Summary

The music industry is criticized for prioritizing profits and fame over the art of music, leading to exploitation of artists, compromised artistic integrity, and negative impacts on artists' mental health and passion for music.

Abstract

The article "Have We Forgotten To Appreciate The Beauty Of Music?" argues that the music industry has lost sight of the true value of music, focusing instead on profit-driven motives. It highlights how managers and record companies often exploit artists for financial gain, pushing them into excessive commercial activities and negative behaviors like substance abuse, which can lead to public scandals. The intense pressure to maintain a perfect image, particularly in the K-pop industry, results in rigorous training schedules and mental health issues for artists. The author suggests that systemic change is necessary to prioritize the genuine passion and commitment of artists over greed, advocating for a shift in mindset within the industry. The article also touches on the responsibility of wealthy artists to contribute to society and suggests that the industry should engage in corporate social responsibility initiatives.

Opinions

The music industry needs to stop prioritizing profits over the artistry of music.
Managers and record companies are accused of exploiting artists for their own financial benefit.
The focus on commercial success and maintaining a perfect public image can lead artists away from their passion for music and towards negative behaviors.
The grueling demands placed on artists, especially in K-pop, can have detrimental effects on their mental health.
Artists and fans should unite to pressure the industry into valuing art over profit.
Wealthy music artists have a social responsibility to give back to society.
The music industry should engage in corporate social responsibility initiatives to responsibly spend the huge amounts of profits gained.

Have We Forgotten To Appreciate The Beauty Of Music?

We Must Not Allow Greed To Ruin This Craft

The music industry in general needs to stop prioritizing profits over art.

There have been many cases whereby music artists have been cheated or taken advantage of by their managers and record companies, in order to reap profits for themselves and engineer their own rise to fame.

These managers play a role in influencing the artists’ decisions, their venture into the music industry, them making connections with other industry players and getting involved in the commercial/advertising aspect of the industry.

But what tends to happen in some cases, is that these managers act mainly out of their own self-interests, instead of that of the music artists themselves. The more deals and connections made by the artist, even in areas not related to music, the more their managers can profit from.

And so, at the advice and encouragement of their managers, the artist’s focus and energy is directed less towards making music and more towards the commercial side of the music industry as well as more negative activities such as drinking and doing drugs.

And as we know from the media, a number of such cases have resulted in these artists getting caught up in certain scandals and shameful public incidents.

Apart from that, particularly in the K-pop music industry, we have also heard of bands and artists having to endure grueling practice sessions for singing and dancing as part of their contract with their respective record companies.

This is so that these artists are consistently as perfect as they can be whenever they go out to perform in front of audiences. They are made to portray a certain, near perfect image, so as to endear them to even more fans, thus ultimately generating more profits for their respective record companies.

This has damaging effects on the mental health of these music artists, as they’re daily schedules are so rigid and also due to the enormous amount of pressure being placed on them to behave in certain ways by the record companies as well as the fans, who’ve been influenced to have very high expectations by the music industry.

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/adult-artist-artists-band-210887/

In such cases, these artists can feel less human and more like automated robots, and their original, genuine passion for creating music can be greatly eroded in the process.

Such deeply rooted systemic problems such as the above are really damaging towards artists and the singing profession, in general. In careers especially like this one, what’s truly important is the genuine passion and commitment of the artists, and not the greed for profits and fame.

Therefore, the music industry seriously needs to change its mindset and priorities when it comes to these artists and the art of making music. The art should be cherished and celebrated, instead of letting greedy ambitions for profits and fame influence their decisions.

Ultimately though, I feel that it’s the artists and the fans who have to come together and apply pressure to the music industry to change for the better.

This is because at this point in time, the industry has gotten so deeply established in its mindset and goals of prioritizing profits over art, such that change will be very difficult from within.

Photo by Johannes Havn: https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-lift-a-person-2417730/

There is however one viewpoint to consider, and that is the massive amounts of wealth these music artists make for themselves, and how they spend that wealth.

Some of us would say that in general, those who make such massive amounts of wealth should appropriately give back to the rest of society, especially considering the severity of socioeconomic problems faced by the majority of people these days.

In this sense, ideally, the music industry can potentially and indeed, should play a part by advocating for more corporate social responsibility (CSR)-like initiatives, such that the huge amounts of profits gained by sales, deals, campaigns and commercial activities are spent responsibly towards improving society.

Originally published at http://reformthesystem0.wordpress.com on September 23, 2023.

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