OFF: Future of music...

[M Holmes]

Henderson Keith writes:

> I was just thinking about all the recent news about idiotic record
> companies suing 12-year old kids and the like for downloading music.

Given that the question of copyright is now essentially a political one,
I wonder whether this behaviour will really prove productive in the long
run. People excuse themselves for copyright theft on the basis that the
companies are evil oligarchs. Having the media full of 12 year olds
being crucified in Court will merely reinforce this. It is, as someone
said, like buggy whip manufacturers suing Henry Ford's customers.

> And this talk I now read about how CDs are already being 'replaced' by
> more immediate and fluid media, essentially a hard drive full of
> musical data that every kid will carry around with him.  And that
> seems to me like a revolution that, unlike vinyl-to-cassette-to-CD or
> whatever, will really change the nature of how artists and listeners
> 'communicate' or 'connect' with each other.

Indeed.

> And I can only see it in
> a negative sense I'm afraid.

Perhaps. Or perhaps because songs will become simple commodities, the
industry will again have to find "margin" in promoting performances. It
isn't quite so easy to download the experience of being at a concert.

I wouldn't see that as a Bad Thing.

> OK, maybe I can already see how nice it is for people to go to a show
> by some largely-unknown but taping-friendly band, record the thing on
> a minidisc player with great sound, download the concert and put it up
> on a site where anyone can come and listen for themselves and burn
> copies to keep forever.

I wonder how many are collected, rather than heard.

> But then when it comes to studio works, it
> seems that this '99c-a-song' culture really makes an ARTist feel like
> the ART is being taken away from them.

No, it's being even more commodified, which isn't quite the same thing.
It's really Warhol's Campbell's Soup idea applied to music. I'm hopeful
that this will ultimately extend choice.

> It's like a cafeteria culture
> suddenly, where the consumer is now scooping up whatever flavors and
> portions they want and forgetting the rest.  I dunno...so much of
> 'our' type of music has always been of the conceptual, coherent, or
> inter-linked kind, that I can't imagine a future with an alphabetical
> list of song titles that I can't put together into coherent little
> units called things like "Levitation" or "Space Bandits." And have a
> picture in my mind (I mean the album art of course) that I 'see'
> whenever I think or hear that music live.  To me, if "music is the
> soundtrack of life," I don't want that life to be simply a Greatest
> Hits compilation album.

I daresay that orchestras thought that music was being commodified when
the vinyl record was invented. Technology changes and introduces new
possibilities while leaving some of the old ways looking rather quaint.
People still go to see classical performances despite the LP and CD,
though maybe not so often, and people will still buy CD's, though
perhaps not so many.

> And I think the culture of this goes *way* beyond music, too.  In
> (American) sports (at least), and maybe European too (with Asia hardly
> caring what team ole Becks played for these days), one can see this
> pattern too, with the 'team fandom' at certain times lagging behind
> the 'star fandom,' because the Jordan's and Kobe Bryant's and Shaq's

Who?

> are bigger entities and forces than entire franchises.  And anyway, so
> many sports fans are rewriting the sports (as offered) by being in
> these so-called 'fantasy' leagues, which to me is quite an interesting
> analogy to this online music phenomenon.  I'm afraid though, that this
> "free-choice-overload" that can happen with modern things like
> satellite TV, TiVo, cell phones/SMS, etc.  is now taking hold in music
> so much so, that even though right now it seems only to be important
> for that Big Ugly Leviathan (that is the pop music industry) and of no
> concern of ours, I still wonder if it will forever alter the way that
> commerce, distribution, manufacturing, recording contracts, tours,
> etc.  works that *all* of the industry will be overhauled completely
> in 10 years.  (That's quite a sentence, innit?)

I'm certain that it will. I'm sorry to say it, but something like the
above paragraph and it's mourning of a passing way of life has been
written against every technology that permitted some new way of life.
people are already starting to eulogise the Space Shuttle and we still
don't even have a drawing of the rocket that will replace it. I doubt
we'll see winged spaceflight again in our lifetimes though after a few
more Shuttle flights.

> So I wonder...will (non-kollektor) people still be fighting on Ebay
> for that rare CD reissue of "25 Years On" in 10 years, just because
> they can't find the CD in any stores?

I'm still fighting on Ebay for 60 year old xmas lights...

> Or will the
> existence/availability of CDs even *matter* then, 'cause most people
> would have already 'caved' and turned their collections into data? And
> what will happen to those who can't think of anything but the old
> 'hard-copy' type of collection? Will they find that there are no
> longer any stores in which to buy product in, and no state-of-the-art
> devices that are geared toward their (antequated) choice of media?

There will still be retro markets. You can buy vinyl players now if you
look hard enough.

> As a non-artist, and therefore industry lay-person, I can't predict
> what's happening,

Conversely, I've been expecting something like this for 15-20 years. I
didn't get the details quite right but I did expect in '85 that we'd one
day be able to walk in to a record shop with no records; choose a dozen
tracks from damn near every piece of musc that's ever been made,
possibly by listening to someone's recommendation on headphones; and
walk out with something, probably solid state, with it all recorded on
it by the time I'd finished a coffee. What I mainly got wrong of course
was that most people will be able to do this without even going to the shop.

It's different, but think of all the choice! No more "Oh we don't stock
that stuff sir."

> 'cause I don't hang around the kids that are driving
> the culture these days.  I'm guessing that many of them don't
> appreciate the value of a self-contained 40- or 60-minute 'opera' of
> music, that was carefully written, organized, planned, recorded,
> produced, packaged, and offered to the public under a meaningful
> title, with an intent to be consumed as such, and remembered as such,
> long into the distant future.

Kids of today eh? No appreciation of proper music. I'm glad our parents
understood that we were a different kettle of fish.

> Is this form of expression really going
> to die?

Not completely.

> (And how deep will it go...all the way down to 'us'...or
> really just for 'them'?)

10 years from now it'll seem completely normal even to us. Just how
newfangled do CD's seem to you now?

> Or will it somehow still exist, or be
> recreated in a new image, within the new 'data' culture?

> Thoughts anyone?

To quote from a great Hawkwind gig "He's getting on you know..."

The record companies are going to have to be part of the movement or
part of the road. They've been fossilised in a business model that's
been fairly easy money for the big guys for 50 years. Now it's a
real low-margin commodity, just like the computers themselves. Selling
plastic with music on it isn't going to easily make millionaires of the
intermediaries any more. The artists can talk to their public and market
to them directly and there'll only be pennies to be had from being in
the middle after disintermediation is complete. The power will pass to
reviewers, because people will have to know what to try, and to good artists.

The biz has to go for remaining high-margin product: live appearances
and memorabilia. If this leads to more bands appearing in my town, which
is very at the margin, then I'll not be complaining.

FoFP