Issue No. 24 | Wanderlust
11 March 2010 8:29pm PST
11 March 2010 8:29pm PST
The Future of Music
“At the end of the day, I’m not Trent Reznor and I don’t have a million dollars in the bank. What do I do?” reflected Claudia Gonson, a musician in Magnetic Fields and Stephin Merritt’s manager, on an artist whose particularly vocal criticisms of the music industry culminated in his making the latest Nine Inch Nails album, The Slip, free for download. (Note: as a non-NIN fan, this worked for me; after downloading the album on a whim, I had “Discipline” on loop for weeks.)
Last week I attended a seminar called “Tekserve Presents: The Future of Music 3,” featuring a panel that included Gonson, Sadat X (member of the hip hop group Brand Nubian), Adam Ferrell (head of marketing at Beggars Group, a family of indie record labels) and Peter Rojas (co-founder of RCRD LBL), moderated by hip hop activist and music journalist Harry Allen. No, it wasn’t about the latest technology from the NAMM show (though, really, how cool does the JazzMutant Lemur controller look?), but a discussion to answer some pressing questions: How will artists survive in this era of album leaks, free-for-all downloading, and music blogs spreading the fire?
The short answer: there’s touring, merchandising and licensing, but beyond that, everybody’s still trying to figure it out. For a couple years now, the RCRD LBL team has been trying to inject some honesty back into the mix by offering free legal downloads from their own online record label as all as a “curated roster” of independent ones. “I think it’s about being respectful,” Rojas said. But as everyone knows (and I’m definitely guilty), illegal downloading is still a problem and artists are frustrated. “There’s gotta be other ways to make money [besides record selling records],” Gonson said. “I’m easy about how.”
But maybe the statistics aren’t so grim. Adam Ferrell pointed out that because of all the blog buzz, Bon Iver’s Blood Bank EP sold 23,000 copies. Despite leaks, Lil Wayne has sold millions of records. And the pleasant surprise of the evening: “Vinyl sales are through the roof,” said Ferrell—Gun N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy sold “a lot” of vinyl copies.
In conclusion: for the love and preservation of all your favorite artists, go see them play live, buy a T-shirt, keep watching Grey’s Anatomy, or get a record player, while we hope for a solution.
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via Lydia Fong, 8 February 2009 10:49pm | 9
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| Comments:
Jacques Attali, in Noise: the Political Economy of Music, wrote several decades ago that technology would render music so easy to produce, that everyone would produce their own music. He predicted that music would cease to have exchange value and become a form of autonomous self-pleasure. This was not translated into English until 1985.
According to Attali, music is a harbinger of change. …
Mr. Attali makes great points about the consumption of music in his so-described, ‘Repeater’ era. Specifically, he refers to fidelity as the goal for music production and the challenge posed to artists in repeating the original recording, in live and subsequent recordings.
I disagree with the notion that music will lose exchange value, simply because the means of production are easier to obtain. Masturbation has not supplanted sex, despite sex having lower barriers to entry than years past.
I tend to agree with your observation, TM.
Interestingly, the first question posed to the panel was something like, “when did you first realize that technological changes were more than just a phase?” Claudia Gonson said she her moment came when she realized that music production (and the intellectual property of any given song) could be in the hands of anyone through sampling and remixing. I think we’re definitely seeing that this kind of music production is valuable (at least popular!), maybe more so now than ever.
Everyone else said Napster.
I agree with you that it will not COMPLETELY lose exchange value.
I feel that online downloads has a bigger effect than easier production methods in regards to the fall of record sales.
There are some people that, no matter whta tools they have, will never make good music.
Sex is better than masturbation, so masturbation will not supplant sex. But if you could get real sex at the click of a button at any time, wouldn’t street hookers disappear? Probably.
What if you had a machine that can make a pretty good looking real life girls. Not 10s but maybe 8s. What would happen to street hookers then?
At the end of the day, no matter what technology exists, there will be individuals with unmatchable skills that will be able to bring value to their music.
However, recorded music in digital format will not degrade and we will stockpile more and more music. As an artist, you compete with all the recorded music that came before you for the listener’s time. In the far future, there will be infinite music to choose from.
As accessibility to online distribution and the technology we use to play this music in cars, stereos, TVs, etc. get better and more convenient, there will be more people purchasing music online….
How is this even a hot topic for the last decade+? I’m a listener of music but great at managing business. If they put me in charge I would have figured this out a lot more than the people at the top.
VCR’s, cassette tapes, cable TV all were figured out along time ago. This seriously is the worst case of diffusion of responsibility. No organization, no course rational course of action. How about this. Let’s stop making the suits figure it out and let musicians take control of their damn destinies again and unite.
Whatever happens, the solution is not going to include major record labels. They had a chance to get their act together and have failed every step of the way.
I hear Ross Robinson is putting together some kind of anti-label organization and just working directly with artists. It’s called the “White Label Collective”. He’s got some band called “Repeater” to help launch it with him and I’ve heard their lead singer is a little…out there. A reclusive genius with some crazy ideas. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes, and if it provides any answers to all this.
I completely agree. I think that the formula that used to work for major record labels just doesn’t anymore. And I think that alot of people in the music community want to see some changes within the industry and how things are run. But this “White Label Collective” sounds really awesome and I’m interested to see what comes out of it. It’s an ambitious idea that I think comes at the perfect time for the music industry.
= )
FoM4 @ tekserve March 26 yyyyeeeeaahh
I have listened to a lot of up and coming bands, and some of them seem to be in a rut, not knowing where to turn, major labels just suck the life out of a lot of promising artists. I think the idea of a collective DIY approach is great.. I’m a fan of Ross Robinson and his work, , and I think it’s a great thing that he is working with independent projects and a band like Repeater