I could and maybe will write an entire VOLUME about money and music. It’ll go right back to when I was in a band and folks with money were clearly losing an awful lot of it, just to be releasing band x or band y who they genuinely loved. I remember thinking back then that it was actually down to the philanthropy of some folks, that much of the indie (ie not really making money) music got to be heard.
You could argue that it’s a mirror of labels and promoters and festivals: the bigger acts pay for the smaller ones in many ways. (fuck knows there’s a lot of value put on playing a festival that acts will do anything to get their name on the poster).
Independently wealthy people have been involved making music and in the industry since it began, and that’s not a beef of mine* as I’m sure a lot of my favourite stuff is posh/rich and I daresay some of the folks I work with are too.
What does get on my nerves is that a posh SOUND seems to have developed. It’s all over the place. It’s jaunty, like a Jack Wills advert, and it sings like a pixie. It thinks all it needs to do is sing a bit weird by squashing its tongue to the top of its mouth and pronounce words a bit wrong, and hey presto, a career.
And there are some people buying it, mores the pity.
* even if it is *really* tough right now for anyone without some kind of support to do anything in music – but that’s another discussion
Monk Blog 
August 30th, 2012 at 17:00
This is very good. It also reminded me of this pretty interesting article in the Quietus a while ago:
http://thequietus.com/articles/07603-2011british-politics-folk-music
(Which I mostly agree with, but I do think the author is maybe putting a bit too much political responsibility on the heads of unsuspecting musicians, by implying that no-one should touch a banjo, and that we should all be playing bleak post-punk next to a concrete flyover).
August 30th, 2012 at 17:27
I do like that article though. A very eloquent romp around the political consequences of the above… and how if you’re not careful about your craft, you’re in danger of being an apologist for all kinds of horrible (political) bastard.