Industry Commentary: Blurred Lines

We've all heard the old cliche; "Yer generation just don't make no good music anymurr!" The fact is however that more music is being made, and being made available to mass audiences, in modern times than ever before. And consequently, more good music is being made as well. Thats right, I said it. The 1960's cannot hold a candle to the first decade of the new milennium. Granted, todays music is hugely in debt to everything that has been done before it, but that is simply the nature of history. The facts still remain. The question here, is why. And the answer quite obviously is the internet.

The bad rep our generation gets pegged with stems almost completely from what is considered "popular" music in todays society (quite a different thing from "pop" music at this point, I must point out). Popular music has always been characterized, most easily, by what gets played on the radio. This is a grossly unfair evaluation of the state of music however, as radio is long dead. Don't even bother bringing out the paddles. At one point being the medium of learning about new bands and simply listening to music, it is now a lifeless mass of sonic sludge. In order to make my point: you undoubtedly have the 'classic rock' station in your city, yes? And every time you flip to it you know exactly what you are going to hear. The same one hundred songs, characterized of the same tired Steve Miller to CCR to The Rolling Stones to Aerosmith, and that one Bob Seger song that no one has truly enjoyed in two decades. You'll here Led Zeppelin, but never a cut like "Bron Y Aur Stomp". If you get Pink Floyd it will be "Money". If your lucky enough to hear T. Rex it will undoubtedly be "Bang A Gong (Get it On)". Somehow, a classic rock radio station, after years of existence, will have never played cuts by acts like King Crimson, The Pretty Things, The Zombies, or Van der Graaf Generator. Much less deep cuts from Traffic, Jethro Tull, The Kinks, etc. My point being that none of these "classic rock dj's" has made a concious decision when it comes to what they are about to spin twenty years. And lack of conciousness is death. Not convinced yet? All things must evolve in order to stay alive. Are Talking Heads not yet classic enough to get a cut here and there? Would anyone really change the station if Pixies "Where Is My Mind?" came on the air? Not to mention that a rock station should see it as their sole responsibility to preserve a genre (if not radio, who else is going to do it?). Yet, have you ever heard the Black Keys or the Raconteurs on such a station? Where is their deserved air time coming from? Natural selection has spoken- radio is dead.

You may argue that by picking a station that plays ostensibly old music, I made it easier on myself. But the popular stations of today are really no different from popular stations of the 60's. These stations are not reactions to what people like, they generate what people like. Those who are not inclined to seek music on their own simply flip on the radio, and hence are then more likely to buy a record that they have some familiarity with. These said records, are just as corporately influenced ("manufactured" so to speak) today as they were fifty years ago. We have Lady Ga Ga, they had the Monkees. If the oldtimers change their argument to "our manufactured music was better than yours is.." I will humbly concede.

As we all remember from our highschool biology courses, when an ecological niche is left empty something quickly comes scurrying in to fill it. Exit radio, enter internet. The internet did not take this spot without competition. For awhile car commercials were seeming to emerge as the new medium for musical discovery (God help us..), and one could argue that the movie "Garden State" did more for popularizing a slew of talented underground acts than any other single influence post year 2000. In the end, however, the internet was just too big, too powerful, and had too many options. Hooray, we are saved! Right? Or is the internet, seemingly the saviour of music, slowly destroying it...

Its an old conundrum. An ecosystem has too many snakes, so they import mongooses. Now the snakes are gone, but there is a mongoose problem. A city has too much crime, so they bolster up the police. Now crime is gone, but there is a cop problem. The music industry is stifled, so it unleashes itself to the world via internet. Now we can all hear the music, but yes, there is an internet problem. I don't really need to outline it for you. Music has become devalued. Through file sharing anyone can hear anything (and everything) for free. Artists are forced to stream albums pre-release just to get the quality version heard, as opposed to the leak. iTunes has built a singles obsessed culture, and copyright laws as far as sampling and remixing goes are all but irrelevant. Music is in chaos. But a glorious chaos it is. Just like a riot on a city street, windows are being smashed and flat screen TV's run off with. Because the beauty of chaos, is opportunity. With all things equal, why yes, I'll listen to Spoon's new record, and why not have a large helping of these three completely unknown acts as well? There's no reason not to, and the unknown bands love it. They finally have equal footing with the big boys. Shelf space they would never dream of in a record store, is theirs for the taking if they simply put it on the net. Essentially, where this is going, is one central question. Is the creation of music primarily a business (to which the internet seeks to destroy), an art (which the net has accelerated)?

In a capitalistic society, pragmatically you must admit that business is a real concern. Without monetary means to devote a life to making music, there will be no more 'Abbey Road', or 'Come On Feel The Illinoise!". However, from the art perspective, there has never been such an explosion since the Renaissance. So logically we ask, how did the Renaissance solve this problem? Patronage. Independent, wealthy men, who paid artists to simply live and make art. Yes, it sounds naive and idealistic, but this really happened. You may argue that record labels fill this void, but a record label is too firmly rooted in capitalist modalities. Meaning, simply, its all about the money. If bands aren't being profitable, they are either dropped or "urged" to change their sound. Tours are structured around convenience and cost. In the end record labels are about pushing merch and licensing. The key, is to remove artists from the sphere of capitalism altogether. In this way, they are completely removed from all of the hindrances of the internet's blurred lines between the two. There will be no pressure to put everything out for free simply to get it heard, and there will be no need for comprimising the medium in which it is conveyed for the sake of listener convenience. All choices made, would be made based on artistic, and not business decisions. For example, artists wouldn't need to (for the sake of necessity) sign with iTunes, where there works of labor and love will be chopped up by listeners to lone tracks. They won't need to stream albums weeks before release. Tours could take on more originality. Heck, they could release everything exclusively on vinyl, just because, if that's what the muses were telling them. At the same time however, the internet would remain as it is, an outlet for everybody, simply without all the blurred lines.

To begin with, I call upon Paul Mcartney, David Bowie, Bruce Springstein, Robert Plant, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, David Gilmour, Brian Eno, Thom Yorke, and Steve Winwood. Find young, artistically minded, talented young acts. Take them under your wing. I'm not talking about just giving them a shout out, I'm not talking about just letting them record in your studio. Give them a salary. Give them the resources to do whatever it is that their zeal for music drives them to do. After these fine gentlemen have sewn the seeds, and the fruits have been tasted, the trend will catch. We will have billionaires like Donald Trump and Bill Gates doing the same, and patronage will be born again at last. The second renaissance truly come. And as good as music is now- oh I can only imagine.

I can only think of one example in modern times of a somewhat similar relationship. I think it had to do with an oddball named Andy Warhol, and a group who called themselves the Velvet Underground... convinced yet? You know what has to be done. Implore your neighborhood superstar until they just can't say no. Just as radio turned over to the fruitful age of the internet, the next step must invariably come.