Issue 8: Music Industry

Featured Response: Ryan Lott || Composer, Son Lux

Ryan Lott

The inundation of corporate influence and pro-big-business policies have led to the dismantling of the music industry. This isn’t a revelation. With corporate interests at the heart of the music industry, artistic integrity is the first to go, as profits drive content and nudge indigenous DJs and program directors off the air. In fact, it’s been years since non-commercial Low Power FM radio stations in urban markets could get licenses from the FCC to operate.

The Future of Music Coalition - http://futureofmusic.org - issued this statement recently:

“We hope the Obama administration will rethink how policy relates to the arts, moving beyond a politics driven by broadcast, telecommunications and entertainment conglomerates in favor of a more holistic approach that prioritizes the sustainability of local creative communities and artists.”

The FMC has some reason to hope. For example, the new administration is supposedly going to name a “copyright czar”. But many music industry folks suspect that The FMC’s wishes, including fair compensation for musicians, an end to payola, and more, may not come true anytime soon. While I believe a sea change is possible over the next four to eight years with Obama at the helm, there are way too many things that will take priority over music industry reform, especially considering the gravity and proportion of its problems. The music industry’s ailments are about as long-coming and pervasive as those faced by the auto industry. And with a growing “economic crisis” and two wars affecting every area of commerce and culture, music industry reform — and the arts in general for that matter — will be the first to go. That’s how it always happens, of course. But maybe, just maybe, “change has come.” Call me a skeptic, but probably not that much change.

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Too bad there’s only one Obama…

—Pedro, 51 from White Plains, NY US

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Inaugural Insight

  • The inauguration for the first U.S. president, George Washington, was held on April 30, 1789 in New York City.
  • Should January 20 be a Sunday, the President is usually administered the oath of office in a private ceremony on that day, followed by a public ceremony the following day.
  • Immediately following the oath, the bands play four ruffles and flourishes and "Hail to the Chief", followed by a 21-gun salute from howitzers of the Presidential Salute Battery.
  • The inaugural celebrations usually last ten days, from five days before the inauguration to five days after.
  • Since Thomas Jefferson's second inaugural on March 4, 1805, it has become tradition for the president to parade down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House.
  • According to tradition, in the first inaugural, President Washington added the words "so help me God" when reciting the oath, although there is no contemporary evidence of this.
  • In 1977, Jimmy Carter started a new tradition by walking from the Capitol to the White House, although subsequent presidents have only walked part of the way for security reasons.
  • The War of 1812 and World War II forced two swearing-ins to be held at other locations in Washington, D.C.
  • The new President assumes power at noon on January 20th, regardless of whether or not he has actually taken the oath of office.
  • There is no requirement that any book, or in particular a book of sacred text, be used to administer the oath, and none is mentioned in the Constitution.

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