Has tech killed the music industry?
No, tech, ie the internet, has not killed music, it has provided opportunities.
We had travelling minstrels, if they were good, they got fed and watered and a bed for the night, if they were bad, they starved and had a cold night.
We had wealthy patrons who commissioned music.
We had music halls, where traveling minstrels could perform.
We had sheet music. Aha, will sheet music not kill the music hall?
We had the gramophone. OMG, will the gramophone not kill the music hall?
Then along came radio. The end of the world, it will kill the music hall, it will kill the gramophone.
Then we had cassettes, then we had cheap copying of CDs, now downloading, live streaming. The end of the world is nigh!
Four panelists who know what they are talking about, will.i.am, Zoë Keating, Imogen Heap, Amanda Palmer.
The Big Record Label model is dead, though they do not seem to know it yet. Amanda Palmer though makes the very good point, much as she dislikes the major record labels, much as they screwed artists and for many they were indentured slaves, where is the capital investment in the music industry?
Imogen Heap makes the point, Big Record Labels kill creativity. Look what they churn out, moronic, boring, manufactured plastic pop. The TV equivalent, X-Factor and Britain Has (not) Got Talent.
Zoë Keating makes the point, no data is provided to musicians on who is listening to their music and criticises the very poor sound quality.
Who is to pay the travelling minstrels of today?
Amanda Palmer has been very successful at crowdsourcing, as has Imogen Heap and Zoë Keating.
The Sparks deluxe box set Imogen Heap is working on would not be possible without her being able to draw on the support of her fans it would not have been viable within a major record label.
Nor would Steve Lawson be able to pull together his last tour and release as a multi-album release. This he is doing by putting all the albums on a memory stick and releasing through bandcamp.
- Is This Unique? Every Note We’ve Ever Played Will Be Released
- Getting Ready for the FingerPainting Release
- FingerPainting: Complete is, uhm, Complete, and The USB Sticks Are Here!
Zoë Keating released Into The Trees on bandcamp.
Artemis is releasing three EPs, Triptych I ,II and III, on bandcamp, Triptych I (Eight for a Wish) released today, is the first of the Triptych trilogy. The Triptych trilogy will be released as a series of limited edition albums. Triptych trilogy with three art prints is limited to five, of which only two left.
I am listening to Triptych I (Eight for a Wish) as I write.
Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, are leaches draining the life blood out of musicians. They are ploughing nothing back.
At First Light wrote this on their facebook page:
We have decided to remove our music from Spotify.
Each time one of our tracks is streamed we receive an income of $0.00046725.
Since we released ‘Idir’ in September 2011, 1055 people have played tracks from our cd on their Spotify accounts.
For this we have earned the sum total of $20.99.
We believe this to be absolutely inequitable and wrong.
If you believe that artists should be paid for their work, please desist from using Spotify, purchase artists music direct from their website and share this.
Spotify is actually even worse. Not only does it pay musicians a pittance, it uses the facebook model, that is it exists to collect personal data on its users.
Bandcamp on the other hand is a platform that is worth artists using. It makes listening, sharing, downloading easy. Bandcamp makes money only if the artists make money.
Bandcamp provides data to the artist, bandcamp lets artists write a biography, list their albums, and tour dates, plus links to their own websites videos, twitter.
And bandcamp lets you download high quality audio.
Vevo, youtube, show videos. It is the artist who had paid to make the video. Often an extremely tacky commercial accompanies the video, that neither the viewer wishes to see, and certainly the artist has no wish to have associated with either themselves or their music. Social media filters and targets what is thrust in our face. Therefore there can be no technological reason why that same technology cannot filter what is not thrust in our face.
To state the obvious, live music needs live music venues, be it the local pub, the indie coffee shop.
One of the consequences of losing 26 pubs a week, is the loss of live music venues.
In Puerto de la Cruz, an old colonial town on the north coast of Tenerife, there is live music everywhere , Castillo de San Felipe, local churches, Abaco.
- Socos Duo
- Coro de Cámara de Garachico en concierto en Castillo de San Felipe
- Concierto de Jazz
- Imágenes de la Compañía MuvenDanz
- Concierto de A Ritmo de Tango
- Música en vivo en Abaco
The Wimbledon Music Festival is an annual event.
West End Centre, a cultural oasis in the wasteland of Aldershot, has an excellent idea, re-tweet a gig and you are put in a draw for an album.
More publicity, more tickets sold, the artists gets better known. Those lucky enough to win an album are going to be tempted to go, or even if they find the do not like, maybe tell a mate who may like.
Musicians have to learn to mingle, to chat, sign CDs. If people have made to effort to attend your concert, this is the least you can do.
Musicians will always want to play music, create new songs, new tunes. People will always want to listen to music. Nothing beats that thrill of stumbling across music no one knows, and thinking wow, that’s great, I want to tell my friends. Or hearing a song you know, and it sends shivers down the spine. To some extent this is being masked by the music industry churning out mediocrity because they think it will sell, to what is a shrinking mass market. Music is not a product. But that brings us back full circle, how do we connect those who create and perform music, to those who wish to enjoy it and embedded within that question, how do those who wish to enjoy, reward the creators? Which brings us back to the travelling minstrels, if they are not fed and watered and given a bed for the night, they will be left out in the cold and starve.
One of the problems with music, is that it has become a background mush, a commodity, it is there all the time whether we want it or not. It then becomes worthless, nothing special. Music used to be something special, something you looked forward to. How often did people go to the opera, or the music hall, or see a band on tour, or even the brass band playing in the bandstand in the park on a Sunday? That is what we need to get back to, music being something special.
The typewriter was a disrupter. It created the office, whole swathes of young women, bashing away at the keys.
Tech, ie the internet, has not killed music, it has provided opportunities.
It is also worth noting, tech is not just changing music, it is changing publishing with platforms like leanpub, it is changing journalism, and with platforms like Medium, it is changing the way writers can communicate.
Then couple this in with blogs, twitter …
Virgin are to be complimented for enabling this debate.
