3 ms·

I wonder how much of this is because of copyrights. Look at the way a lot of older music has been preserved in modern times, through the use of sampling, covers

I wonder how much of this is because of copyrights. Look at the way a lot of older music has been preserved in modern times, through the use of sampling, covers and other things. The Beatles, Elvis, even Dylan played a lot of covers of old blues tunes or other songs that had been lost by that current generation and were made popular again. The way laws work now, that's not really something people can do any more without being sued or paying licensing fees. I don't see a lot of Beatles songs being sampled, because it costs a lot, so a lot of young people who might have heard some of their music won't really get the chance. I know me personally, i've only discovered a lot of older music after hearing a cover or a sample in a song that's made me go back and look for the original. Look at reggae music to see the difference. Songs from the 50's and 60's are still being remade, covered, remixed and used in modern songs. A lot of reggae fans still know the big names from that time because you still hear their songs.

raverbashing 6y ago
Yeah in essence they are not well known because they haven't adapted to the times They block any video with a sample of their song on YT even if they would have made money from it So, tough. Back to being unknown then
- nitrogen 6y ago
  The beginning of the end of guitar music may have been the day that Metallica sued Napster.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    At that point, guitar music had already been giving way in Europe to beats-based music. While initially North America scoffed at trends like eurodance, in retrospect it was only a matter of time before the electronic-music wave hit America, too. Also, the turn of the millennium is when hip-hop in the USA started to go from a somewhat niche and edgy genre to completely mainstream and ascendant over guitar music. Metallica had nothing to do with it.
    - grawprog 6y ago
      I don't think guitar music's dead. Guitar centric music may not be popular anymore, but you'll find guitars in a lot of places these days. There's also a trend towards guitarists that play with samplers and loopers and perform live that way. I see plenty of new guitar music on youtube in a huge variety of styles and genres. I also frequently hear guitars, albeit hidden under layers of effects, in hip-hop and electronic music. I think guitar music is a long ways from dead. Rock and its derivitives and the typical 4 or 5 piece drum, bass and guitar ensemble may be dead, but guitars are doing just fine and I think if anything, there's so many more avenues available for incorporating guitars into music with a lower barrier of entry than previously. Someone can actually sound pretty decent strumming a few chords, looping them and playing with the sound without needing to learn as much. It's not the same, but guitars are everywhere and these days they're even being incorporated with midi technology or other things to let you do some crazy stuff with them. Also, trends come and go at some point you'll get a group of young people who wanna rebel against the 'digital electronic sounds' the older people like and suddenly discover acoustic instruments and stuff again, they'll be new and cool, the even older people will shake their fists and say things like 'those darned kids, we used to play real instruments before any of that electronic stuff came along' and the cycle will continue.
      - pasabagi 6y ago
        I think the guitar did have a sort of outsize influence and symbolism, due to a few factors that no longer exist, or don't have the same punch. First, it's the quintessential american instrument, and it came to dominate the music world at about the same time america was coming to dominate the world world. Second, it records well. Third, it's cheap to produce. Now, a computer is much cheaper than a guitar, and a microphone is cheaper than a computer. American dominance and dynamism are sliding into a morass of nostalgia and rent seeking. With computers, anything can record well. You can make an album out of the sounds sampled from a pig being slaughtered, and people do.
        37eydhdbdu 6y ago
        The /electric/ guitar might be the quintessential American instrument but I think South America would like a word if you think the acoustic guitar is quintessentially American outside of the American zeitgeist.
  - armandososa 6y ago
    I don't know if you're right. But I hate Metallica and I would love for history to somehow pin the death of rocknroll on those greedy bastards.
privong 6y ago
> The Beatles, Elvis, even Dylan played a lot of covers of old blues tunes or other songs that had been lost by that current generation and were made popular again. > I don't see a lot of Beatles songs being sampled, because it costs a lot These are two different things, from a legal and licensing standpoint. My understanding is that sampling (expensive, no set pricing) and covering (set pricing) are distinct. I think that if you cover a song, you agree to credit the original person as writer and pay them an (industry standard) fraction of the royalties. But sampling requires negotiation for usage rights and can get expensive quite quickly. I suspect people are not sampling the Beatles because it would be expensive, but that's a distinct question from that of whether people are covering the Beatles. I was curious, and it seems Beatles songs are pretty widely covered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cover_versions_of_Beatles_songs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cover_versions_of_Beat...
- dhosek 6y ago
  For a cover you need a mechanical license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_license In the US under the compulsory license scheme, it's a fixed fee per copy or stream (with a minimum licensing fee). It's been a long time since I've looked into this (in the pre-streaming era) but back in those days it was around $.30 per copy. In the US, this is mostly handled through the Harry Fox Agency. I just peaked at their pricing page and there's a lot more categories than their were back in the 90s. https://www.harryfox.com/#/rate-charts https://www.harryfox.com/#/rate-charts
  - jasomill 6y ago
    Interesting that the per-copy fee for "Ringtones" (24¢) is much higher than the fee for "Permanent Digital Downloads" (9.1¢). IIRC, personal, non-commercial "public performances" of recordings as mere ringtones are exempt from public performance royalties under US law, so there appear to be no material additional rights granted by a ringtone sale vs. an ordinary digital download. So I guess what the extra 14.9¢ buys you is the right to automatically insert the recording into the purchaser's mobile phone's "ringtone" list? Curious.

raverbashing 6y ago

Yeah in essence they are not well known because they haven't adapted to the times They block any video with a sample of their song on YT even if they would have made money from it So, tough. Back to being unknown then

nitrogen 6y ago
The beginning of the end of guitar music may have been the day that Metallica sued Napster.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  At that point, guitar music had already been giving way in Europe to beats-based music. While initially North America scoffed at trends like eurodance, in retrospect it was only a matter of time before the electronic-music wave hit America, too. Also, the turn of the millennium is when hip-hop in the USA started to go from a somewhat niche and edgy genre to completely mainstream and ascendant over guitar music. Metallica had nothing to do with it.
  - grawprog 6y ago
    I don't think guitar music's dead. Guitar centric music may not be popular anymore, but you'll find guitars in a lot of places these days. There's also a trend towards guitarists that play with samplers and loopers and perform live that way. I see plenty of new guitar music on youtube in a huge variety of styles and genres. I also frequently hear guitars, albeit hidden under layers of effects, in hip-hop and electronic music. I think guitar music is a long ways from dead. Rock and its derivitives and the typical 4 or 5 piece drum, bass and guitar ensemble may be dead, but guitars are doing just fine and I think if anything, there's so many more avenues available for incorporating guitars into music with a lower barrier of entry than previously. Someone can actually sound pretty decent strumming a few chords, looping them and playing with the sound without needing to learn as much. It's not the same, but guitars are everywhere and these days they're even being incorporated with midi technology or other things to let you do some crazy stuff with them. Also, trends come and go at some point you'll get a group of young people who wanna rebel against the 'digital electronic sounds' the older people like and suddenly discover acoustic instruments and stuff again, they'll be new and cool, the even older people will shake their fists and say things like 'those darned kids, we used to play real instruments before any of that electronic stuff came along' and the cycle will continue.
    - pasabagi 6y ago
      I think the guitar did have a sort of outsize influence and symbolism, due to a few factors that no longer exist, or don't have the same punch. First, it's the quintessential american instrument, and it came to dominate the music world at about the same time america was coming to dominate the world world. Second, it records well. Third, it's cheap to produce. Now, a computer is much cheaper than a guitar, and a microphone is cheaper than a computer. American dominance and dynamism are sliding into a morass of nostalgia and rent seeking. With computers, anything can record well. You can make an album out of the sounds sampled from a pig being slaughtered, and people do.
      - 37eydhdbdu 6y ago
        The /electric/ guitar might be the quintessential American instrument but I think South America would like a word if you think the acoustic guitar is quintessentially American outside of the American zeitgeist.
- armandososa 6y ago
  I don't know if you're right. But I hate Metallica and I would love for history to somehow pin the death of rocknroll on those greedy bastards.

privong 6y ago

> The Beatles, Elvis, even Dylan played a lot of covers of old blues tunes or other songs that had been lost by that current generation and were made popular again. > I don't see a lot of Beatles songs being sampled, because it costs a lot These are two different things, from a legal and licensing standpoint. My understanding is that sampling (expensive, no set pricing) and covering (set pricing) are distinct. I think that if you cover a song, you agree to credit the original person as writer and pay them an (industry standard) fraction of the royalties. But sampling requires negotiation for usage rights and can get expensive quite quickly. I suspect people are not sampling the Beatles because it would be expensive, but that's a distinct question from that of whether people are covering the Beatles. I was curious, and it seems Beatles songs are pretty widely covered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cover_versions_of_Beatles_songs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cover_versions_of_Beat...

dhosek 6y ago
For a cover you need a mechanical license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_license In the US under the compulsory license scheme, it's a fixed fee per copy or stream (with a minimum licensing fee). It's been a long time since I've looked into this (in the pre-streaming era) but back in those days it was around $.30 per copy. In the US, this is mostly handled through the Harry Fox Agency. I just peaked at their pricing page and there's a lot more categories than their were back in the 90s. https://www.harryfox.com/#/rate-charts https://www.harryfox.com/#/rate-charts
- jasomill 6y ago
  Interesting that the per-copy fee for "Ringtones" (24¢) is much higher than the fee for "Permanent Digital Downloads" (9.1¢). IIRC, personal, non-commercial "public performances" of recordings as mere ringtones are exempt from public performance royalties under US law, so there appear to be no material additional rights granted by a ringtone sale vs. an ordinary digital download. So I guess what the extra 14.9¢ buys you is the right to automatically insert the recording into the purchaser's mobile phone's "ringtone" list? Curious.