Nothing Left to Lose: What Happens When Music Becomes Worthless?
In a few days Radiohead's new album In Rainbow will be available on a pay-what-you-like basis to anyone who wishes to download it from them. Take it as a acknowledgment of what everybody already knows: in the digital world that the transnational entertainment-communications conglomerates have done so much to summon in the last 25 years, without apparent regard for the long-term consequences, recorded music--music that people used to buy--has become free. For established artists like Radiohead--or Prince, who launched his new album via a CD tacked on the front of a British Sunday newspaper, or his lordship Paul McCartney, who debuted his latest album through Starbucks, or (worst of all) the Eagles, who are releasing their new album exclusively through an anti-union discount store chain that shall remain nameless--this is all fun 'n' games. Like most artists, they've witnessed the music industry's legendarily shady accounting practices for years, incredible feats in which record companies stayed in business yet somehow, when it came time to pay the creators, never made a dime. So it's gotta be a big kick for all of these dudes to be able to thumb their shapely noses at those who have been screwing them for years. They ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more, and they're telling us all about it.
Well, good for all of these guys (except the Eagles, of course). It's hard to shed a tear for mega-corporations whose record companies are run by beancounters who are bad at math. And most of us weren't likely to buy a new Radiohead album anyway, so "free" just means some of us will download it, listen to it and delete it. No loss there for anyone, I guess. Meanwhile, Radiohead will receive tons of applause from not just their loyal fanbase, but also the "information wants to be free" internet booster contingent. They'll be the subject of every music-related conversation for weeks. And will rake it in at the turnstiles, as they always do, when they perform live. Though their music is now worthless, Radiohead's value as an income-earning entity has increased. Savvy.
But hold on. What happens to those no-to-low-income artists, many of them doing signficant work, who haven't established themselves in the pre-burn/download era? Going deeper, what happens to the entire infrastructure of artists, enthusiasts, record labels, live venues, stores and media (TV, radio, print, etc) that made Radiohead's ability to give away their music possible in the first place? What happens to this ecology, unbalanced and out-of-whack as it already was, when its currency has become almost completely worthless?
The most immediate effect is already apparent: there are fewer and fewer mediated (or, curated) places devoted to music. In America, which has an underdeveloped commons, those places are marketplaces: in other words, record stores. And the really good record stores in this country--the ones owned and operated by knowledgeable enthusiasts, staffed by dayjobbing musicians and music freaks, local clearinghouses of art and information, where meaningful discoveries and lasting connections have historically been made--started disappearing a few years ago and extinction seems to be nearing. What's going to replace these stores? The schools got rid of significant art appreciation and application long ago. Public libraries, our repositories of cultural knowledge, are criminally underfunded and understaffed. Publicly funded performance venues of all sizes exist all over Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, but good luck finding such spaces in the USA.
These spaces are important, because by containing elements of both chance and quality control, and by being in the real, physical, analog world, they increase the quality and complexity of communication between people. You take those away and you guaran-goddamn-tee a society of atomized, alienated consumers, disconnected cubicle people who gaze at computer screens more than each other's faces: humans, in other words, in love with machines. Which, I guess, is what "Radiohead" means. Goodbye, art, community and communion: hello, paranoid androids.
Jay Babcock is editor/owner of Arthur Magazine
I am going to strongly disagree with that turn your post took in the few paragraphs. I would not have expected such an institutionalized and conservative offering from the editor/owner of Arthur Magazine. This read was very disappointing and I hope your blog/magazine readers will not take it at face value.
You are contributing to the misinformed, and just plain wrong assessment of the future of music that we've been hearing about from the RIAA and its cohorts for the past 8 years or so. You are fighting a form of distribution that has the ability to increase the worth of lesser known artists more than the old pay as you go model of the past could ever dream of. By making the music free and open artists are able to expand their reach. Here we need a graph of the total number of previously unknown groups that went on to sell a gold record 20 years ago vs. 5 years ago. My guess is we would find something interesting.
More importantly, it is not just about selling records today. There are plenty of ways to monetize music in this digital world. Stating that the culture of creativity is on an inevitable decline due to free music offered by Prince and Radiohead is just asinine and misleading.
You even bring up the infrastructure these artists rely upon. Have you used the internet lately? I am able to find information on one of Kid Bailey's very few recordings right alongside an obscure pop-psych piece from Gordon's Buster in 1968 all in the same blog. The internet has allowed this music infrastructure to move from a finite, offline environment to an infinite, online commons that allows anyone to access it on demand. How can this be stifling creativity? I will offer that it is doing the exact opposite and contrary to your analysis, propagating the creative output of lesser known artists to a greater number of individuals who are then in turn put in a position to help the artist monetize their work.
Jay, I believe you have some explaining with regard to this post. It is a half-hearted analysis looking to piggy-back the headlines Radiohead has been receiving lately.
The creativity and institutions that back these artists are still alive and thriving. You cannot predict the demise of an art form just because the method or process has changed. What you are trying to deal with but lack the eloquence to state correctly is simply a severe bout of nostalgia for the ways of the past.
For us commentators to think too long and hard about the ramifications for the music business is one thing, but for the average music fan who has nothing but distaste for the major labels and their ilk this offer is manna from heaven. And according to the many readers responses on the New York Times blogs I've read, they appear to be voting with their pounds and dollars.
You mention the record stores as filters, curators and mediators. I agree, *that was once true*, but no longer, those stores were vanishing before the advent of file sharing. I always preferred to shop at the indie store on my block but it wasn't too long until the person serving me was about as knowledgeable as my mother when it came to music! The idea of the filter and mediator soon evaporated. I turned to music and MP3 blogs where I could find music that had been filtered and was delivered without opinion. Music discovery will continue this way as well as through online radio stations such as Seattle's KEXP.
Meanwhile Radiohead should just be praised for turning its back on the recording industry.
Dave Allen, Gang of Four and www.pampelmoose.com