The gravy is just as thick 35 years on

While Ed O'Brien of Radiohead is undoubtedly right in his assessment that the money-driven music industry is stifling artists' creativity and the fun that so often adds an edge to it, it's hardly news, is it? Pink Floyd highlighted the same issue 35 years ago in their seminal Wish You Were Here (1975), notably on the track Have A Cigar:

   Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar.
   You're gonna go far, fly high,
   You're never gonna die, you're gonna make it if you try
   They're gonna love you.
   Well I've always had a deep respect, and I mean that most sincerely.
   The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think.
   Oh by the way, which one's Pink?
   And did we tell you the name of the game, boy?
   We call it Riding the Gravy Train.
   We're just knocked out.
   We heard about the sell out.
   You gotta get an album out,
   You owe it to the people. We're so happy we can hardly count.
   Everybody else is just green, have you seen the chart?
   It's a helluva start, it could be made into a monster
   If we all pull together as a team.
   And did we tell you the name of the game, boy?
   We call it Riding the Gravy Train.

The particularly relevant extract is, of course, "We're so happy we can hardly count", the theme song of bloodless, souless, money-grubbing accountants everywhere… The sad, if utterly unsurprising, thing is that the music industry took no notice of Pink Floyd. Accountants have a really boring job: they certainly aren't interested in anyone else enjoying theirs — quite the opposite, in fact: to them it's frivolous and time-equals-money-wasting — but they do have an enormous interest in filling the corporation's coffers. (Though to be fair, it's not often you hear rock 'n' pop stars complaining that their earnings are too high, either.)

So good luck to Ed O'Brien's campaign, but don't hold out for any changes. The love of gravy still rules the entertainment world.