The True Cost of Music

Welcome to Part II of “What’s eating Malik?” series. If you want to view Part I, (The Politics of Food Consumption and Production), feel free. Before I get started, I want to say that this post is an exploration in interrogating the worlds norms. I have many close friends that are in the music business. Some are DJs, rappers, singers, musicians, performers, poets etc. In no way is this trying to take away those efforts or the efforts of past artists. I realize that music is inextricably tied into many facets of our society, but it does not mean we have to keep it that way.

So what spawned this post has to do with a lecture that I was listening to by Dr. Bilal Philips on the ruling of music in Islam (yes for those who don’t know me I’m Muslim). Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that this post is not an attempt to offer some type of fatwa (religious ruling) on music. I am no Islamic scholar or neuroscience music specialist. The point of this post is to offer out-of-the box critique of the current state of music and its impact on society. Okay, back to the post…

So to my surprise I found out that most forms of music in Islam is prohibited. Yes, even the more so-called “cleaner” and “educational” parts of the music. Trust me, I was heart-broken. No more Immortal Technique, no more Wu-tang Clan, no more John Coltrane, no more Fela Kuti, no more Beatles, no more X-Clan, no more Sam Cooke, no more Burning Spear, no more Bob Marley, no more KRS-One the list goes on, and not even Gospel music. So I’m sure you are asking yourself, Why? I asked myself the same question. I just could not believe that the 25+ years that I have spent listening to music, which in my view had inspired so much progressive thinking was prohibited. Not to mention the countless relationships/friendships that I’ve built because I had a shared interest in music with others. I was like..damn…would I still know Mr. Wizard, my boy Clarence from Florida,Adisa Banjoko, etc. Too many people to mention.

So I spent a lot of time researching the reasons why most forms of music is prohibited in Islam. Now, as a Muslim of logic and reason, it’s actually quite easy to understand why Islam prohibits most forms of music. If anyone is interested in listening to the lecture that was the catalyst for this post, click below:

Although Dr. Bilal Phillips gave a very compelling and satisfying argument for the prohibition of most forms of music, not to mention other scholars, I had to take it a step further. I wanted to play, as they say “devil’s advocate”, and look at the end result of societies foray into accepting music as a ritual that is seen as merely a tradition of leisure, hobby, pleasure, and today a business, which generated $11 billion dollars in 2006.

So my first step was to go back hundreds, if not thousand of years into the origins of music and its sole purpose. Now thousands of years ago we did not have the sophisticated technological distribution system, advanced musical instruments and billion dollar marketing system, so obviously music had a different form and purpose then. If you compare what was “music”, 50,000 years ago and what music is today, we are not just talking apples and oranges here, we are talking about apples and an anvil. Two completely distinct sounds. So for the most part “music” served more communal purposes for small groups. In some instances music was used for mating rituals, to sound the alarm when there was a threat, and for various celebratory rituals and spiritual practices. There were small distinct communities partaking in different sets of musical practices with a purpose, mostly spiritual and to create social cohesion. There are lots of theories and claims to the purpose of music during/after the pre-historic era. For Darwin he believes music ties into his theory of natural selection and sexual selection:

This is Your Brain on Music, Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, Pg 251

Might music play a role in sexual selection? Darwin thought so. In The Descent of Man he wrote, “I conclude that musical notes and rhythm were first acquired by the male or female progenitors of mankind for the sake of charming the opposite sex. Thus musical tones became firmly associated with some of the strongest passions an animal is capable of feeling, and are consequently used instinctively….” In seeking mates, our innate drive is to find-either consciously or unconsciously-someone who is biologically and sexually fit, someone who will provide us with children who are likely to be healthy and able to attract mates of their own. Music may indicate biological and sexual fitness, serving to attract mates.

Hmm….well if you look at the practices of some of the most ancient tribes today, music does play a role in mating rituals, but not always. There are dozens of other roles that music takes on, and it’s not necessarily connected to anything sexual. If you study some of the oldest forms of music which undoubtedly goes to the Native Americans and Africans, you clearly see the diverse array of roles that music plays in the community. I’m not here to argue what came first, was it sexual or was it spiritual? You can decide for yourself. Theories abound but there is no finality amongst the professional music theorists on the first initial purpose of music.

So clearly the sound, cost, purpose, and distribution of music has changed since 50,000 years ago and this is where the true cost of music begins. In my view (also from the research I’ve done), there are 4 main reasons why music has so much appeal:

1. Obviously there is the evolutionary/genetic code of music that has been passed down from generation to generation. From the womb, our mothers have been singing us to sleep and those musical practices of our ancestors is obviously going to find it’s way into our day-to-day lives.
   What is music? Pg 6
   http://whatismusic.info/chapters/whatismusic-2-what-is-music.pdf

   Some changes may have resulted from genetic changes that had only a very marginal effect on reproductive success. There is a certain probability that some changes will become permanent even though they have no effect or even a slightly negative effect on reproductive success. This can happen particularly if a species is occasionally reduced to a very small population, or if a new species evolves from a very small sub-population of its ancestor species

   This is Your Brain on Music, Infants and music, pg 252

   Mother-infant interactions involving music almost entail both singing and rhythmic movement, such as rocking or caressing. This appears to be culturally universal. During the first six months or so of life, as I showed in Chapter 7, the infant brain is unable to clearly distinguish, the source of sensory inputs, vision, hearing, and touch meld into a unitary perceptual representation. The regions of the brain that will eventually become the auditory cortex, the sensory cortex, and the visual cortex are functionally undifferentiated, and inputs from the various sensory receptors may connect to many different parts of the brain, pending pruning that will occur later in life. As Simon Baron-Cohen has described it, will all this sensory cross talk, the infant lives in a state of complete psychedelic splendor (without the aid of drugs).

2. When music is played, there are areas of the brain that create emotional and pleasurable experiences for us. Many times these moods can be tied to memorable experiences. The equivalent of what most would say is a “good mood” or a “great time”.

   This is Your Brain on Music, The pleasure principle, pg 167

   Music works because we remember the tones we have just heard are relating them to the ones that are now just being played. Those groups of tones-phrases-might come up later in the piece in a variation or transposition that tickles our memory system at the same time as it activates our emotional centers. In the past ten years, neuro-scientists have shown how intimately related to our memory system is with our emotional system.

   This is Your Brain on Music, Yay, I got my Dopamine fix, pg 191

   The rewarding and reinforcing aspects of listening to music seem then, to be mediated by increasing dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens, and by the cerebellum’s contribution to regulating emotion through it’s connections to the frontal lobe and the limbic system. Current neuropsychological theories associate positive mood and affect with increased dopamine levels, one of the reasons that many of the new antidepressants act on the dopaminergic system. Music is clearly a means for improving people’s moods. Now we think we know why

3. The technology and sophisticated production of music is so advanced that creators of music can now exploit certain sounds that appeal to the pleasurable parts of the brain.

   This is Your Brain on Music, Brainy music, pg 107

   Our Brains use cues about the spectrum of the sound and the type of echoes to tell us about the auditory world around us, much as a mouse uses his whiskers to know about the physical world around him. Recording engineers have learned to mimic those cues to imbue recordings with a real-world, lifelike quality even when they’re made in sterile recording studios.

   There is a related reason why so many of us are attracted to recorded music these days-and especially now that personal music players are common and people are listening to headphones a lot. Recording engineers and musician shave learned to create special effects that tickle our brains by exploiting neural circuits that evolved to discern important features of our auditory environment. These special effects are similar in principle to 3-D art, motion pictures, or visual illusions, none of which has been around long enough for our brains to have evolved special mechanisms to perceive them; rather, they leverage perceptual systems that are in place to accomplish other things. Because they use these neural circuits in novel ways, we find them especially interesting. The same is true of the way that modern recordings are made.

   If you think the music industry is not hip to the impact on how music impacts the brain, check this note worthy piece of information:

   This is Your Brain on Music, EMI and MRI, pg 128

   The research on the development of the first MRI scanners was performed by the British company EMI, financed in large part from their profits on Beatles records, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” might well have been titled “I Want to Scan Your Brain.”.

4. The social, cultural, and community dynamics that has been created from the distribution of music in the last 100 years.

   This is Your Brain on Music, Western culture and music, pg 232, 233

   In Western culture in particular, the choice of music has important social consequences. We listen to music that our friends listen to. Particularly when we are young and in search of our identity, we form bonds or social groups with people whom we want to be like, or whom we believe we have something in common with. As a way of externalizing the bond, we dress alike, share activities, and listen to the same music. This ties into the evolutionary idea of music as a vehicle for social bonding and societal cohesion. Music and musical preferences become a mark of personal mood and group identity.

   Also, our brains are developing and forming new connections at an explosive rate throughout adolescence, but this slows down substantially after our teenage years, the formative phase when our neural circuits become structured out of our experiences.

I think one of the first artists I can remember listening to is Bob Marley. I vividly remember songs like “Crazy Baldhead” and “Buffalo Soldier”. I’m actually quite sure that my early introduction to liberation music, set the stage for what would later become an obsession with so-called “conscious” and “underground” hip hop. My early musical exposure was mostly reggae. The music from my generation would come from the era known as the “Golden Era” of hip hop. My favorite artist at the time was KRS-One/Big Daddy Kane/Branubians and later on groups like Wu-tang Clan\Beatnuts.

One of the things that I wondered is why do I have such a connection to hip hop and artist that affiliate themselves with this genre of music? Is it the neo-Afro centricity that I find appealing? Is it the fact that the artists look like me? Is it the fact the message fills in the void of black liberation theology? Does the thump of the drum bring me back to the fate of my ancestors? Not only that, but why is it that music from Beethoven to Rage Against the Machine to Ella Fitzgerald to Howlin Wolf seem to appeal to me?

(out of respect I have removed the name of the artists, but you can just about plug in a whole hosts of artists below that fit the bill)
Eventually, I wondered why am I spending so much money on artists that don’t necessarily have the same views as me? Why do I suspend morals, values, and my personal views on artists, but then say that I aspire to those same views? How is it that I can suspend my judgment, because I agree with some of what the artist is saying and the beat makes me feels good, at least that is what my brain is firing off at the moment. I’m basically paying an artist to make me feel good, not to mention enriching the executives of music industry who are clearly corrupt and have been ripping off artists for dozens of years. Why should I give the green light to such artists as _________, who speaks of many positive and uplifting things but then performs at tours that are sponsored by alcohol companies? Why should I give another dollar to _________ when just like any other capitalist he sells hats for $300 dollars a pop while advertising for luxury gas guzzling car companies? Not very progressive at all. I’m sure many of these artist have done great things for society, but why the mixed message?

Why should I give _________or any other so-called rock group another dollar, when drugs, alcohol and womanizing is par for the course? Why should I spend another dollar on _________, when I know I don’t smoke weed? Why should I give another dollar to _________, when his music still maintains many elements of materialism and braggadocio, when I believe in being modest and maintaining your accomplishments more quietly. As much as I commend _________ for his efforts on pointing out the obvious racism at _________, one of the issues that’s missing in music is consistent accountability. Many say, “oh it’s just entertainment, what’s the big deal?”, but at the same time, regardless of whether it’s entertainment or not, why support something that is not necessarily inline with your views and how you live your life. I realize that I was not holding music to task and I was clearly being a “hypocrite”. Why should I pay the music industry money to prove that I’m a hypocrite?

Clearly music is not “just entertainment”. It has a very strong influence on the mind, our behavior and our actions. I don’t say so, but science says so. Why should I spend another dollar on _________ when he’s been advertising for Hennessey for years? Why should some over-priced symphony get another dollar of my money when some child in Africa is starving to death? Why should I spend another dollar on the music industry when they have used the drum as a distraction? What is the significance of ________ being a musical genius, or _________ a great saxophonist, or _________ or _________ being a great rapper, or ________ being a great musician? I wonder how many DJs know where the artists are from Stax Records and see if they are doing alright considering how many samples they used from these artists? Many of them, poor and forgotten souls.

What does any of this have to do with the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa or the fact that the people are dying from HIV in the United States at an alarming rate? How many people at concerts from progressive artists actually spend time with the youth to help them become better human beings and leaders? How many people at a ________ concert actually went out of their way to give as much money to a charity as they did to ________ or ________? How much charity are these artists doing anyway? Don’t I have a right to know since I’m helping to pay their mortgages, luxury cars, plush lifestyle, not to mention the tuition fees of their children for many of these artists, record executives? So what’s my ROI (Return on Investment) music industry? What have you done with my money? I’m happy to say that I will not drop another dime in the music industry. In too many instances, one big illusion of regurgitated concepts that’s packaged in different ways, so that it resonates with different audiences. For the amount of money and time that is poured into this industry, shouldn’t there be more than just memorable experiences (neural and physical)?

So I did some numbers crunching on how much money and time that I’ve spent on music. I’d say I own about 700 albums. This includes vinyl, tapes, and cds. I think a fair price is about $15 dollars a cd, $10 dollars a tape, and about $7 dollars for vinyl. Now these are rough estimates and I’m taking the mean cost between when I started buying music (1991).

500 (cds), 150 (tapes), 50 (vinyl)

So here are the numbers:
$7500 (cd), $1500 (tapes), $350 (vinyl), Total: $9350

Now you might say, we’ll that’s not too bad over 15 years, but lets continue…

Now some of you have more/less music and spent more/less time than me on music and music related activities. You should do this exercise at home and try to calculate the cost. So now, let’s go to the statisticians and see how much the world spends on music and concerts.

check these impressive 2007 numbers:
Bon Jovi topped the list with a gross of $56.3 million, followed by Bruce Springsteen, with $40.8 million, and Van Halen, with $36.8 million.

In addition to rock and pop, country acts placed high on the Pollstar list. Kenny Chesney is No. 4, with $35.3 million; Rascal Flatts No. 8, with $25.4 million; and the bill of Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood grossed $18.5 million to reach No. 11. With the exception of Kanye West (No. 6, with $31.6 million) and the Jay-Z and Mary J. Blige tour (No. 7, $30.7 million), hip-hop is largely absent.

More numbers:

The Police reunion trek led all tours in 2007 with a gross that has passed $212 million and is still climbing. The global tour few thought would ever happen moved more than 1.8 million tickets, according to Billboard Boxscore, prior to the Boxscore cutoff date of Nov. 13

Keep in mind that these numbers do not include sales of food/alcohol/memorabilia. These numbers are truly staggering. Now I have not included the concerts fees, drinks/food I bought at the concert, after concert food outing fees, memorabilia, and the most valuable asset, TIME. The time for searching for tickets, time spent calling people to meet up at a concert, time spent traveling to the venue, time spent going to a club to listen to music, time spent attending the club while listening to music, time spent listening to music while I was idle, time spent searching for music at the record store or nowadays downloading mp3s, time spent traveling to the record store, then back home, time spent watching music videos, etc etc. Time spent talking to friends about the music we just listened to. As you can see a big chunk of your day is taking up by music and music related activates, not to mention your disposable income. Now it’s nearly impossible to accurately calculate productivity plus time, but as you see we are not spending our time wisely.

Many of us have attended concerts that go late into the night. I mean if you get to a concert at 10pm and leave at 4am, that’s about 6 hours. Not including travel time. So lets slap on another 2 hours for travel time. That’s 8 hours. 1/3 of entire day! Not to mention that money you spend on tickets and drinks at the venue. Think about how many times you have done that in your life. Whether going to a concert, music festival, or some band at a local bar. How many of us have spent 8 hours learning how to eradicate poverty? Or 8 hours on how to help our youth spend their money more wisely? Or 8 hours mentoring a child? Or 8 hours at a hospital helping the elderly? Or 8 hours feeding the poor? Or 8 hours on how we can fix the environment? Or 8 hours on how we can create universal healthcare for this country? Or 8 hours learning on how to treat people with dignity and respect? Or 8 hours on how to get clean running water to the every human being on this planet? Or 8 hours learning how to love each other without using racism, classism, tribalism or arrogance in our heart? Or 8 hours understanding the complexities of our political process, lobbyist, and how it relates to political power? Or 8 hours on the relationship between excessive western consumerism and the subjugation of economies in developing countries? How many of us have spent 10 thousand dollars or more in 15 years on the causes I just mentioned?

How is it that our desire for music and enjoyment is so strong, that are negligence towards humanity does not even enter our minds long enough that we want to take serious action? Are we so bereft of compassion, pro-activism, and awareness that the culture of music pre-occupies our time , mind and efforts more so than some of the most basic needs of society?

How ironic are these lyrics by Lauryn Hill:
Music is supposed to inspire
How come we ain’t getting no higher?
Now tell me your philosophy
On exactly what an artist should be

These are the questions I eventually asked myself which led me to write this blog post. Now when you add up my music cost, time cost, cost of alcohol/food I spent at venues where there was music, the number easily jumps up to $20,000 to $30,000 dollars over 15 years. Many people don’t even have that type of cash in their bank accounts. I have not even added the value of that money, if I invested the money. So lets take the lower cost range. Let’s say I took $20K and invested it over 15 years in a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) and received a return of 8%. That’s roughly 1,333 a year. That value is about 42K.

So if we multiply this number times half of the American population, the number is this:
6,300,000,000,000. Yes that 6 trillion dollars over 15 years! We haven’t even taken into account global music sales. Keep in mind that these are rough estimates, but think about how much we could have accomplished with that wealth? Are we prepared to spend trillions and trillions more in the next 15 years when the US deficit is 9 trillion dollars? Are we prepared to continue this with the abhorrent amount of poverty that exists in this nation and around the world? Does society love music that much?

For most people the idea of changing their music habits brings about a feeling of dread, uncomfortableness and even disbelief that I might as well have said, “How about not breathing for 30 minutes?” Ask yourself, why do you feel that way? A bigger question is to look deeply at “Why do we do the things we do?” Are we aware of how our behavior impacts the world around us? Why do I have such an attachment to music? What is the root of our desires and the true intentions behind our actions?

This blog post is rife with rhetorical questions, because you can only get to your true intentions by interrogating your personal sensibilities. Most people don’t, because they are afraid of revealing who they truly are and the social blow-back of going against “societal norms”. To be honest, I think there is a level of self-deception going on that has not been addressed yet. Modern music is not the only cultural phenomenon that is worthy of questioning. There are many things in this world that need a serious level of questioning and are worthy of re-evaluation. Life is not as simple as it may seem, but can also be less complicated.

If you are reading this, you probably got farther than most people. Knowledge is earned, not given. Some will discount this lengthy blog as yet another diatribe, call me a lunatic/insane, try to discredit me, while others will be more open-minded about questioning the world around them. We don’t have to be cynical anymore. We have all the information we need to make the right decisions for the betterment of ourselves and others. I know this may sound like a “kumbaya” moment, but its not. That is what the cynics would say, and I am no cynic. I’m a man of conviction, honesty, and genuine about surfacing the best parts of what humanity has to offer. As human beings we still have not reached our highest potential and we have yet to put in place the proper tools to get there. I wish you well on your next life journey.

• This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin
• Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn
• The Secret History of the American Empire: The Truth About Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and How to Change the World by John Perkins
• Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism by Muhammad Yunus
• The Hidden Messages in Water by Masaru Emoto

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