Similarities Between the Food & Music Industry

         When discussing the similarities between industries, you are always going to run into many differences. No two industries are the same. So when comparing industries, most of the similarities will be in the way those industries have changed. An example being the business of film, and the business of television programs. Both have grown in similar fashions for the past century and have been codependent upon networks and directors. However, I have observed two industries that are virtually unrelated that have shown similar changes throughout the past 60 years. These industries are music and food.

          Looking at the world of food and music back in the 1950's, both seemed to be growing, fairly stable, and showed tremendous promise in the fields of technological improvements and quality of the products; higher fidelity sound production and higher agricultural yields. This made both music and food easier to make. When something is easy to make, it will become cheaper and in more abundance. When there was a surplus of corn, the food companies added cheap corn syrup into many food products. When there was easier sound production, the number of music groups exploded, especially in the 1960s. These surpluses in the industries forced record labels and food companies to label these new products as commodities. You don't need that Twinkie or that Beatles record, but these are the products most advertised and in demand. 

           Because of this, these industries learned that in order to stay afloat, they needed to appeal to the general public by keeping prices low while keeping sale numbers up. This is the general scheme for Coca-Cola, and Spotify. Both make their products extremely affordable (spotify even has a free version), and appealing to the general public with the most popular taste of soda or song selection available. Coca-Cola wouldn't dare experiment with their formula again after the failed attempt to market "New Coke" in the 80's with a new recipe. The general public already liked the traditional recipe just fine and rejected the change. Just in the same way that most pop stars wouldn't dare change their style of music or experiment with other songwriting techniques. They know that clean traditional pop structures are the kind that sell and are the most in demand and most experimental artists do not sell as many records as pop artists. After all, who wants a soda that tastes weird, or a dance club that plays weird music?

           So now we live in a world where soda is cheaper than water, and a 99 cent hit single on iTunes costs the same as a 7" record single in the 1960's. To me this seems like a tragic result of marketers and corporate policies treating food and music as a business. This makes food cheaper and of low quality (Reese's Puffs is really not a healthy part of a nutritious breakfast), and it also makes music less creative because the industry punishes nonconformity and experimentation. Nonconformity was more rewarded between the 60's and 80's with genres like psychedelia, progressive rock or even punk. But these are genres that are significantly losing favor in today's market. 

           Although these trends seem bleak from my perspective, the permanent entrenchment of these trends within these industries seems inevitable. Cheap readily available food will be the future of nutritional health and cheap streaming services will be the future of they way people enjoy music. This has major implications regarding the general public's future worldview and attitudes regarding the industrial production of anything and what an everyday product should be worth regardless of where it came from.