Money for Nothing Worth the Admission Price: Zero
By Lori DesROchers
Staff Writer

Cool indie artists: good. Big record labels: bad. Only a fool would disagree with these statements. But what about the unique challenges facing women in the music industry? Lesbians? Chinese-Americans? We can rant on about the outlandish price of CDs, but we rarely delve into the more complex issues related to the music industry. In an upcoming series hosted by Intercollegiate Women's Studies, questions regarding activism and women in music will be addressed through movies, concerts and discussions.

Tuesday night's first event in the series included a screening of the 2001 film Money for Nothing: Behind the Business of Pop Music, and a question-and-answer session with two music industry experts: Cheryl Pawelski and Lee Lodyga. Drawing a nearly full crowd into the Rose Hills Theatre, students from across the campus learned about commercialism and exploitation in the mainstream music market.

Anyone who's listened to the radio, read a teen magazine or watched MTV knows that today's music scene has become dominated by media conglomerates. Emphasizing the fact that the majority of the music industry is completely controlled by five major labels, Money for Nothing discusses such topics as the frustrations of independent artists, reality television, the Britney Spears effect, record label marketing strategies, the cost of becoming famous, artist's rights, TRL and globalization. Images of today's identically blonde, overly sexualized pop stars and discussion of mass corporations like Nike brought sympathetic boos from the audience.

The overall effect of the film was overwhelmingly gloomy and depressing, leaving budding musicians little hope for empowerment. "Even if you know it, you haven't necessarily put it all together," says Audrey Bilger of the topics covered in the movie. A literature professor at CMC and organizer of the event, she is glad for the opportunity to raise awareness about these different facets of music. She conceived of the series when she started to realize that "music has such a profound effect on people," but that it was getting harder to hear the message from the musicians because of the corporate influence.

It is clear that something needs to change, as even the giant media corporations are currently suffering from massive financial troubles. No one is voting in favor of the record labels here-not even those who work for them. Both Pawelski and Lodyga were laid off from EMI last year when the company took a nose dive and let 1800 of their employees go. Pawelski turned around and started work on her own record label-one which she hopes will give more decision-making power to the artists. "I will be forever grateful for the experience I had working with EMI," she says. "I learned all of their rules so that I could break them. I do not want to run a business like they do." Pawelski, though he now works for "the biggest monster of them all," Universal Music Group, echoes Lodyga's sentiments about the industry. "It's all about the numbers," he says when asked why CD prices continue to climb. "They do it because they can."

Student coordinator Vanessa Schnaidt SC '03 was pleased with the high turnout-especially from the male faction, given that the event was focused on women's issues. "Our goal is to have exposure here on all five campuses," she said. "We really are trying to reach everyone."