THE WOLF OF WALL STREET AND THE PUSSIES OF MUSIC COMPANIES

A week after watching The Wolf Of Wall Street, I met a 2014 model of a music company executive.

Not to say that the lifestyle of Jordan Belford is something to condone, but despite the sex, drugs, rock and roll and even more far out sex and marching to the beat of Bolivian marching drums and huge experimentations in deviant behavior, but not known to be deviant in those days when everything and everyone was doable, there was also an energy- a need to push the creative envelope, a need to break down barriers and a necessity to take dangerous gambles.

It’s everything that also fueled the music industry and which gave birth to Nirvana and Pearl Jam and when Grunge was seeing the end of Greed Is Good.

Speaking to this music company executive- a lovely person- what was evident was how bland he was and how little he and his company had to offer.

What’s more, how little they thought about even trying to change and become even a little bit creative and innovative.

They were happy being comfortably numb.

It was BB King singing, The Thrill Is Gone mixed with Ray Davies enjoying a Lazy Afternoon and where nothing was real and nothing to get hung about.

As someone who once worked in two music companies, it was also incredibly sad- sad because of this apathy to try anything new, sad because of this resignation not to rock the boat and just keep the gig by flying below the radar, sad to think how much money is wasted by music companies flying executives around the world, but having no money to promote and market and sign new artists and, well, just sad that we have reached this point where, apart from so-called “distribution”, there really is no need for this thing called a “music company” and its staff and overheads.

Apart from swanning around the world to attend a few meetings which could be done on Skype or attending one of those “music conferences” where nothing is ever achieved, why not just have a virtual office, or work from home, as, seriously folks, for almost a decade, there has been bugger all to do by going into the offices of a music company.

And these companies wonder why they’re broke?

It’s been mismanagement 101 and which has seen huge job cuts- but never top management- huge redundancy payouts to the shrewd few, and, the ugly irony of having no money to spend on the actual music side of a music company.

Does this make any sense?

And since this IS the case, what’s the role of a “music conference”, what does a “recording contract” mean today, and what is “music marketing” when there is no marketing budget?

It’s all just so numbingly dumb and dumb and so transparently phony that “music companies” and “music executives” are much ado about nothing and only surviving by going to the same dried up old well in the vain hope of finding something to bail them out when there’s been nothing there for over a decade.

Getting back to the life and times of Jordan Belford, yes, it was a different time and a time of excess, but it was a time that was also fucking exciting with exciting people doing exciting things.

These days, apart from the apathy of music executives and the closed minded thinking of dated music companies, let’s not lose sight of the apathy of musicians- those musicians who have yet to achieve real success and not this faked-out “social media success” with views, likes and followers bought and which, today, fool no one when one receives all that junk mail offering “SEO services” that include “gaining views”.

Jordan Belford might have led his own disjointed and misguided lifestyle, but, at least, he never flew under any radars and suffer from creative apathy and shrinkage that even George Costanza would look down and be embarrassed at what he saw.