[wower]

Wow. Why have I never heard of that guy? What a great article. It almost didn't get clicked but I had some extra time at the end of work today. From the first page he is right on so many levels. It would be worth some time to pick it all apart in detail but it deserves a re-read first. I especially like his point about how music historically always had intricstic value, then it turned into a product, and now with digitalization is being free'd again. Thanks for the link clark, really.

 

[majid]

Here is an article explaining how the music industry itself perceives the situation:
Music exec: "Music 1.0 is dead."

 

[wower]

Reading the Music 1.0 is dead article made me wince. Not only was what the speakers quoted said common sense, I should have been the one to write about it and get the props!

grr.. I just hate treating this stuff like it's some kind of mystery. The corprate guy sounded like the captain of a sinking ship, the difference here being that he was in denial the ship was sinking. He was determind to wegde himself into the middle of the musician and consumer. The other indie record lable guy only stated the obvious; what this board already knew, and what many have been practicing for years, that we don't need major labels filtering content. In 2008 that's the worst argument ever for the viability of major lables!! Such a great thread that keeps on giving!

 

[majid]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wower /img/forum/go_quote.gif The corporate guy sounded like the captain of a sinking ship, the difference here being that he was in denial the ship was sinking.

Except the Titanic had a decent orchestra.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by majid /img/forum/go_quote.gif Here is an article explaining how the music industry itself perceives the situation: Music exec: "Music 1.0 is dead."

Thanks for the link, Majid. I think the article is a good snapshot of where things stand right now. As wower points out, however, it's all pretty clear at this point, and it's a bit pathetic to read of execs who still think it's their role to decide what the public should and shouldn't hear. Let's face it: they don't seek out artists; they try to manufacture them.

I think the story leaves out one increasingly important factor: music blogs. The industry seems to have taken a "hands off" approach to them, even though they give away selected tracks for free. Big content could easily sic their lawyers on sites like Licorice Pizza or Stereogum, but I think there is at least a dim understanding that the hardcore music blogs are tastemakers. They present new music to people who are looking for just that. I can't speak for anyone else, but I have found an enormous amount of new, interesting music on these sites over the course of the last year or so. They are a real bright spot for me.

 

[wower]

Quote:

Originally Posted by majid /img/forum/go_quote.gif Except the Titanic had a decent orchestra.

ZING!

Returning to drben's previous point about finding hope that we aren't witnessing the crash and burn of good music during our times: I wanted to bring up the fact that 2007 was a phenomenally good year for music! I could go on and on about all the good music I heard, not only in podcasts, but looking at the year end best of lists, I could seriously buy half the disks on there. I don't think that's representive of a rut.

It's also worth noting that during this time I have been overseas and out of touch with what future modes the "Music 1.0 is dead" article talks about and the points raised in the OP's article. And yet I still think 2007 was a great year; How could I have discovered such great music without the traditional gatekeepers? It's not mysterious, blogs, podcast, friends, internet radio, head-fi, etc.; their dead and they don't even know it.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wower /img/forum/go_quote.gif ZING! How could I have discovered such great music without the traditional gatekeepers? It's not mysterious, blogs, podcast, friends, internet radio, head-fi, etc.; their dead and they don't even know it.

wower, you have crystallized an important subtext to this discussion. There is nothing wrong with music or musicians. We are witnessing a sea-change in the way music is distributed, that's all. All of the mechanisms you cite are out there in the open; anyone who has the privilege of a broadband connection can take full advantage of the new model. But the old guard refuses to adapt, and it refuses to die. That's the problem.

P.S. I hear that the Black Kids are in the studio with Bernard Butler, late of Suede. Can't wait to hear how that turns out...

The Black Kids could be the best example of the new model. The NYT tapped into the buzz here.

 

[wower]

Are really white people allowed to listen to them? Like tofu, glow in the dark white?

1st point:
I'm glad we can agree the majors don't even know their dead but I noticed I didn't answer your "band of a generation" question very well. Will radiohead still be radiohead? With all the great music in 2007 from Canada and abroad, I like to think music still has to pass the test of time. No one can to predict who might be around in 50 years, but I'd bet good money it won't be britany and the like. That stuff is unlistenable even now! It would be interesting for someone with more knowledge of classical music to enlighten us about how today's classical canon came to be and why minor composers stayed minor. I suspect from my own study the two periods may be too different to extract any help conclusions.

2nd point:
For me at least, I don't think it's so much that distribution has changed but rather how I discover music. My discoveries are now completely disconnected from anyone with a major marketing budget. (It's a different debate about why I'm sticking with CDs, tho I admit some people on head-fi have amazing comp rigs.) Maybe this issue needs more definition but I think the contrast is significant enough for further study.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wower /img/forum/go_quote.gif Are really white people allowed to listen to them? Like tofu, glow in the dark white?

Well, I think that their name is ironic. The band includes both African-Americans and so-called White people. I don't think there is a race issue here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wower /img/forum/go_quote.gif 1st point: I'm glad we can agree the majors don't even know their dead but I noticed I didn't answer your "band of a generation" question very well. Will radiohead still be radiohead? With all the great music in 2007 from Canada and abroad, I like to think music still has to pass the test of time. No one can to predict who might be around in 50 years, but I'd bet good money it won't be britany and the like. That stuff is unlistenable even now!

I despise Britney Spears. I thought that was clear.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wower /img/forum/go_quote.gif 2nd point: For me at least, I don't think it's so much that distribution has changed but rather how I discover music. My discoveries are now completely disconnected from anyone with a major marketing budget.

Umm...That's exactly the point I was trying to make..


Quote:

Originally Posted by wower /img/forum/go_quote.gif (It's a different debate about why I'm sticking with CDs, tho I admit some people on head-fi have amazing comp rigs.) Maybe this issue needs more definition but I think the contrast is significant enough for further study.

This conversation has gone in a direction that I could not have predicted. I have no interest in continuing this conversation.

 

[wower]

I felt that we were talking about the same thing but I just thought I should make the distinction explicit, which is why I noted perhaps the subject just needed more definition. I guess I just had a conversation with a friend the other day still on my brain where I had to talk him off a ledge where he was saying all media should be purely digital. I was arguing the point a more democratic process of discovery through the internet was coming.

 

[V-DiV]

There was a golden age of music back in the late 1960's - early 1970's during the early days of FM radio. Before big money took over the FM band there was real music happening. DJ's played what they liked. They played any good song from an album, not just the promoted single. They announced the songs and bands that they broadcast. They spent air time talking about the music and bands. After listening to and playing rock I eventually "graduated" to listening to and playing jazz then classical. After a few years I went back to listen to rock on the radio and found that FM rock had died. FM radio was dead. The music scene had been taken over by big money. DJ's no longer played what they liked or talked about the music or hardly even announced the songs. They just cued up the canned tapes of songs prepared by the corporate owners determined by some market firm's focus grow studies. Their air time is devoted to promoting the sponsors. So all we get on FM pop radio now is mass market, least common denominator, appeal to the greatest number of non-critical casual listener, formulaic "music." Big money has for decades controlled the means of production and distribution of music and they have used it soleley to make money by cramming their mass market pre-packaged formula crap and topping it off with additional money from advertising attached to their phoney mass promoted product.

A new age has dawned with affordable computer based music production and Internet distribution. The music can live again! At least until big money figures out how to get control of distribution again. Beware.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by V-DiV /img/forum/go_quote.gif There was a golden age of music back in the late 1960's - early 1970's during the early days of FM radio. Before big money took over the FM band there was real music happening. DJ's played what they liked. They played any good song from an album, not just the promoted single.

It made me very sad and very nostalgic to read your post. Your analysis is spot on, unfortunately. You are especially correct about the "big money" component. When FM was making zero money, the corporate drones didn't care a whit about it. In fact, most FM stations simply passed through content from AM stations that the broadcaster also owned. Then there was an FCC ruling that a certain percentage of FM content had to be unique, and that led to the golden age you and I remember so well. From that point until the ad dollars started to pile up, FM radio was a musical wonderland.

I can't get across to younger people what it was like to turn on WNEW-FM in 1977 and hear a band like Television. I remember thinking to myself "Who is this guy who sings like Patti Smith, and what is up with these amazing guitar freakouts?!" And of course I could make the Patti Smith comparison only because NEW was playing her stuff, too.

 

[jung]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrBenway /img/forum/go_quote.gif NetRadio is promising, and may yet be better than FM was in the heyday of freeform radio. We ain't there yet, to put it mildly. First of all, I'm deeply suspicious of any algorithm that purports to know what I want to hear. Second, nothing online (short of flac or shn downloads) comes close, to my ears, to the SQ of a strong FM signal through a good tuner and sound system. The best streaming quality I've found is 320K MP3. There is very little of that available, and it's still not good enough. I just don't believe that it's worth trading SQ for selection and availability.

I have link to a station streaming 1411kbps on my page:
http://radiobit.50webs.com/

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jung /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have link to a station streaming 1411kbps on my page: http://radiobit.50webs.com/

Wow. And all this time I believed the people who told me I wouldn't get anywhere by complaining. Thanks so much for the KEXP link! Just opened it, and I've got the live feed playing now. I've subscribed to KEXP's Live Performance RSS feed for a while; just downloaded the Ravonettes SXSW set earlier today. I've really enjoyed these files, but always wished I could get the direct station feed, online and uncompressed. NYC is a little far from their broadcast tower...

I will definately check out the other links on your page. Thank you again!

 

[Manny Calavera]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vcoheda /img/forum/go_quote.gif there's plenty of good music out there and plenty if not more garbarge. nothing new.

Agreed.You juat have to be willing to dig for it.