I was just watching the news this morning and was shocked to hear that all shops in the UK are to close except 3 - Sainsburys, Asda and Tesco. Some of the smaller independent shops and smaller chains will still exist in Europe, ie Lidl, but it will be hard to find them unless you know how.

Now, don't panic. This is hypothetical. If such a report were to happen, the UK population would be go into riot mode, there would be petitions to save the shops, as people seem to like choice. This is especially true in video game forums where my suggestion for a console that plays every game known is shot down as ridiculous because without competition quality would perhaps, start to decline.

We won't let it happen to our shops or video games, where you can play everything from Halo, to Candy Crush, to Super Mario Bros, to a goat simulator and a bit of Fifa. so why do we allow this to happen to our music?

Here is 7 videos, each produced by producers or artists rimming with creativity and talent. (except from perhaps, the Vengaboys one ) There is a mix of genre. Not one is played in the UK despite there being around 35 music channels on Sky, goodness knows how many radio stations, etc. When are we gong to wake ourselves up (before we go go)

http://youtu.be/Xi7aO2-75jU
http://youtu.be/9lNNYrlCeDI
http://youtu.be/AdZUpmXAYVE
http://youtu.be/U1no7Or9BeI
http://youtu.be/C_kxeDT-jds
http://youtu.be/so49WpSj9bo?t=1m10s
http://youtu.be/Ez-apj-Od1I

Surely one or two more channels aren't TOO much to ask playing these and more? Whats wrong Simon? Too scared?

it sounds like you've been reading the "news" on a satire site, as i've seen no news like that elsewhere and it's a ridiculous idea


such as using eyes and or google?


right ok


so it didn't happen then?


i doubt it. unless they could do it by sitting on their arses on the internet


the good old british lazy way of doing things


as opposed to being technically difficult, expensive, have huge legal issues, and something few people would want?


we don't


i usually wake in the morning. some folk wake in the afternoon


you can start channels if you want. they usually cost a lot of money, so that's why there are so few channels, and as they are commercial channels relying on advertising, to which viewing figures are important, they play stuff they think their audience will watch

there's also websites like youtube where you can watch videos of all sorts of stuff if you don't want to watch the existing music channels. or you can just buy the music and listen to it. you don't need videos to enjoy music. for many years most people bought albums without seeing a music video for any of the songs on it

there's no monopoly either in the british music industry. google "monopoly" and read the dictionary definition and wikipedia

The British Music Industry would be better described as an oligopoly rather than a monopoly. That applies to the distribution of music channels as well. I thought the Within Temptation vid might make Kerrang but I didn't think it was all that creative. The Killjoys song was nice but s little old fashioned.

Was the Internet not meant to democratise music distribution. You can get all these vids on YouTube and Vevo. Is that not enough?

No.

I want to see them occasionally on TV


The poster who made the first reply mentioned commercial value and viewer ratings. What about BBC which is paid for by the license fee, and doesn't need to worry. Its also meant to be impartial.

I'd settle for a one hour a month show on BBC 4 or radio 2. (thats only 12 hours a year ) Surely we can have that.

The BBC does pop music a reasonable service as it is. BBC 2 has Jools Holland with live artists, BBC 4 presents the TOTP archive compliations plus it has some excellent documentaries. SKY Arts 1 does something similar with archive live gigs. On the radio side Radio 1 has too much talk and a limited playlist but it does have the live lounge. Radio 2 and Radio 6 play more interesting music and again have some good background documentaries. Whilst the Beeb is not strictly commercial it has to compete with commercial radio and tv channels. The Beeb doesn't have bandwidth to dedicate to a video channel but most of the video channels these days supplement their content with comedy and reality programming anyway.

For me modern music hasn't got as much of a story to tell as earlier pop music eras had. The radio DJs and presenters are just wannabes like the artists for the most part and I'm not interested in their lives as their lives aren't that interesting.
Modern pop music is contextless, nicely constructed from the best sounds of the past but formulaic. There is plenty of great music but it is dispersed, fragmented and there are no modern day John Peels or Tony Wilsons to make sense of it, help it reach the critical mass it requires. Perhaps a Zane Lowe tv prog would help?

the bbc don't have any music tv channels though. however across the tv channels they do have, they broadcast quite a wide variety of all sorts of music from classical and jazz to rock and hip hop, from prime time BBC shows like the TOTP xmas special to the shows on BBC3 and BBC4 for example, from live broadcasts of various gigs such as the summer festival shows, to the great documentaries on all sorts of types of music and bands

if you don't like what is on TV you can just do what myself and others do regarding music and radio, which is to turn off the radio and look for music elsewhere. so if there aren't music channels you like on satellite or cable, look for alternate options such as looking online or buy dvds and/or blurays

it's really unlikely that if there aren't channels on TV that cater for what you want now, that they will pop up in future unless you set it up yourself, as internet TV is providing that alternative instead, and can cater efficientlly to smaller and more specialised tastes. there are plenty of relatively cheap boxes you can connect to a TV and watch stuff like youtube or netflix and a host of other online tv streams. now tv for exampple was on offer in currys for £13 yesterday and many games consoles like playstation and xbox let you stream too. if you look on youtube you can probably find an hour of videos you want to watch quiet easily, and if you don't like what you are watching it's easy to skip to the next one in seconds

Within Temptation are one of my favourite bands, I have all of their albums on CD as well as the Blu-rays of Let Us Burn & the Black Symphony Tour. The thing that sickens me is that you go into somewhere like HM Thief & they are promoting something like 1D, Beyonce or some other chart bollox.

Yet for the genre of music I like, it is either not in stock or is placed in their overpriced import section. A couple years ago, I wanted a new album from a Symphonic Metal band & HM Thief had the nerve to charge £25 for the standard edition of the album in their overpriced import sextion. I ended up buying the deluxe version of the album from the website of the band for £20, which included a DVD of a live gig & a free T-Shirt. HM Thief wanted an extra £17 for that DVD and a further £15 for the T-Shirt, making a grand total of £57 for all 3 items.

It's all very well if you like generic top 40 tripe & are able to get the latest album from a shop at a cost of around £10-£12. But for fans of non top 40 material, it's either a case of paying ridiculously over the odds in the shop for it, or buying it direct from the Artist / Band at a more reasonable price.

Thanks to the likes of Spotify & Last FM, I am introduced to new bands / artists that would never get promotion in shops. Yes their material can be bought easily enough but they don't get the shop promotion that they deserve. You get idiots that say that Rock is Dead, yet Rock festivals like Download & Sonisphere get packed to the brim every year. The Rock / Metal Genre has a massive following yet they don't get the promotion.

Within Temptation get play on Radio 2 :^)

Go to YouTube.

A vast selection of music on there, particularly talented artists little known to the general public as they don't get exposure.

I haven't bought a CD in decades.

It makes me laugh when the industry say that piracy is destroying the music business as for instance the Now Albums from the last 10 years, I wouldn't even waste storage space downloading illegally as they are that sh!t.

there's a much bigger choice between hmv and buying direct from the artist, in fact there is more choice than before for buying cds (and dvds etc) as there are loads of online stores from amazon to cdwow and play where you can order in advance and get an album at a discounted price delivered to your door on or even before the official release date

the brick and morter stores are there to make a profit, not to promote bands. it's shite like no direction that makes them more money so that's why it's promoted more. if metal was actually as popular as you suggest, the stores would do the same, as it doesn't matter to them what music people like, as long as they make money from it

No idea why you have an issue in buying from the artists website? Surely this is better for the artist than buying from a third party site

Welcome to the alternative scene OP. Just because people like us like music that isn't universally popular, doesn't mean we can't access it in other ways.

I personally find closing down rock/metal bars (for 'redevelopment') that have been there for centuries in soho more of an issue for the rock/alternative scene than Kerrang or Scuzz not showing a music video!

I find that buying from a band's website is better than giving money to the big corporations who don't give a shit about their customers. I can't remember the last time I bought anything in HMV!

Slightly unfortunate typo in the opening post. But if you are going to rim, do it with creativity and talent

The fact that many artists use YouTube as a stage to exhibit their talents, seems to have escaped you, so can't dismiss all YouTube uploads as shit, because they aren't.

Here's a couple of example of one of several dozen of "non pirate" uploads of excellent performances by various members of a particular orchestra.
If they weren't for YouTube, I and a lot of others would never have heard of them.

Sadly, they ain't from this country.

It ain't pop so for those who aren't interested in other musical genres where there's some great tunes sung and played well, "look away now."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSCaGOvbPL4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNHa2580Kwo

Minority music tastes have always existed and there has always been an alternative music scene. But it was once part of a counter culture but that's no longer the case. The new media gurus have been proved right in that the internet and its multichannel delivery mechanisms means every niche music has an audience. And with audience fragmentation, the mainstream music becomes blander. There are no new culture defining movements associated with pop music any more. Music is just business and product. The modern story of pop music is over effectively.

I, too, love Within Temptation and also have all their albums (bar the first because too much growly stuff), albeit in download format from 7 Digital. It is nice to see them get a little bit of mainstream attention after years of hard work although I do suspect that it is because female fronted rock bands are somewhat in style right now.

I agree with you on the likes of HMV. As someone who has never really been a fan of mainstream pop music, I always found my local (when I say local, I mean 50 miles away) one's selection to be seriously lacking and expensive on the odd occasion they had something I wanted to buy.

Thank God for the Internet, Amazon, CD Baby, Bandcamp and 7 Digital. Access to oh so much great music past and present at reasonable prices. £7.99 for an album over £15 all day long.

I caught a bit of Kerrang in a friend's house over Christmas (as we were pre-loading) and it was awful. Just a load of rocker wannabes playing some kind of silly pop punk really badly.