60's, turned scary crackhead on the run from the pigs, turned some wholesome, dried-up, hippy sellout who writes the soundtracks to retirement-age SUV excursions. Don't get me wrong, I like the Byrds, but Crosby is just too much of a dried-up, nostalgic yuppie/hippie for me to really take seriously. He should really take his crack pipe and just sort of hide away like he was doing in the early 80's. Oh yeah.... he does have a nice voice, though.
David Crosby does not have an "image". He looks the same as he always has....and I dont think he looks the way he does so that he will be outwardly appealing to people.....look at 'em. An image? c'mon, thats just him. Everything he said was right on.
His demographic is ugly people who like bad music, so you see it IS rather cultivated Anyway, I think he sucks and I despise CSN (Y is ok) so I don't put him on a pedestal and could care less about his opinions on music. The Byrds were good, but he is just a bad stereotype.
