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Music, Artists, Talent Shows And The Death Of The Album

Music, Artists, Talent Shows And The Death Of The Album 1 2 3

As the evening progressed, it was a pleasure to be joined by Dan Donovan. Local musician, singer songwriter, filmmaker, graphic designer and photographer. Dan is certainly multi-talented and could only be described as an artist, his creative drive resonates throughout his work in all its forms. So what were his views on the state of the music industry, the possible death of the album and talent shows?

We presented Jeffrene’s argument to Dan suggesting that talent show contestants didn’t really display any artistic ability, but surprisingly for us, Dan jumped to their defence saying. “I wouldn’t like to label them as having no artistic credibility, that’s too much for me. These contestants can show a level of artistry through their performances, in other words, performance art. I can’t say I extend that to the whole boy band / girl band idea, the purely manufactured, in fact I can’t stand that, but I don’t dismiss it all as devoid of artistic value”.

If there was ever a band that may not suit a TV talent show format, it might be Dan’s. King Kool are a grungy garage powerhouse and a vehicle for Dan to vent his own dyslexia fuelled thoughts and experiences. An in depth article regarding the band appeared in the September 2012 edition of this magazine and can be found at www.themomentmagazine.com/king-kool.

Despite the band probably not being suited to the likes of X Factor, Dan says that a previous incarnation, at the time called Tribe Of Dan, was actually given a leg up in the industry via a BBC Radio competition that the band won. Dan says “It did us an awful lot of good, we came first in our region, and it put us on the road so to speak and gave us a head start with an evening session recorded live for Radio One at Maida Vale. Our credibility didn’t suffer at all.” We spoke about the value of the physical CD album product and the way in which Dan might gauge that value, we asked if he trawled through the info contained in the sleeve notes for instance, in order to absorb the minutiae of the content ? Without hesitation, he replied “ Yeah, sure, I like seeing who produced the album and who did what, but that’s me, I can’t say I ever remember a non- musician friend being all that interested in this type of stuff, or it being all that important to the general public.”

With this thought in mind, a theory that the music industry is itself in part the architect of the album’s demise might seem misplaced, especially if we hang our theory on the resulting effects of the devaluation of the physical CD product via a lack of artistic content. But has the public ever been interested in the minutiae and artistic content of the product it’s buying, and if so, we may wonder to what degree?

Music, Artists, Talent Shows And The Death Of The Album 1 2 3

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