When even people such as Robbie Williams are making a stand against finance-driven, risk-averse corporate culture, then you know something is up. He is the latest artist (and in his case one uses the term 'artist' in its broadest possible sense) to leave or threaten to leave EMI, following its takeover by private equity firm Terra Firma. Williams, along with Paul McCartney and Radiohead, have taken issue with EMI's lack of passion for music and risk-averse culture that places quick profitability above that of encouraging and nurturing new talent. In the process, EMI appears to be losing its most profitable acts.
But EMI is just one manifestation of a broad trend that is reshaping 'the corporatism of culture'. As independent music and book stores across the UK close down in record numbers (Fopp being one of the most recent and notable examples), so the large multiples gain greater market share on UK high streets. Like EMI, they have no passion for their product and concerns only for the bottom line. But in so doing they fail to understand the product they sell and the customers they sell to. As a consequence, their corporate policies are doomed to failure. This wouldn't matter so much if it were not for the fact that retailers give character and life to our urban spaces. We face a very real danger that tomorrow's city centres will comprise mainly boarded up store fronts. I know this for a fact, because of what happened to me today.
Last week Jonathan emailed me about an excellent programme on Radio 4 that focussed on Richard Sennett's new book 'The Craftsman'. Laurie Taylor interviewed both Sennett and Grayson Perry on issues of craft and skill. The programme's website provides a link to a podcast that you can listen to. Hot on the heels of this was a review in this Saturday's Guardian, lauding 'The Craftsman' as 'book of the week'.
Clearly anyone who has even a passing interest in craft, making, the physicality of our existence, even the inherent creativity of the open source software movement, should check it out. So I did. Or at least, I tried to.
In an effort to do my bit for the physicality of the urban landscape, I went in search of the book in Dundee's bookstores. OK, so it's cheaper on Amazon, but I felt a sense of proud citizenship as I entered Borders. Not to be found on its shelves, I inquired at the information desk. After some swift work at a computer the assistant said they didn't stock it and wouldn't do so at all "because it's sociology". True, they did have a very small sociology section, so off I went to Waterstone's - the thinking person's WH Smiths. Again, no copies on the shelves, and at the information desk I got the same reply. There then followed a conversation that goes a bit like this....
"Why 'because it's sociology'?"
"Well we only stock standard texts, not obscure items."
"Well, it's hardly obscure - subject of a half hour programme on Radio 4 and The Guardian's book of the week, today. So I guess there'll be some interest in it."
"Company policy. Whatever media coverage it gets, it's sociology and we only do standard texts."
"Well actually it's not really sociology. Sure, he's a sociologist, but it's as much art theory as anything else."
"It says it's sociology here. So we'll not be stocking it."
So, I drove home, went on Amazon and bought it. In five years' time I doubt if there'll be a single bookstore left in our cities, and good riddance to them. If this kind of policy had been rife on the high streets of Britain in the early sixties, then The Beatles would not have happened. Brian Epstein's (a record store owner who later managed the fab four) policy in his record store was that if somebody came in asking for a record he didn't stock, whether they ordered it or not, then he'd order three copies. Which is what he did, and the rest is history.
The depressing thing is that this book is hardly at the thin end of the Long Tail. But corporate inflexibility and risk management have consigned it to the margins. To connect with his readership, Sennett would have been best advised to do the whole thing himself on Lulu.
0 comments:
Post a Comment