My reaction to has-been musicians pathetically seeking a fraction of the lime light they used to enjoy. At least Barry Manilow, yes he is still alive, has the sense not to join in.
Still Alive?
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
My understanding is that Young sold the rights to some if not all of his music catalog. If I were the party that bought those rights, I’d be getting in touch with my lawyers — Young just devalued that property.
Very, very few artists ever HAD the rights to their music catalog.
The producers aren’t going to have much luck with suing, though– they’d have a heck of a time showing that they hadn’t profited by prior association to the musician, and they have a long established record of doing nothing every 4 years when a Republican buys the right to use some songs and the artist makes a public statement about how nobody asked them if they were OK with the music being used.
Thing is, the music of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell is light years better than than the auto tuned crap that passes for music nowadays. I mean Neil Young’s sounded like that of an old lady and still sounded decent. You would think these artists would want younger generations to have more exposure.
Foxfier, artists who actually write their own material DO have rights those catalogs. They often share those publishers and so forth. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell wrote the lion’s share of the music they recorded.
I didn’t know those two mental midgets were still stealing oxygen.
Greg-
That depends entirely on the contracts they signed when producing it– the drama around The Beatles being a famous example.
Music producers have a horrible reputation for very good reason.
I’d also suggest branching out a bit if you think you don’t like modern music. There’s a lot of variety out there– no reason to be stuck thinking that Neil Young was a good singer!
Strangely enough, YouTube can be a good place to start; folks like Dan Vasc, Sabaton… you are unlikely to like Beast in Black, but they also use voice as an instrument… Floor Jansen (lady singer, looks like a valkyrie, very nice, look for her opera style stuff), there’s a bunch of bass channels that amusingly enough get accused of using auto-tune because people don’t realize their expectations have been trained by old style audio manipulation, which doesn’t deal well with very deep voices….
A lot of it will depend on what you like.
This guy, singing with himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzlT80jQ3lo&ab_channel=GeoffCastellucci
The music business is as dirty as they come. The songwriting aspect is dealt with on the publishing end of things. John Fogerty sold the rights to his share of CCR’s original material, which he actually wrote almost all of, just to get out from under the oppressive contract with Fantasy Records after CCR broke up. Fantasy Records tried suing Fogerty years later for plagiarizing his own material. They tried saying his song Old Man is Down the Road was a melodic rip-off of Green River. The judge dismissed the suit.
I’m not saying their aren’t young artists out there writing and recording good music. But a lot of what’s mainstream is auto-tuned garbage. The song Sixteen Tons is over 70 years old. It was originally written and recorded by Merle Travis back in the 1940s.
I’m aware it’s old, I grew up listening to Tennessee Earnie’s Sixteen Tons complete with knowing why he snickers at that one point. That’s why I chose a rendition of it as evidence of modern singers being able to sing, because there is a long-time standard that can be compared back to.
The vast majority of anything is not worth the time it takes to take it in; that’s Sturgeon’s Law in action. (When told that 90% of science fiction was crud, he agreed, but elaborated “90% of everything is crud.” Usually ‘corrected’ to be cruder.)
I think Neil’s song Needle and the Damage Done ought to be the fight song of the anti-vaccine mandate movement in his honor.
https://youtu.be/Wn5l_QcnJ28
Young and Mitchell. Poster children for Canadian Fascism.
Meanwhile, Yoko Ono threatens to put her music ON Spotify if Joe Rogan isn’t canceled…. 🙂
Ha!
Foxfire thanks for the correction on Sturgeon’s Law. I will now be free to use it in public!
Bruce Springsteen has jumped on the bandwagon. Yawn. However, I think Spotify are saying they won’t censor but they will put a disclaimer warning on any material they decide needs it.
And Rogan has done a backflip and basically “apologised” and said he will be more careful, next time, with the content he broadcasts.
Southcoast-
I first heard about it by someone who got to hear the fellow in person, being rather annoyed at folks spicing it up. He figured his point was strong enough that it could stand without being crude. 😀
I hope Neil Young will remember, a southern man don’t need him around anyhow.
As for Neil Young not owning his music, apparently he has a history of misrepresenting this fact. Donald Trump Jr. claimed that Neil Young tried to sell the rights to his music around 2010 but they passed when they learned that he actually did not own the rights to them.
I can sympathize with artists getting screwed out of the rights to their own music, especially when they are hit with copyright infringement claims for performing songs that they wrote and were the first to record. But I don’t have any sympathy for someone trying to make a buck off something that he knew that he had no legal rights to.
Sabaton – More honest history in one album than in an entire 4 years of high school . . . or college.
They are so passionate about history– seriously, they are totally geeking out in the official Devil Dogs video.
https://youtu.be/sphuv7tTNKs
AKA, “So… um… United States military guys? Can we, like, come visit? For a music video. It’s TOTALLY not because we’re standing around squealing like little girls on the inside because this is AWESOME or anything….”
Entire pack of service members: “Sure.” [Squeeeeee!]
It’s a wonderful cure for the “history is boring” nonsense.
Texas history teacher e-friend uses appropriate Sabaton songs when they’ve got associated topic that day–
I’ve been practically a covid alarmist compared to most commenters on this site, but…aren’t we basically done? This should be the Yalta Conference phase of the story: still more work to do, and yes some more lives will be lost, but we should be talking about what comes afterwards. Old rock stars protesting an outlet that hosts a show with a guy who sometimes has information that contradicts the main narrative about the vaccines? Come on, Neil. Woodstock feels more recent than 2021 vaccine debates.