Everyone wants to be a star

What a lot of musicians are having trouble adjusting to is the fact that audiences aren't like the used to be. Many artists are still hoping that if they produce great music, the world will love them and seek them out.

But those potential audiences are now more interested in creating their own music or at least using found music as a way to further their own dreams.

Everyone is asking, "What's in it for me?" So if your goal to sell music or make a living from music in some fashion, you have to have a ready answer.


Los Angeles Times: The iPod as a Reflection of You:
"Manufacturers feel that empowered customers are forcing them to offer some tailor-made something for each and every one of their ever-shifting whims. And they are.

"But what's going on underneath all this is that consumers want to displace producers entirely. What customers really want is to produce for themselves. And not just for themselves. Ultimately, they want to produce themselves.

"Things being what they are — things like refrigerators and cars and stoves — consumers can't actually become manufacturers. But wherever media technologies are making it possible for consumers to become the producers, they are doing it. The terms 'customer' and 'customize' have always been affiliated. Now they are fusing.

"As life becomes a production, it's only natural that it should be accompanied by a soundtrack. You are not only the star, after all, you are the director — and if you've learned anything from the movies, it's just how significant that soundtrack can be. Without the right song kicking in as you pull out of the gas station onto that desert highway in the evening light — without, say, Beck's 'The Golden Age' or maybe Neil Young's 'Helpless' — without something like that, well, it just wouldn't be you the way you want to be."