It’s even worse now. The 21st Century version of the “hippie kid” has been replaced by a computer algorithm and a social media based marketing department.

Orson Welles spoke in a similar fashion about the picture business. He held the old dinosaurs who ran studios in the 30s and 40s- men like Cohn, Zanuck, Jack Warner- in higher regard than their successors, who turned out to be bankers with no actual interest in making movies. For all their faults, the pioneers would take a chance on a project. Why? Because, as screenwriter William Goldman later observed and they understood from the start, "Nobody knows anything." They were vulgarians, to be sure. But a large measure of that condition entails being a gambler. Today, what do we have? The Marvel Universe. Franchises. Barbie. Disney- a company whose output today would have seemed pointless to its founder.

The prophecy has been fullfilled

"who knows? take a chance" I LOVE THAT !!!! that's music

Change music to film and he just summed up Hollywood today!

One thing I'd admired about Frank is he was honest and knew what was going on. Now after those young executives killed the Industry.

Frank was 100% spot-on correct with this prophecy. The music industry has for all practical purposes gone to shit and from the looks of things at this point in time it may never recover!

Frank Zappa wins, always, even if he loses.

The older (and more bitterly cynical) I get, the more I'm convinced that the real reason everything sucks now.... but was so alive and vibrant with promise in the 60s and 70s.... is nothing more complicated than _the cost of housing._ Seriously. Vide: in 1968, a new LP cost about 3.98, and my old man bought a two-family private home in a quiet residential area in a borough of New York Fuckin' City for *$27,000.* In 1976, a new LP would set you back 5.98, and I moved into my first 3 1/2 room apartment, also in NYC. The rent (NOT rent controlled!) was $150. Point is - there was always money left over to buy records, see movies every few days, etc - because nobody was paying 50 to 70% of their income in rent, or mortgage payments. Not yet. Housing, in other words, was eminently affordable. (And that made _other_ things affordable....it made avant-garde music a reasonable risk for cigar-chomping execs to take a flyer on, too.) But then the real-estate vultures (and worse, the real-estate vulture mentality) came....unfortunately, to stay. Now, housing is so fucking high that it became *easy* for half of the retail businesses that once gave American life its charm and culture to all be wiped off the face of the Earth and replaced by Amazon.com. Who has money to pay retail for anything? - and what business owner can pay commercial rents and compete with fuckin' _websites?_ We pay thousands per month in rent if we're renting, or if we're paying off notes - home, auto, etc - we're literally owned by the company store. As for the price of a new cd: who the hell knows? Everybody I know who's 50 or younger _steals_ their entertainment, right from the web, and calls it "file-sharing". Unless you're hugely successful, or a rich kid, who the hell has money for pop art? (And let's not even start with the comparative cost of health care, then and now.) I understand people love their convoluted theories, and bad guys they can put a name to and blame for everything. But I'm just telling you - this is what life becomes when once-simple, affordable things - most especially *housing* - becomes the fire-breathing dragon eating up your paychecks, month after month. But I miss you, Frank, and I sure wish you were still around.

Totally relevant over the last 3 decades. That’s why rock music declined since the early 90’s because record labels took away artistic control from the bands and made em follow formulas that hypothetically shoulda worked, but didn’t. This business formula lead to endless sub-genres and package summer festival tours and so on to cater to crowds of young people as part of a larger plan to fraction off the public as a means of control. Sounds ridiculous and overwhelming, but it’s true.

"Take a chance! That entreprenuer spirit where even if you don't like or understand what the record is, it's coming in the door. The person who is in the executive chair may not be the final arbiter of taste of the entire population."

Absolutely loved this interview…ahead of his time then, and still holding true today

He didn't know how right he was going to be

100% true. Thank God for bands like king gizzard and the lizard wizard. Hardest working band on the planet and it shows.

Sums up the problems with the animation industry right now.

WOW, This is as real as it gets.

This is probably even more true for other aspects of the entertainment industry. "That seems offensive" "Would you mind just 'tweaking' the content to promote equality in representation?" "Mr. Smith, your CV and creative credentials are incredible, but it seems that you made some rather-- politically incorrect, and probably problematic comments on Twitter that some may find troublesome." "Oh absolutely! We can talk some more about your future with out at the Democratic fundraiser on Saturday. Y-you're not a Demo- ? A ha! That sense of humor! You almost got me for a second. Be there at 10."

Not just music now, Movies, Videogames, Comics and the Internet itself.

You see kids the t-shirt i wear is not a joke when it says "I am not old your music really dose suck"

Absolutely spot on.

for reasons unknown I got tears in the eyes while watching this - maybe because I was thinking about honesty and dishonesty and who gets what these days...

In 1952 Muddy and his band recorded Juke, high tempo instrumental, which drove audience crazy at the clubs. Since everyone in Muddy's band except Little Walter had a record at this time, Len was told to give credits to Walter. After 2 months, Len played vinyl in his office, and women outside started to dance. Disc was published. Juke went to top 5 in charts. After that, Walter left Muddy, switched sides with Junior Wells and rest of the story. Len was about commercial success, though his brother Phil, understood music more better. That is the way they did at Chess Records. If audience, perspective consumers, liked the tune, they record it. Bonus. You can find a video on YT with Sonny Boy and Len breaking balls. Sonny was angry, because Len called him up to the studio right after concert, because band was still tight and song, Little Village, is identical for how it sounded. Hot and raw.

So true.

So true!

This is still relevant today, not only for the music industry but entertainment industry in general. Before you were a good artist and had a big creative genius, people liked your music, you were mediocre and maybe reached a certain point by connections but not talent? You were forgettable and wouldn’t have thrived as much. Now instead most artists have connections or come from an already advantageous place, even if you are mediocre and have no real talent but you have a few trendy songs and you obey without questioning anything? You are a genius. Mediocrity has become the new genius, the new trend. And if the producers already act like they have the answers in their pockets, how can real creativity and talent thrive?

Boy, Frank had it right.

One more comment. Consider Beethoven…or for that matter any composer from the days before recorded music. I will use the 3rd Symphony as an example as it was one of his greatest works and his last symphony before he starred to lose his hearing. Beethoven probably only heard this work actually performed 3 or 4 times! That’s it! No radio, no recording, no “pop in a CD”. Orchestras of that period were ad hoc. You hired musicians, had friends volunteer, booked a hall. Everyone showed up in the morning, sheet music was distributed, you rehearsed for a few hours and performed in the late afternoon or evening. That was it! And several pieces were rehearsed so many mistakes were made. There were no “bootleg” recordings. I only mention this to point out how fortunate were are today to have such a broad base of access to recordings of musical art of today, yesterday and the future. The lesson of Frank Zappa was that he was an incredibly creative person who really made the most of the incredible technology and tools that the era he was born into gifted him. He even created his only “hit single” by blending his creativity with that of the daughter he was “gifted”. Ironically “Valley Girl” was a descendant of the sort of “one-hit-wonder” that Frank was fascinated with early in his career.

Listening to Rick Beato today talking about the decline in A&R seems to echo this.

Well I would vote for him today!

For the most part, I agree with you. But I do believe that there people from a younger generation watching this clip right now and feeling a resonance. There are some fantastic musicians and artists my age and younger making beautiful interesting things. Don't discount them yet. The more repressed something is, the more it will lash out with something unexpected and beautiful.

Very smart business man, very shrewd, very astute.

El declive de la música empezó a partir de los 2000 tristemente,aunque a principios de los 2000 había alguna música buena,pero se contaban con los dedos de la mano.Este clip ya preveía el futuro

The hip young guys need to check their egos.

🎯

I wonder what he would say about the current state of the music industry... probably the same thing.

I think Zappa’s commentary here is a little too simplistic. But I admire it.

nowadays is even worse because now the hip young executives only care about what sells the most

I see two hip, young record execs have viewed this...

Frank zappa is right and speaks the truth about music Industry. Like for example Brian Wilson from the Beachboys wanted bring out a new album called smile in the late 60's ,but Capitol record's were not interested because, Capitol record's wanted them and his cousin in the band stick the formular, label a surf music band. But Brian Wilson got fed-up with that, he basically wanted try new idea's.

There is plenty of great new music being made. Don't make the mistake of thinking that great new music doesn't exist. You have to do your own searching online. At least we have the Internet. As far as the corporate mediums go, there isn't great music being released for mass consumption by record companies or being played on any kind of commercial radio. Overall today's technology has enabled worse and worse musicians to make better and better sounding music. Be that as it may, their is definitely great new music being made in all genres.

All art has become like this because our society is reaching breaking point

Fuck yeah!

I don't have the 'things' to compete. some summary of max stirner's criticism on the "free" market.

So I guess I should just record a kid with a line 6 spider and stick it out there.

Anybody out there realize how smart Frank was....?

I still to this day believe that THEY...THE POWERS THAT Bs...."silenced" Zappa. He was too real. Too blunt. He would call out the industry for its dirty tricks and scummy wickedness.

Nowadays the really smart artist/bands are on their own record label and own the rights to their own songs while making money through touring, merchandise, and licensing to advertisers.

Probably true of a lot of things (Video Games, Movies, Academia, etc).

yes.

80 years ago is a mighty long time. Frank was so right. It's gotten so much worse. It's evolved into a popularity contest. The Execs no longer care about the music at all. They just promote people that they believe are socially viable. That way they can feel comfortable about their investment. Which is why all singers or "musicians" look like models, are musically average, and are mostly creatively brain dead.

It's pretty much true.

This could not be more relevant today. Look at what happened with all the music channels too. VH1 is practically BET Lite and MTV is now Moronic Television.

with the majority of people, young people, modern dissemination of music content has been broken down into sound bites(which, for the most part, the consumer wants for free), the only real value based audio transfer would be the vinyl record(which is arguably the best sounding way to experience sound), performers only hope to make a living is to DIY the process, of course this really only applies to artists in the indie tradition and not the corporate sponsored pop or rap/r&b hit makers.........

love his impression of the cigar chomping (i assume jewish) entertainment executive!

Just who are these people frank? The whos? The whoish people?

The thing that he's missing (or perhaps has changed over the years) is that the music industry cares more about putting out a particular type of "music" more than they care about making money. It's about control and influence, same as hollywood and movies.

I wonder what Mr. Zappa would have thought of Crowd Funding sites like Patreon...

The entertainment industry is geared towards making money over art. It doesn't matter what generation anymore, the foundations have been set, and now all these people are playing it safe in order to keep making money and jobs. While I understand the need to have a secure business, this is a terrible idea for creativity, and you end up having art and music and film sanctioned and clinicised and dumbed down.

Данас би био десничар ,сто посто

I suppose the truth hurts.

More relevant in 2013 than ever before.

Tell the truth: evolution from bad to worse!

Is this recording copyrighted? I would love to use part of it in one of my songs but I contacted the guys on the Copyright section and they never replied to me... Thanks!

Millennials take note. When you flushed the old guys from businesses, you lost the entrepreneurial spirit.

If you are younger then you sir are the exception rather than the rule. Your comment would make me think you are pushing 40.

You turn music into a commodity industry and then act surprised when it gets treated as nothing more than a vehicle for shallow monetary gain? In the West, music has zero to no role except for brainless consumerism. You listen to music on Spotify through your 200 dollar headphones in order to dissociate from your mind numbing existence or you pay ridiculous amounts of money to go stand in some smelly venue where you develop tinnitus and buy ridiculously expensive alcohol. That is the only function of music in our society. What we value in musicians is whether they win some scripted so called talent show or how much money a company can generate with their image. Most of the time when people talk about a great musician they define greatness by the amounts of records they sold. Today, musicians are rarely great for something that actually exists as music, like virtuosic music ability or genre defining compositions. Music just doesn’t exist outside of the commercial context in the West. The idea of an event that is purely about enjoying masterful artistry and not with a ‘secondary’ motive of selling tickets or drinks/food is almost inconceivable. It is the practical reality of our society, we all have bills to pay. But it has completely devoured music culture, there is only industry left. It is most noticeable in the way musicians are regarded today. If you say you are a musician the follow up question is “does it pay the bills?” most of the time. If it doesn’t then it is ‘just a hobby’ and if it does then you are ‘successful’, regardless of what type of music you make.

not all of them

@timtipton5071256 Yeah.

Fuck yeah capitalism.

really... like who, and what bands

Even the vulgarity, obscenity, and edginess of today’s music isn’t the edge; it’s just what sells, or what modern producers think sells. So in a way, they’re not taking risks either. Nothing is sacred, yet nothing is obscene.

during the whole video all i can think of was lil wayne omg fuck lil wayne and mr zappa is so right

It seems to me that the Internet is breaking down that barrier between the creative person and the audience. Fuck entertainment industry management.

when was this?

Is right, just watch now the grammys music are garbage

I hate it when I agree with Frank Zappa. He made lots of bad music, but Hot Rats has some good tracks. But Rolling Stone Magazine said that ZZ Top was no good. How's that for no musical compass?

Corporations ruin everything!

I always wanted to be a rock star. Thank God it never happened to me. You should hear all the horror stories that the signed recording artists have to tell. It's worse than joining the Army, hideous. And the record companies keep most of the money.

This all depends on the individual, don't stereotype.

Well, for once Frank had an actual point about music and the music business. There are doubtless thousands of tons of vinyl that got pressed back then that's at the bottom of long-forgotten landfills today and nobody misses it. Yeah, put out a pressing; if it sells ship some more. After all, SOMEBODY bought Ina-Gadda-Da-Vida! Personally, i don't know anyone who did, but it sold.

Why?

Specially when it´s not true.

Sam Hyde

yeah, because most of it is drivel. Frank didn't bother to add that part of the equation, because it's obvious.

Well, I mean he did suck. So I guess he would understand the collapse of the music industry.

way to generalize an entire generation

Hey KZfaq. Hear this? This was even long before y'all became woke 😂

When my dad first started listening to the Beatles, his dad thought it sounded like noise. Now, he thinks the same about my music. When are people gonna learn that there was no magical time when music was better? Frank is wrong. We’re not better off with people who don’t know anything and just put anything and everything out there to see what people like. That works well in theory, but in reality, we’d be subjected to one painfully awful song after another until we finally hear something we like. There has to be a balance between the old guys and younger guys. We have to be able to replicate what’s tried and true to keep people interested while leaving enough room for experimentation with new sounds