Zane Lowe は４１歳のニュージーランド人。すばらしい新人発掘の才覚を持つ。アークティック・モンキーズ （Arctic Monkeys）、アデル （Adele）、 エド・シーラン（Ed Sheeran）などがそうだ。３月５日の BBC 番組を最後にアメリカへ移住、アップルの仕事に就く予定。
The 41-year-old New Zealander, who had a knack for promoting emergent talent on the airwaves (including the Arctic Monkeys, Adele and Ed Sheeran), will present his final show on the BBC on March 5. He will then move to America to take up his position at Apple.
Left a good job in the city
Workin’ for the Man every night and day
But I never lost a minute of sleepin’
Worryin’ ‘bout the way things might have been
Miserere, miserere,
miserere, misero me,
però brindo alla vita!
ミゼレーレ、ミゼレーレ
ミゼレーレ、罪深き我（われ）を哀れみ給え
されど我はこの世に杯を挙ぐ
Ma che mistero, è la mia vita, che mistero!
Sono un peccatore dell’anno ottantamila, un menzognero!
Ma dove sono e cosa faccio, come vivo?
Vivo nell’anima del mondo, perso nel vivere profondo!
Zucchero‘s lyrics are the prayer of a man who enjoys life and everything this world has to offer. He is not necessarily the profligate and despised sinner symbolized in Jesus’ parable (though he could be), but he nevertheless realizes that something fundamental is missing in his life. He realizes that life apart from God is empty and meaningless, so he cries out for mercy. The music and arrangements of the song are a stroke of genius: It is sung as a duet between a blues singer (reflecting the anguish of a man crying out for mercy) and an operatic tenor (lending the song a classical flavor to reflect the timelessness of a prayer for God’s mercy.)
Zucchero would have no problem singing the part of the bluesman, but where could he find a tenor? His first thought was to ask Luciano Pavarotti, but he would need to at least produce a demo tape to give the Italian maestro an idea of what he had in mind. To sing the part of tenor on the demo, he turned to a then obscure piano bar singer by the name of Andrea Bocelli. After listening to the demo, Pavarotti reportedly told Zucchero “”Thank you for writing such a wonderful song. Yet you do not need me to sing it – let Andrea sing Miserere with you, for there is no one finer.” [i]
So how will technology kill the music industry then? Well, it will simply destroy the record label. The reason is simple. Record labels are a man in the middle that simply doesn’t need to exist anymore. The same way we buy our flights direct, and get our shopping online and have things delivered from Amazon instead of going to a local shop. We have always been keen to enjoy cost reductions at the expense of the middleman, and the record labels are the ultimate in middle men.
What does the record industry offer? Well, surprisingly little these days. It used to be the case that record labels would go and find new talent. Of course this still happens, but more likely is that an artist will be discovered by the public through YouTube, or SoundCloud or even from friends on Facebook or Twitter .
But it wasn’t the internet that killed the music industry. In fact, everything is still looking rosy for many musicians and labels. Taylor Swift has had a good year, and her latest album is likely to be making her very wealthy indeed. And that won’t change in all likelihood, not for Swift, and not for those who come after her. There is always going to be public demand for music, as there has been for hundreds or even thousands of years. The human brain is wired to enjoy the patterns of music, so a musical beat is something we will always seek out.
Borchetta, 52, is the CEO of Big Machine Records, Taylor Swift’s record label. And lately he’s been making it abundantly clear to anyone listening that he heavily influenced Swift’s decision last week to pull her entire back catalog from Spotify.
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