Ticketmaster and Live Nation

I was all set to write a brutal (but articulate!) response to Melissa's wild assertions, when I realized I was running the terrifying risk of people thinking I really like Kesha, or Lady Gaga for that matter.  More importantly, though, I heard about this while listening to Sound Opinions a few days ago, which gives me a good reason to change the subject.

There are two things to take away from the Department of Justice decision to allow the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation.  One is that it does not matter who is in the White House.  Our country is a playground for rich people playing rich-people-games, and the actions of our political institutions are going to reflect this.

Second, and more importantly, we need to come to grips with the reality that our national music infrastructure is irrevocably in the clutches of big business.  Organizations such as the monstrosity that this merger will create seek nothing less than complete control of who you're listening to, how you're listening to them and when.  If you think I exaggerate, I would urge you to sit through the entire segment on Sound Opinions.  Most of the major venues, and a great many of the major performing artists, in this country are going to be owned by one gigantic business as a result of this decision.  Are you comfortable with that idea?

You may be surprised to learn that I really have nothing inherently against corporations, or even major international corporations.  Of course, this is in the same way that I have nothing inherently against oil, only the fact that the way we use it is destroying the conditions for human life.  Still, there are a certain few things that are probably better dealt with on a gigantic scale.  Music is not one of these things.  The music we like is a fundamental part of our identity, and tacitly accepting corporate control over something like this is, in a very real way, accepting corporate control over our personalities.

On the plus side, unlike our major sources of energy, it's really not that hard to stop consuming corporate music.  It needs only the acceptance that the industry cannot be saved, but instead must be ignored and replaced.  Right now, an endless number of artists are killing themselves working like dogs and touring all over the country in unlivable conditions just to earn the right to be owned and sold by weird legal entities invented by humans but which oddly have more rights than humans.  We should do something about that.