Weekly Survey for January 8, 2018: What Are Your Hopes for Music This Year?
Each year brings the promise of renewal, of hopes and dreams. It’s a clean slate, so we’re free to landscape the upcoming twelve months with good stuff and cross our fingers that it all comes true.
With that in mind, I thought I’d start this year’s surveys on a positive note: What are your hopes for music in 2018? I’ll start.
- A continuation of a rock revival as a way of rebelling against the weirdness in the world (cf. Donald Trump and his “stable genius”).
- Related to above, I’d like to see more rock fans embrace streaming. Hip-hop and R&B dominate now, so that’s where labels are spending all their money. If more rock songs start getting more streaming numbers, the labels will start paying more attention to promoting and developing our music.
- A Tool album. Please?
Your turn. What would you like to see come to pass in the world of music before the clock ticks past 11:59:59 December 31, 2018? Let me know and I’ll report back on my 6pm show on 102.1 The Edge tomorrow (January 9).
My 2018 Music Wishlist:
1) May people stop blowing up and shooting up music events… (and any event/location of course).
2) May the concert ticket industry shift its paradigm or somehow straighten its stuff out. I’m not sure we will ever get rid of scalping, but there are ways to make it fairer for the average citizen that wants to go see their artists. Verified Fan seems to be helping but there are kinks. And I don’t think raising the prices closer to the levels scalpers sell at is the way to go. U2 and Taylor Swift seem to be trying this now and both are suffering in sales and greatly upsetting fans that can’t afford the high prices. How about going the way of flooding the market a la Garth Brooks? or some happy medium so the artists aren’t touring for 5 years to meet the demand… There is so much more to say about this wish.. (e.g. is it even ethical for Ticketmaster to have its own secondary market sites AND promote secondary tickets above primary tickets on their primary site!?)
3) May artists announce their show dates for a tour all at once rather than this trend of artists announcing only a few dates at a time, only to add more at a later date. At least announce all the cities and the first sure date in those cities – maybe state additional dates in cities a, b,c may be added depending on demand at these locations? This way fans at least know where and roughly when and can plan accordingly. So many fans I know have bought for a city far away from them because it is the only one announced, only to then have their city added after the first grouping sell out. Doing so would likely also help negate some of the demand for tickets, lessening scalping prices.
4) May U2 bring their tour to Edmonton and our bright and shiny new arena!
5) I agree with your wish for the continuation of the rock revival as rebellion against the times. Out of great travesty comes greater innovation in the arts and in the minds.
My only wish is for more great new music, and yeah, with the emphasis on rock and singer-songwriter stuff, which is what I love.
1. Complete Meta data will have to be included for all platforms before it is submitted.
2. Realize that a lot of the population doesn’t have the disposable cash they used to and bring concert tickets and vinyl prices down.
3. Canada’s internet and cell phone prices will get cheaper so people can afford to use streaming services like spotify.
4. More rock and less autotune junk.
5. Apple will get it’s head out of it’s ass and actually make something that is revolutionary. (music related of course)