What are songs about the music industry that you like?
What are songs about the music industry that you like?
68 comments
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Reel Big Fish - Sell Out
Tool - Hooker With A Penis
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Dinosaurs Will Die - NOFX
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From most favorite, descending:
- Bomb the Music Industry! - Side Projects are Never Successful (punk)
- Backini - Radio (hip-hop)
- They Might Be Giants - Hey Mr. DJ I Thought You Said We Had a Deal (alt-pop)
- Reel Big Fish - Sell Out (ska)
- MC Lars - Download This Song (cross-genre)
- Billy Joel - The Entertainer (pop)
- Barr - The Song is the Single (rock)
- They Might Be Giants - Working Undercover for the Man (alt-pop)
- Ben Folds - Rockin' the Suburbs (pop)
- David Rovics - The Pirate Radio Song (acoustic punk)
Edited to provide links and genres.
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MC Lars - Download This Song (cross-genre)
You've reminded me of my answer to this question:
Weird Al - Don't Download This Song
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EMI, Sex Pistols
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Unlimited supply!
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Is it about the history of rock'n'roll, or something else?
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Complete Control by The Clash
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Against Me - Unprotected Sex with Multiple Partners
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Interstellar555, the music video movie that accompanies Daft Punk's Discovery album
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Dinosaurs will die - NOFX
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I'd argue that Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb belongs here: AFAIK it's about a band manager injecting the strung out musician with drugs, so he can get up and perform the show that night.
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So many songs by Muse which I find most amusing because they have an anti-corporate message but are made under a giant corporate label.
Specifically what comes to mind when it comes to the music industry itself are Showbiz and Uprising.
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Pop 101 by Marianas Trench. Very funny and also true.
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Cover of the rolling stone
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Death on Two Legs - Queen
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Nice!
There's also this one: rock and roll lifestyle
To some extent, Sad songs and waltzes.
And I'll be honest I have no idea what this song is about, so who knows: wheels
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lost in hollywood by system of acdown
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Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This - Eurythmics
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Maggie's Farm by Bob Dylan
Radio Friendly Unit Shifter by Nirvana
All the Best by R.E.M.
Intro by The Prodigy (not a song, technically, but a clear statement of intent from Liam Howlett)
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Hmm songmeanings.com has following opinion about the nirvana song:
Kurt said it himself that this song has no meaning and that it's a bunch of random poetry lines thrown together to a kick ass motherfucking melody. This is one of my favorite Nirvana songs.
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I think the most obvious album to point out which is about many things (including the abuse of the music industry) is To Pimp a Butterfly. I'm surprised I haven't seen it here yet. Even the title is very on-the-nose – the "pimp" in reference is both the music industry and (more frequently) the US government/social structures, and the "butterfly" is a fledgling Kendrick/black rappers/black Americans in general (context depending on the exact song). It's meant to be listened in exact order. Many people say it's overrated but I really disagree. It's an amazing narrative and powerful symbolism with good music.
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You can’t really get any more outrageous than Death to all but Metal
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There's a song about how it feels when you get your royalty check. I think that's what it's about... Cannibal Corpse - Meat Hook Sodomy.
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Mr. Recordman by Ugly Kid Joe
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Specifically about the girls perspective
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Life's Been Good - Joe Walsh
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I think Hank Williams III with the Grand Ole Opry Ain't so Grand deserves a shout-out. Basically a song about how the institution that chewed up and then expelled his grandfather can eat shit.
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Welcome to the Machine by Pink Floyd is right up there.
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Good songwriters can do some good stuff when they are writing what they know. Bad singwriters can crawl up their own assholes, though. Some good Americana Alt-Country ones:
Mercury in Retrograde - Sturgill Simpson takes on the realities of "success". Really the whole Sound and Fury album, though; the whole thing is just him raging at the labels and expectations people put on him as "the next Waylon Jennings."
Bible on the Dash: Life for work-a-day touring musicians. Corb Lund and Hayes Carll actually come up with something useful about a hotel Bible.
Robert Earl Keen:
My Home Ain't in the Hall of Fame. Checking out of the Nashville rat race.
What I Really Mean: Wistful realities of road life for someone at a different life phase than the one above.
The Road Goes On & On: a vicious diss track at Toby Keith's expense. REK is like the chill Democrat New-Balance Suburban Dad of brilliant Americana singer-songwriters, so he probably wouldn't speak ill of the dead, but I will. Fuck Toby Keith.
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There's a good Russian song "The main problem of music in Russia" by Zakhar May
Too Long To Learn Russian: The main problem of music in Russia is that you're listening shit! -
Guns n Roses - Get in the Ring
Stone Temple Pilots - Adhesive
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Drive By Truckers - Gravity's Gone
Elton John someone saved my life tonight song
Gillian Welch - Everything is Free
Oh and somewhat tangential but Hayes Carll I Got a Gig song - "playing for my dinner six nights a week, hurricanes, Easter, and New Years Eve, I got a gig baby!"
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Barracuda by Heart
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DJ Shadow Why Hip-Hop Sucks In '96
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Hiroshima by Ben Folds
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I can't seem to figure out how to edit my comment on kbin. I thought of one newer than Rush fom a band I've come to enjoy highly and hasn't been posted yet:
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No love for Motorhead?
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Gillian Welsh - Everything is Free.
Great song about the difficulties of making a living off music now that everything is available for nothing. Father John Misty recorded a version when he was invited to the Spotify Sessions, which was a nice little fuck you to the people inviting him.
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Teya & Salena represented Austria in Eurovision last year with "Who the Hell is Edgar?", it was written from the perspective of wanting to be taken seriously in the industry, veiled through a fun song about being possessed by the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, though the bridge gets quite blatant and singles out Spotify for not paying its artists properly. It was one of the favourites in the Eurovision community last year and I think it would've done better had the Finland vs. Sweden rivalry not happened.
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First verse
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Disorder and Disarray by Rancid. There are lots of great examples here, and I think this one fits.
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Killpop by Slipknot, that song is amazing. It's very indirect, though, if I didn't read an interview that it's about the music industry, I wouldn't have guessed it.
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"Bury me in analog" by Mischief Brew, even though it now feels slightly darker after Erik Petersen's death.
"Please play this song on the radio" by NOFX
"Sell out" by Reel Big Fish
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcV9zyx-HHE
Write Your Own Songs - Willie Nelson
68 comments
Have a Cigar, Pink Floyd.
Life's Been Good to Me So Far, Joe Walsh.
Lito Shuffle, Boz Scags.
Jukebox Hero, Foreigner.
Piano Man, Billy Joel.
(Yes, I am old.)
Have a Cigar was the first song I thought of.
"Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?"
I love that some music industry asshole actually asked them that once, and the quote made it into the song.
Primus' rendition is also awesome. https://youtu.be/aEf0SpAEnIc?si=PVfnyKpxFRuslQXo
A fun industry fact: Have A Cigar was sung by Roy Harper, as he happened to be in the studio and the members of Floyd thought he could be a good fit. Roy Harper is perhaps more known in the mainstream through the Zeppelin song Hats Off to (Roy) Harper than through his own recordings, though he's still alive and active.
Harper didn't feel like he was appropriately compensated for his work on Have a Cigar, which is ironic considering the overall thematic.