>I think you're missing the point. It's not that non-commodified
>music was "better" in terms of virtuosity. But people did have a
>different relationship to it than they do now. Instead of being
>either an aspiring producer of songs that sell in an anonymous
>market, or a passive consumer, people were consumers and producers
>at the same time. This added a different, "organic" dimension to the
>entire process.
Aside from the fact that they were probably playing songs that other people had written, does that make it better? And what were they playing/singing? Not Beethoven string quartets, I'm guessing.
> What rang false to a degree about 60s folk music was that it was an
>imitation of earlier forms by people who were by then thoroughly
>urbanized. The same can be said of romanticisms in general. The
>answer to commodification is not to go back to the good old days.
>But those days did contain possibilites that the triumph of the
>market precludes, and should be reintegrated into any non-alienated
>society of the future.
There are lots of people making their own music now - thousands of little bands no one has ever heard of except locals, indie record labels, sharing of laptop-mixed MP3s, etc. It's not all Britney.
Doug