Features Live Performances By Dark Meat!
“Before The Music Dies” is a documentary about the corporate lame-ification of popular music that is being released virally through a series of independently hosted screenings. Kudos for that. Here’s a promotional blurb from their web site:
Never have so few companies controlled so much of the music played on the radio and for sale at retail stores. At the same time, there are more bands and more ways to discover their music than ever. Music seems to have split in two - the homogenous corporate product that is spoonfed to consumers and the diverse independent music that finds devoted fans online and at clubs across the country.
BEFORE THE MUSIC DIES tells the story of American music at this precarious moment. Filmmakers Andrew Shapter and Joel Rasmussen traveled the country, hoping to understand why mainstream music seems so packaged and repetitive, and whether corporations really had the power to silence musical innovation. The answers they found on this journey–ultimately, the promise that the future holds–are what makes BEFORE THE MUSIC DIES both riveting and exhilarating.
At the heart of BEFORE THE MUSIC DIES are interviews with musicians, industry insiders, music critics, and fans that reveal how music has reached this moment of truth. Featured performances from a truly diverse group of artists, ranging from The Dave Matthews Band and Erykah Badu to Seattle street performers and Mississippi gospel singers show us that great music is always out there… as long as you know where to look. BEFORE THE MUSIC DIES will renew your passion for great music, and inspire you to play an active part in its future.
Wait a minute — Dave Matthews figures prominently among the artists sticking it to the man in this film? Now, I’m certainly no fan of Clear Channel and the like, but friggin’ Dave Matthews?!? Does that dude not personify the “homogenous corporate product” that the filmmakers rail against? OK, I realize that maybe putting a blurb like “Features Live Performances By Dark Meat!” on your movie poster might not sell a lot tickets. But come on… if you’re going to make an effort to save the soul of rock-n-roll, you can do better than Captian Wonder Bread. The dude sells out baseball stadiums fer cryin’ out loud — what’s he complaining about?
Link: Before The Music Dies
November 29th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
say what you will about his music, but..his label ato, and its roster, are really glorious.
November 29th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Of course, of course… all I’m sayin’ is that when it comes to spokespeople for the lameness of corporate radio, Dave Matthews doesn’t have a whole lot of credibility. I don’t think he got where he is today without more than a little mainstream radio airplay, and I doubt he ever asked a station to stop playing his songs when he was in the Top 10. For him to be bitching about it now seems a little disingenuous.
December 3rd, 2006 at 8:15 pm
[…] Here’s a cool five minute clip about how to manufacture a pop star from the film “Before The Music Dies,” previously mentioned here: […]