In part's 1 and 2 I looked at how modern culture, business and technology had affected the recording industry. I fantasised about how record shops and independent record shops could be allowed to exist in a world where they could flourish. I assessed the impact that file-sharing had on the music industry and to what extent the lack of quality in modern music over the decades might have played a part in how pop music is currently defined and its declining sales. These pieces are written from the vantage point of a music 'fan', hence the off the cuff nature and style. So apologies if the structure is loose and free. This is just my take on the climate. What I find when I looked deeply into these areas and what people are discussing on the forums and the various debates still going on is that the decline is not merely down to one thing. The discussion and debate moreover, in recent years, has been about how the recording industry will evolve and what business models would support it. (More below) What this means culturally still remains to be seen.
In this part I will look a bit more broadly on how music is accessed and broadcast and how it has 'evolved'.
As we know in the olden days you had record shops, radio stations, magazines,clubs, concerts, sheet music, friends made you mixtapes and television even had shows dedicated to showcasing new music. Style played a small role in it but you felt music wasn't a side order to lift muzak, to a brand/sub-culture/fashion iconography, or aspirational product. Indeed we still have the above outlets but they really are so few and far between in terms of volume, quality and accessibility. We do, we are often told by people on the radio and in the handful of music magazines that are actually available, have a vibrant live music culture. There are more festivals than ever, more in store performances, more concerts, tours and gigs. Of course there would be. Artists aren't making money from their records. We know this. There are practically millions of online radio stations as well, the most well known, 'user generated' one being Last FM. Maybe you, the reader have your own Last FM station. In fact since the internet became the beast it is, everyone can indeed be famous for 15 minutes or famous for life thanks to social networking.
Myspace
Myspace is a waste of space. In Myspace no-one can hear you scream. It was one of the main social networking sites in its day (its day being about seven years ago). Have a look at it now. Looks a fucking mess. Its filled with crap. Its homepage is splattered with glossy-looking-airbrushed band pics and commercial artists. In fact its one big commercial. Of course it was always about selling adverts to you but now it doesn't even try and pretend to give you a space for you to connect to others, upload your music and actually make friends. The 'making new friends' thing is the biggest myth about social networks. It was supposed to be a space where if you were a band/artist you could post updates, accept friend requests, make requests and upload your new music. The flaw of course was us. Partly. Us and Information. Us, Information and Them, Myspace. It's the same today but even worse. You see in an era where we can communicate through multiple channels to multiple audiences, we are still engaged in one way communication. No-one wants to listen because they haven't got time, haven't made time and don't care anyway because they are the only interested receiver of their own message. But generally, they don't care. With information, bulletins and status updates, you tend to gloss over them. This is the flaw with most 'user-generated content'. Mypsace has also become less user friendly to use which is part of the reason people have abandoned it in droves.You haven't got time to care or make an emotional investment. Social networking is in effect Anti-Social Networking. As you may discover from similar models unless you have a PR/marketing machine behind you, your creative efforts are left drowning in an ocean of information. Myspace played its role in fragmenting the audience further than satellite/subscription based television. Why bother having a circle of friends or a community when, along with Friends Reunited and, later, Facebook, you could just keep everyone and everything at arms length, while idealising your life?
Soundcloud
As with Bandcamp Soundcloud allows you to some extent promote and sell your work as well as discovering new music. Now in the main these websites are okay if you want an outlet to express yourself, as long as you don't take it too seriously. They also include things like stats and trends, which try to make you believe that you are a one person focus group who can shape and refine your audience. The claim is that somehow they are giving control back to you and you can take or leave the information about which tracks you've uploaded or are popular in certain territories, but if you're original or see yourself as original you will do what you like anyway. It won't bring you mass success or make you tons of money but at least you won't sound like millions of other artists. Originality. Difficult. Bandcamp and Souncloud don't nurture you really. You kind of have to rely on your friends to post constructive feedback (if you get any feedback at all, beyond 'cool', 'crap', 'come to Athens!') What you really need, what most artists probably need is a small community and group hug of a record company that can help you refine your sound, put you in touch with the contacts who will really make a difference and evolve your career. Of course Soundcloud isn't a record company, so going alone can be very lonely. You can sell your music on here as well but no-one will buy it because 1. they won't know you exist and 2. they could get it for free. Even if you made it available for free, you'll be lucky if anyone listens to it, so you have to spam everyone relentlessly.
However I have and you can still discover music that you wouldn't generally hear on Radio 1, Radio 2, classic FM or BBC 6 music if you look for certain niches, based on your own personal sensibilities, whatever that means these days. Soundcloud features a user friendly interface and allows easy sharing to other social networks. Whether anyone has the time or inclination to listen to a link you post is, as ever, another matter altogether.
The Hype Machine
This is actually a very popular music blog aggregator that features music posted on peoples blogs, often record company leaks and promos. It's probably less random than it used to be but I've made many a discovery on here in the past and is one of my first port of calls when I'm looking for something different or fancy checking out some more information about an artist who pricked my ears up. Essentially it does the job that big radio stations should be doing all the time, instead of pandering to mediocre records and artists. However as its name implies, it does present the risk of hyping inexplicable trendy acts like King Krule as well, so you have to read/listen between the lines.
Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr
I haven't put a link to these websites because you'll probably have one of them as your homepage. I'm not being bitchy, just practical. These are of course outlets for new music as well, usually promoted by artists and record companies themselves in the forms of links, status updates, etc. Whether you're positing a Youtube link to S'Express performing 'Hey Music Lover' on Top Of The Pops on your Facebook page or breaking the new EP by James Blake, these outlets offer the opportunity at least to express your tastes and provoke limited discussion or approval. With Facebook it's the 'Like' tab. There should be, for democracy sake, a 'hate' tab too but Facebook isn't actually a democracy. Adam Curtis, broadcaster and author of 'The Power of Nightmares' said as much.
'People have a simplified view of the world...Systems that purport to be open and free... are ways of shutting debate down. They're self-policing...On the internet we monitor the choices of others to see if they think like us, maybe we seek to...make them conform.' Extracts from this interview given in 2007
Pitchfork
Online music-based magazine. Not bad but you feel at times as if it's an extension of the Tumblr hipster community, where new music is made by and for (produced on cassettes 'cos they're cool, fuckyeah) themselves. That said there are some great recommendations and a passion for music which, like many recent-ish music websites, is manifested in the features, interviews and reviews which moribund publications like the N.M.E used to pride themselves on. There's always something to discover and check out. The UK-based Drowned In Sound is another one as well and there are others. I like The Quietus which is a bit broader than the others in terms of its features and feels more honest in its approach to articles, reviews and write ups on those who are seen as 'coll' or as cutting edge as they once were or never were. However there is a lack of certain genres featured in these online publications, which feel as if they are more aimed at the 'indie' market rather than anything wider.
It's looking a bit dense, this feature, so here's a picture of Chicago housemaster, Darryl Pandy, before I continue...
Spotify were in the news recently. I followed this story last week and then got lost in the debate about Ownership models vs Subscription models and how Spotify were at least trying to make the industry evolve just as much as iTunes were, blah, blah. I read lots of debates and forum arguments over this one and was lost in stats, and cultural ideas about what consumers and audiences of the future would feel about owning actual physical products when there would be a lack of space, emotional connection to plastic, etc. Personally all I get from Spotify is that so far (unless someone can suggest a better way) I only use it to share certain playlists/mixtapes with anyone who visits my blogs, follows me. I can organise the tracks based on the music I already own at home and have myself in iTunes. I have the free version of Spotify. I don't want to pay a tenner a month. I own a lot of music as it is. I get round the annoying adverts by skipping the track before it finishes. But since I'm only using it to arrange playlists occasionally, I don't really have a need for Spotify. As soon as iTunes offers the ability to share owned/uploaded music/playlists, I will be able to delete Spotify.
Since Spotify doesn't seem to offer much to artists it appears that record companies/artists won't support it as well.
iTunes
I would have loved this when I was younger, even more than I do now. I have CD's and loads of records, and I hope I always will because they are important for many reasons, the most important aspect being sound quality. Now iTunes and Spotify are not there in terms of sound quality but it's still an improvement on the ropey compressed sound of my cassettes and cheap stylus of that cheap plastic boxed 'Midi' system in the 1980s. It used to take ages organising my 12" singles, b-sides, album tracks and artist/themed compilations onto blank tapes for train or bus rides to school, college and work. I'd have loved my own stylish jukebox, that I could, accessed via the computer, connect to a decent sound system. This was before I bought an iPod. For better or worse iTunes Music Store recognised the market for digital music and did what Napster failed to do and what many record companies failed to do at the turn of the century.
Forums
This can be fan forums or general music forums. In an old fashion sense, word of mouth is the best way to check out new music or old, lost classics.
So these are some of the outlets that we have, maybe they are part of the legacy of the recording industry's decline, I don't know, but as ever, they are always going to be at risk from homgenisation, cynics and marketeers squeezing every drop of orginality and creativity out of them to sell us something that we don't care about or want. As ever, it really is up to us to make sure that popular music and culture is valued and not a mere status update, aural wallpaper for tweens, or a imbecilic trending topic.
In the final part I will conclude by summarising Part 1, 2 and 3 and looking into what the future could have in store for the recording industry, but also what it will probably involve.
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