Thursday, February 16, 2006

Jewish Music: What would you like to hear?

Recently there was a post on a Jewish Music board which peaked my interest. The person claimed that he might be putting together a music group and was asking for suggestions about production etc.. Needless to say he got more than he wanted from me. I said some things that he may have considerd obnoxious, like... for starters they should be able to sing well: what a concept! I once spoke to a well known saxophone player and I asked him about voice lessons and he said "you don't need vocal lessons, you need music lessons!". When asked what he meant, he replied" If you can't sing in tune everything else is worthless". That is certainly a point well taken. What else is important in producing a successful album? Songs and arrangements certainly play a major role in that outcome. Most Jewish Music albums as of late have bombed for the most part. There have been only a handful of popular albums and even they have been but only moderately successful. One of the issues is certainly that everyone is trying to be as safe as possible, making sure they have the right "names" on their album, the material be damned. The market is also overloaded with yutzes who think since they have enough to produce an album...hey why not?! To be sure you can't please all of the people all of the time but with 10-12 songs you would think there should be something if not for everyone then for many. I haven't purchased but maybe 1 or 2 Jewish albums in the past year which is really sad. The truth is there soen't seem to be anything worth purchasing. Even within the shiney shoe industry most have failed miserably. What would you like to hear? I've finsihed this rant for now.

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