Inculcation into the tribe of music lovers
What is music in society today? Is it a product, the fuel of a commercial industry or is it a culture, a forum for the expression, classification and development of who we are?
This is not a straight choice. The answer must be somewhere in the middle, but there is a tension between the two poles that indicates a conflict. This is particularly exemplified by the piracy/sharing issue and the reaction of the RIAA and similar bodies.
It is easy to cast stones at both sides, the litigious industry and the pilfering kids, but what is more interesting to me is what this confrontation indicates. I think we are in a liminal state caused by the changes digital production and distribution have wrought on the music industry.
When music was physical
Back in the mists of time, making and distributing music was an expensive exercise and record labels functioned like banks, signing bands and advancing the money to record and produce their music. This wasn’t charity and there were (and still are) some clever/tricky ways that record labels make money without paying much to the bands. Steve Albini, guitarist and producer, has published a famous vituperative article about some of the music industry’s wicked ways.
The internet and digital audio have changed things. In the past manufacture and distribution of physical media was expensive and tricky. You had to make objects that contained the music and get them to brick and mortar stores that would sell them for you. The easiest way to make money out of this is through economy of scale. Big distribution companies came to be owned by the record labels as this made sense for them. This consolidated the control of large companies over the industry.
Now once music is encoded into a suitable digital format it can be piped from computer to computer without all the cumbersome meatspace machinations of the old world. This has a huge implications for the perception of value of the music track. Where it used to cost money to make a plastic manifestation of the music digital copies can be produced and distributed for almost nothing except bandwidth costs.
The perceived value of a virtual item
So what is that mp3 worth? There is no physical object. Its value is solely tied into what it encodes. What is music worth?
The value of music depends on what you view it as. If it is a consumer good that can be churned out for almost nothing it’s not worth a great deal, but if it’s an expression of your culture it’s worth a great deal.
Even if you take the former position, music isn’t free to produce. It costs money to record and even if artists aren’t paid much. Writers, producers, mastering engineers and marketers all expect a decent wage. What I think has happened is that the perception of the value of the product has sunk to almost nil.
Commercial emphasis removes personal connections
Contemporary popular music is seen as interchangeable and disposable. I believe that the industry in general became fat and lazy off the revenues generated by format replacement after the release of CDs. It was easy to make money selling music that had already been recorded to people who wanted to replace those old fashioned albums, and with a spot of clever marketing these old recordings could be sold to new fans. How many generations of music fans have discovered Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix?
The big players in the industry got lazy about finding and nurturing new bands. The apotheosis of this contemptuous torpor is the creation of the talent contest pop stars. This is the triumph of marketing over substance. The TV show is marketing for the album and if you’ve spent money on voting for someone you’re already committed to them so why not buy their album?
The problem with this triumph of marketing over content is that it can lead to a backlash. Even if it doesn’t inspire people out into the street with torches and pitchforks it damages the relationship between music producers and listeners. It hurts the perception of music as culture.
Towards a new musical culture
This lifting of the green curtain hurts the music industry, but that is not the same thing as the culture of music. There is enormous potential to emphasise the cultural aspects of music through the internet. The primary step is to create an emotional connection between musician and listener.
Creating things is difficult to do at all and very hard to do well. Understanding this difficulty is crucial to resetting the perceived value of music. It is not a product like toilet paper. It is the product of the ingenuity and skill of people. Connecting with the creators takes the music out of the packaging and exposes the fragility of our cultural life. If we want music we need musicians.
This doesn’t have to mean that every musician out there is on Twitter and doing living room gigs, only that there is authentic information easily available from an authentic source. It’s OK for musicians to have someone communicate with their listeners for them in my opinion as long as the information is authentic and not solely there to drive sales, but to foster a connection.
Culture isn’t a one-way stream. It’s something we all participate in and I believe we all have a vested interest in. Both parties need to keep the culture alive. We have new tools and that will change the methods used. There is an opportunity to create a new method of participation in musical culture. We live in momentous times.
The image Sharing music by thegarlands is used under a Creative Commons License
