Dean Whitbread 2020
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6. Re-Grading Music.
Music is a bright jewel in the fabric of life, yet in the developed world, the business is in widespread disarray, teetering on its economic base and still reacting to the arrival of computers. Rampant commercialism and the widespread failure of business to understand the true value of music – indeed all culture – mean that music, this most precious and valued aspect of humanity, provoking passion and providing devotees whom the music industry exploits with tobacco company zeal, could be hit hard. The recording industry’s death throws threaten music’s very survival. The Taliban may not be able to wipe out music, but our western focus on the equation success = money has brought our music to the brink of economic extinction.
Like the financial system, our rich and varied musical world could just reach critical point and implode. Suddenly we could be a lot poorer off for the music we currently take for granted. There might be a lot less music around if that happens.
Musical success has come to mean the kind of marketing domination which is easier to achieve when you are dead.
Music should not be on a raised pedestal upon which few of us dare tread – it should be as common as the cold, easily caught, never curable, and endlessly mutating to remain with us.
There is a simple solution to this, which is to re-grade music, re-valuing it like a spent currency, thus allowing it to once more find its real place in our lives and restore its historic value.
To achieve this re-grading of music and to re-establish it beyond the reach of hype and consumerism, I propose the permanent substitution of the word “mucus” for the word “music”. Musicians will become knows as Mucusians, etc. and by this simple act of substitution, the role and status of music can be restored.
The sixth in a series of proposals designed to make all our lives easier, more fulfilling, lovelier journeys.