Why was popular music considered centrist, corporate, and safe during the late 1970s?

For most of the era of recorded sound, an outside company was needed to record, produce and market the “product”. In the 1920’s, if a successful singer or band “sold well”, they could usually choose to stay or go. (Rudy Valée comes to mind - for he left RCA, a big label of importance, for lesser labels and did very well. He later returned to RCA, w/ a contract he liked, for he dictated certain terms that would be impossible by the 1970’s. For in the 1970’s, music was a very centralized sort of controlled business. Many bands were put under contract to produce a certain “type” of music; and the Record Company had essentially complete control. Similar stuff as “The Monkees” were created, bands who could not play the instruments, or would do their best to make a living. They were to be wholesome, humorous puppets that guaranteed a certain profit; and were under their labels complete control by contract. There were exceptions, in 1970, “The Naked Carmen” was released on a major label, but even this was watered down by the record company. Even The Rolling Stones were somewhat on leash, but got away with much because of profits. A great many of the most successful musicians of this era did so well that they eventually self financed, and when The Decca Record Company demanded The Rolling Stones complete their contract, they did so with such an obscene recording, it was only released in Italy, and on promotional discs that were recalled (but not very many actually were). But for that decade, many bands were under the thumb of their companies who created images for new bands, did Promo Work for all the bands, and were putting out relatively “wholesome but profitable music”. This did not stagnate ALL of the bands, and many successful bands went on to self finance or joined with a company that let them “give the people what they wanted”, as much as let the Band fo as they wanted. The Punk and New Wave, and later Indie Labels soon left the Older, Big Labels to rerelease hits of the past, and most are not close to the same wealth and control they had once enjoyed.

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