I recently conducted an interview with Mr Tom Hingley, lead singer of 'Madchester' band Inspiral Carpets.
Tom is currently studying for a masters in post-modernism and has over 2 decades of experience in the music industry. His comments were quite enlightening regarding my chosen question. The interview has turned my original question and hypothesis on it's head.
I started with the idea that an artist or band might not get signed to a record label simply because of age, in my head was a hypothetical band with a great deal of talent and an average age of 35 in a hypothetical contest with a band half their age, without the amount of talent but with a more marketable image. This narrow scenario of theoretical ageism was what originally inspired my project.
His advice was to start to look not at 'ageism' as a concept, but age as a construct. He said that getting signed is akin to a bullet hitting a bullet.
"We could construct a whole load of different scenarios about why an artist might not get signed."
"They might not get signed because they were no bloody good! They might not get signed because what they were doing would have been successful if they had been signed 3 years before. They might not get signed because what they were doing might not be successful until 3 years time."
He gave the example of the band Bat For Lashes who's album "Two Suns"' cover showed the artist, Natasha Khan with a sewn heart on her dress. 2 years later and Florence and the Machine's album "Lungs" featured Florence Welch wearing a pair of Lungs on her chest. Whatever the implication, this concept was more a success for Florence Welch than for Bat For Lashes and both have a similar USP: a pre-Raphaelite Alice in Wonderland theme.
"...it's completely taken from the Bats For Lashes thing"
He alluded to the problem that nobody is being signed at this moment, young artists are being ignored, perversely, in favour of retro artists such as the Rolling Stones.
"There's an awful lot of people who were signed when they were young who now aren't necessarily signed who have just got back catalogue deals so I'd say the legacy bands are much more a problem in terms of people not getting signed."
"You're only going to be stopped from getting signed because of your age if you have a very unimaginative about what genre of music you ought to be playing."
Tom mentioned Pulp and Elbow, neither of whom were 'young' when they were signed, less so when they became successful. Flaming Lips were also mentioned.
"You're only going to be [unsuccessful due to age] if you're playing the wrong kind of music to be signed for the kind of music that you're playing"
"I met a band somewhere in the north about 10 years ago and they were a rock band and they said 'we want some advice about our career"
"I said, you're not good enough and you're too old, have you heard of a band called Kitty?" "They're 17, they're Canadian and they're all pretty good looking and musically good. That's what you're competing against."
"You need to play music that is extraordinary, counter-intuitive and where there isn't necessarily a genre description"
My next question was regarding the X-Factor and so-called talent shows.
"Do you feel that shows such as the X-Factor discriminate against older-artists in the name of marketability?"
Tom again found my question to be back to front. He described the X-Factor's marketing operation as they rehash old songs, repackage them and republish old work and so don't discriminate against any age group. The X-Factor is basically out to capitalise on as many consumers as possible from each demographic.
"The one thing you can't accuse the X-Factor [of] is prejudice against people on the basis of their ethnic background or age, or gender"
He also suggested that I research the baby-boomer generation born after the 2nd world war and who are the largest demographic in the UK right now. This is an excellent point of research and will be the subject of a case study.
The point that is being made by Tom is that the Baby Boomers, being the world's prevailing demographic, are being enfranchised and catered for and all other demographics are being discriminated against by the X-Factor and business in general due to the bottom line: profit.
As a model, the X-Factor is actually quite democratic. The format is supposed to be showcasing talent that may not be given a chance by the A&R process.
I tried to move the conversation onto current artists and I stated that the band LMFAO are two men aged 25 and 34 which supports his statement about simply being current and making the right music at the right time.
"I'm not sure that age is important. If a band is a project rather than a band, you can hide behind the internet.
There's a certain frightening anonymity."
Tom suggested at this point that I make my research more about the concept of age and how it is constructed in the music industry and the media. People like Ant & Dec, Cliff Richard and Philip Schofield try to maintain this concept that they're young.
"Acts like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles actively encouraged Britpop bands in the 1990's to sample their music in order to revitalise their bacd catalogue". "The whole of Oasis's early career [with] Alan McGee was an attempt to find a young band who were slightly punky that they could associate with the Beatles because they were trying to revitalise the Beatles' back catalogue to a generation of people who it didn't mean anything to" "A lot of their early promotion was an attempt to associate them with a 60's band and I'm sure EMI paid them a lot of money in terms of free advertising".
"With The Verve, bittersweet symphony, it's the oldest trick in the book is to sample a record by the Stone Roses because it's more likely to be a hit in America."
Songs such as "Moves like Jagger" by Maroon 5, "Swagger Jagger" by Cher Lloyd, and Kesha referencing Mick Jagger in "TiK ToK" and the case of Susan Boyle Covering "Wild Horses" were mentioned and provide plenty of evidence for this trend.
This is where the interview concluded.
Many thanks to Tom Hingley for his time and insight.
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