Wow, another nugget of wisdom.
Yeah, but it looks like wisdom is currently suffering from hyperinflation.
I doubt Madonna is the slave of the music industry... Or that the Rolling Stones are still playing because their record company (or their bank account) tells them so. And even Michael Jackson did not play music according to the industry - his greatest albums had been nothing less than a revolution against all standards at that time.
If you want a short and painful career, listen to the music industry as artist. Even the German Grand Master of Music Industrialization (Dieter Bohlen) does not listen to his record company, but claims (often correctly) to know better what the people want.
The music industry consists of people who have no idea on how to make music or how music should sound like so people will buy it. They only know how to sell music in a old fashioned way. And they are pretty good in it. Not all labels are so stupid to ignore the changing times or fight against the changes. Many are howling with the wolves and make a lot of money with the Internet and by putting again more emphasis on tours. Can somebody imagine that the 1990s had been full of artists, who had been marketed as superstars without even having done a single large tour?
I remember a story about 'N Sync. Before they really had been famous, they already toured Germany, playing in small clubs and city halls. A friend of me, who was a drummer in a Metal band and later became a pretty good Jazz guitarist, managed to get into the concert by claiming to be writing for a school newspaper. The first guy he ran into with his fake identity was the tour manager of the band, who gave him a free ticket and an interview. He already said the next day that Timberlake was the only guy who really had talent, and he was in the hindsight, pretty right with his estimate.
What is special about that: Today, we believe that boygroups had been pushed simply by MTV and youth magazines. That is true to an extend, but the reality is more complex: Even while being closer to employees than other bands, they had to go the classic musicians career and tour, tour, tour and tour. And play in towns, which name you couldn't even spell.
Just being placed on heavy rotation by MTV makes you just a star for 5 minutes, just like Andy Warhol predicted. If you really work hard and really have talent, but stay away from the music industry, you will maybe become a local hero. Known to die hard fans in your hometown. Maybe known to insiders and experts. But if you combine both talent and the services of the music industry (You don't need to sell your soul, your music is enough), you can become great - because these people not only have the money to finance stuff before you are famous enough to pay the price, but they also have the media power to bring you into places, which you wouldn't reach with your talent alone usually.
You need the managers of the music industry as artist as much as you have reasons to hate them. Of course they will try to limit your freedom. It is part of the deal. But IMHO, you rarely have the situation, that you are criminally enslaved - such attempts exist, and that is bad enough, but not the standard.
