January 6th, 2013
Welcome to 2013. Half a century ago, a relatively successful
record industry was about to explode with the combined 1-2 punch of the Motown
phenomenon and the British Invasion, led by the Beatles—forces often imitated
but never ever to be replicated. Ten years prior, the one-off singles market
filled jukeboxes
with one-hit wonders. "-tions" and "the"
doo-wopper's were all satisfied to just hear their songs on the radio. If any
singer songwriter was called an "artist', the hyphenated modifier
"starving-" probably preceded it.
To put things in their truest light, the early Motown and
British Invader acts followed the same formula. But along the way, the
successes of the Beatles (and other Brit art school dropouts, starting with
Beatle-to-be John Lennon to members of Pink Floyd to Freddie Mercury to
"the other Davy Jones"—a.k.a. David Bowie to etc.) became creative
license for high art creative experiments that created cults of album devotees
and the FM deep cut professor dee-jays high priest. Meanwhile still bound to
the proven business model, singles ruled. Most consumers bought their records
to serve as sonic semi-subtle background entertainment. This led to the growth
in sales of the so-named "LP's". Dance party people still preferred
to spin just the hits, so the singles were still flying off shelves.
