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The State of the Music Industry today (part 1): Order & Chaos

2011-04-18 8:16AM / 標準BLOG / Fucking Random

Everybody who listens to music - everybody - knows that the music industry has undergone its most massive revolution and changes in the past 10 years than it has in 100. Just like everything else in today's world, from the clothes we wear to the latest, most fucked up sexual fetishes and so on...
...and if you're a real dumbass and got no clue why, ask yourself when was the last time you actually purchased a real CD. Actually, when was the last time you purchased music at all? Or tuned into shitty MTV channels to watch a music video...
You don't realize that every time you download a new song, you are in effect 'stealing music.' Well, that is what the CEO's of every label in the industry want you to believe. But the truth is, we're not stupid animals. We like money. And if we can save 1000 bucks downloading 10 albums off torrents, then what kind of retard wouldn't do it? I love the way we have advertisements on the tele, the ones that sum up to say 'If you download music, you are committing a crime - a crime just as ugly as stealing someone's man bag!'
Errr... Fuck off? I sat in front of my computer downloading the same file that someone else had previously bought. Sharing is caring. Now stop being a douchebag.
'Indie is the way forward'
There is one reason why the music industry is suffering, and it isn't your fault for downloading music instead of buying it. It is because of the industry's state of mind. (Someone should write a parody song of Empire's State of Mind). In fact, the music industry isn't even suffering from a lack of money! I'm pretty sure Mr. CEO of EMI music is enjoying himself on a nice Caribbean cruise somewhere, soaking in the sun and getting a nice tan. He's happy. Last year's revenue equated to something of a billion dollars. And that ain't no joke!
But music is suffering. Perhaps not the industry, but us artists, bands, musicians and listeners. Why? Well look at that Justin Bieber fucker. Or Rihanna. Even Usher nowadays sounds like his songs were written by the same songwriters who wrote everybody else's songs. The fact is, with all the media that surrounds us, people are getting stupider and losing their attention spans as time goes on, so label songwriters are out there looking for ways to keep your attention, rather than hitting you with the dope kind of complexity that the old school classics used to hit us with. Ever wonder why the lyrics of one of our last, biggest hits was 'Baby. Baby. Baby. Oh.?' It's not like Justin Bieber sits there for days in a meditation trance and writes her latest tracks without even picking up a pen. Well the latter part was true, he doesn't pick up a pen. He shows up at the studio with a coffee and a hangover and says 'so uhhh.... what kind of absurd, nonsensical crap will I be singing today?'
Now, most of my friends don't listen to Bieber, Rihanna or Britney Spears. I like to think that it's because I generally hang out with a cool, intelligent group of people who are smarter than our music industry dogs want us to be. Sure, they can keep making billions of this crappy music, and make more and more as kids get dumber, but where do we come in? Where do we find music that we like and how are the really good musicians going to survive in a shitty music industry?
'If you're in it for the money, see you later, bitch!'
Two words. Independent music. My friends may spend hours in a night just looking through youtube for a tune they can play on the way to work the next day. They forget about mainstream stuff, partly because it is becoming more and more uncool to listen to it, but also because they refuse to submit to having no choice but to listen to the lucrative Top 40 bullshit and pointless politics of the music industry. Our music industry kind of reminds me of America. It got too big and all too powerful, so now we're all waiting for it to crash and burn, and many of us will enjoy it.
Independent music is like the new movement. Eventually indie music becomes mainstream when it reaches a certain level of hype and fame, but we're not at that stage yet because if you were, you wouldn't still be reading this. Indie music is profitable. You don't deal with the leaks that often come with one of the many downfalls of signing with an actual music label. (These leaks are, by the way simply because their companies are too big. 20000 employees = 20000 unhappy, not-special employees who don't give a shit about Michael Buble). You keep your profits. You develop a relationship with the people you work with. The kind of relationship where people might say 'hey, I like you. I'll direct your next music video for free.' You don't get that kind of thing in the mainstream world. All you get is the dollars, and hopefully by now you've realized that life is much more than that.
We say that there are too many bands and artists for one world, and not all of us are going to be successful. But everybody will have a breaking point. If you're in this for the right reasons, such as passion and real love for music, then you will survive. If you're in it for the money, see you later bitch ;)

Hopefully you enjoyed my little blog post, check back tomorrow for part 2 where I'll talk shit again. This time it'll be about what to do to succeed as an indie musician and how to grow as an artist. See you tomorrow!

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I'm back

2011-04-12 1:11PM / 標準BLOG

I've completely ignored my alivenotdead page for almost 2 years now.. LOL sorry guys. I promise to come back to everybody on the alivenotdead.com community and start blogging some crazy shit again.

The past year has been a bit of a struggle, money-wise and focus-wise. Sometimes when things in your life are not in a full order, you lose your way and start focusing on doing the wrong things. It does take a certain amount of 'degenerating' before you can get back to becoming something big again. I'm sure everybody understands where I've been and has experienced it for themselves at some point in their lives!

I've been constantly and consistently working on new music. The past 2 days, it's been more cigarettes and music-making than eating! and I do not plan to stop (well... the music making at least). If any of you have been searching for music that I have not been showing off to the world then I sincerely apologize. At the moment, I have only been uploading songs up to my soundcloud page and posting them on my facebook page. That was pretty selfish!

Here's a 2011 discography for you to get started with downloading my shit!

Sicko
Sicko by ghostsouljahmusic

Sometimes...
Sometimes... by ghostsouljahmusic

My Whole Team Comin At Ya
My Whole Team Comin At Ya by ghostsouljahmusic

Dear Lord
Dear Lord by ghostsouljahmusic

Popular
Popular by ghostsouljahmusic

Thanks guys, I'll be back very soon!

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FOR DJs: 'Mess' is up for download as an mp3

2009-09-13 1:37PM / 標準BLOG

Whats up everybody

There have been a ton of emails sent to me regarding my latest song and its getting difficult to reply to all of you guys. So I'ma make this much easier and just put it up here as a free download.

Saves us all the time of having to email me. If you're a DJ and want to play this song: download it right here

Thanks for all the love. There is MUCH more coming up!

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One for the club. Hong Kong's Hip Hop (Attention all DJs!)

2009-09-10 7:22PM / 標準BLOG

It has been a while since I wrote a song specifically for the night club. My reasoning: most of these songs have 'dat auto-tune shit'.. something that I have been getting bored of lately. I see that the trend itself is dying (with the help of Jay-Z's latest 'Death of Autotune'), and to be honest, that shit just never inspired me!

Additional reasoning: some of these 'club' songs just don't make sense these days. I never did understand the hype of 'Ay Bay Bay' or 'Laffy Taffy', just a couple of names of ridiculous songs that were literally on repeat in clubs not long ago. Most of these tracks involved numerous baby sounding voices just yelling stuff that I couldn't understand over a mediocre beat. In my opinion, these guys were changing the definition of music to 'anything that has a bass, a hi-hat, a clap and maybe even an annoying voice that hurts the inside of your head because your ears can't handle that frequency.'

I evolved into the chill out musician that I became, writing songs about stuff that actually meant something and writing about things that happened in my life.

My latest song, titled 'Mess', was inspired by numerous funny (and annoying) incidents that kept happening again and again. If you have ever walked into a club, noticed the hot brunette in the corner the whole night, mezmerized by her appearance too... only to find her an hour later, lying passed out in her own vomit in the other corner of the club (slight turn off), you might relate to this one!

I'm sure the experience has happened to both men and women alike.

This song is titled 'Mess' and is available for listening now, on alivenotdead.com. You will be hearing more!

Thank you for reading.

Announcement: If you are a DJ who is interested in playing this song at your own set, feel free to email me at ghostsouljahmusic@gmail.com and I will email this one to you! Sadly, I do not know every one of you and it is thus hard for me to get at you guys.

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Lost Love

2009-09-01 3:08PM / 標準BLOG

By the time I was done getting a full preview of Alex's new Sounds From The Soul album, there was one song that stuck.

By now, many of you would be familiar with Alex's new music, and for those who have followed him over the past couple of years, you can really see how much he has progressed as an artist.

When he finished showing me all of these tracks, I was amazed at the effort he had put into this. Everything seemed to fit in so well. One song in particular that I fell in love with was 'Lost Love'.

That song stood out, and while many of the other songs on his album were very good, it was how I could relate to the subject of the song at the time that made me like the song so much. While I want to refrain from hijacking all of Alex's shit, I jumped on this one opportunity to do my own take on that track.

I have put it up as a free download exclusively for AnD: http://www.filedropper.com/lostlove

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