Month of January , 2007
While I was searching for the reason Frank Zappa's music was recently pulled from iTunes (actually not of particular interest to myself musically, but a friend had mentioned it to me and I was interested in the why of the situation), I came across this article written by Zappa in 1983.
In it, Zappa talks about the physical waste associated with the sale of music, and the associated waste of material in promoting these physical representations of music by the colorfully described "cocaine-tweezed A&R Brass." He mentions the advent of the compact disc as a smaller and possibly more efficient way to distribute the music (he doesn't mention any issues regarding sonic fidelity though, fwiw).
Zappa also notes that it is not the medium but the music itself that is of primary concern and interest: "MUSIC CONSUMERS LIKE TO CONSUME MUSIC . . . NOT PIECES OF VINYL WRAPPED IN PIECES OF CARDBOARD."
The next section is of particular interest today, as it relates directly to an attitude that I believe needs to be adopted regarding file sharing and digital music piracy. Zappa, however, was talking about home cassette recording as the issue of the day in 1983: "It is our proposal to take advantage of the POSITIVE ASPECTS of a NEGATIVE TREND afflicting the record industry today: HOME TAPING via cassette of material released on vinyl. "
All that is very interesting, but what is truly incredible is Zappa's proposal in the face of all of this:
"We propose to acquire the rights to digitally duplicate and store THE BEST of every record company's difficult-to-move Quality Catalog Items [Q.C.I.], store them in a central processing location, and have them accessible by phone or cable TV, directly patchable into the user's home taping appliances, with the option of direct digital-to-digital transfer to F-1 (SONY consumer level digital tape encoder), Beta Hi-Fi, or ordinary analog cassette (requiring the installation of a rentable D-A converter in the phone itself . . . the main chip is about $12).
All accounting for royalty payments, billing to the customer, etc. would be automatic, built into the initial software for the system.
The consumer has the option of subscribing to one or more Interest Categories, charged at a monthly rate, without regard for the quantity of music he or she decides to tape.
Providing material in such quantity at a reduced cost could actually diminish the desire to duplicate and store it, since it would be available any time day or night.
Monthly listings could be provided by catalog, reducing the on-line storage requirements of the computer. The entire service would be accessed by phone, even if the local reception is via TV cable. "
That's right, Zappa was touting a monthly fee based music system in 1983, such as the one Rhapsody currently offers (also, the added emphasis was his, not mine). Although Rhapsody still lacks a large base and is still behind the iTunes model of DRM based distribution in the online, landscape, I think the model will catch on with time. Bob Lefsetz explains part of the issue:
"When people tell you subscription is the future, they’re right. But it’s not rental. Not for a long long time. Yes, eventually people will have no need to own the product, but that’s closer to ten years out than five, and I’d say more like fifteen. Call it human nature, people want to OWN things, call them their own, have them forever.
Rhapsody IS an excellent service, it’s just that Real doesn’t have enough cash to market it properly. Most people have no idea how it works. If they did, it would make inroads."
Another related idea is to utilize existing illegal P2P networks and monetize them in the way YouTube has, with advertising and perhaps even a monthly access fee as well to pay the people who own the music. YouTube was built on the backs of copyrighted material and I think distributed music sharing networks could take a lesson from them. The problem is that they're all scared to death of the RIAA and record companies who haven't turned the corner and stopped fighting the inevitable rather than taking advantage of the existing infrastructure of people devouring large amounts of music. It seems to me that they've left money on the table by not trying to capitalize sooner, money that could have made it into the hands of the artists.
DiggLast night I read an article in the New York Times entitled Truly Indie Fans (who titles these articles), a look at the place of african americans in the indie rock scene and their relationship with rock and roll in general.
There was one thing that immediately struck me as odd: the article was in the Fashion and Style section of the Times, not the music section - it was an article that approached the subject as a lifestyle choice rather than a musical one. This was reflected in the article's explorations of what it means on a surface level to identify with a music scene, something I've never participated in or understood. When I got into grunge I didn't start wearing ripped jeans and flannels, and when I got into jazz I didn't start wearing...I don't know, what do jazz fans or musicians wear?
As soon as I started reading the article, two of the first thoughts that popped into my mind were: I wonder if they'll discuss Jimi Hendrix and the backlash from african american audiences to his perceived pandering to white audiences and use of white musicians in his band. I also wondered if there would be any mention or discussion of the Black Rock Coalition made famous by Vernon Reid and Living Colour.
Indeed, both subjects were mentioned in passing, amidst discussion of extra-musical factors such as fashion. It's a shame that the article wasn't in the music section so it couldn't delve into getting some musical answers from both audiences and performers.
I wonder if the question should be less about acceptance within the scene itself and more about why the scene is so racially homogenized in the first place, and the reasons why musical genres are still so sharply divided amongst race lines.
Not to mention the fact that the term blipster is totally inane and an absurd an extraneous racial label. In any case, hipster is not, or at least should not be, racially exclusive, so if we want to be fair, we'd have to have whipsters and blipsters.
I would like to commend their mention of James Spooner and Afropunk, a great documentary and an in depth look at race and identity in the punk scene. It offers a much more thorough examination of race in a genre that was overwhelmingly white to begin with. I haven't read some of the other books mentioned in the article but I'd like to check them out. If anyone has a personal recommendation of where to start, please let me know.
The look Bird gives Coleman Hawkins around the 0:26 mark is priceless.
I recently had the pleasure of reading an essay entitled: "Musically Expressed Ideas About Music: Techniques and Technologies for Performing Ethnomusicology in the Digital Age," written by Wayne Marshall over at wayne&wax. The premise of his essay is that music itself is a valid means of expressing critical ideas about music, in the aural rather than verbal realm. The interesting slant that he offers on this basic idea is that technology, and specifically remixes or mashups, offer a particularly fertile ground for this type of aural expression, and that juxtaposition of musical elements can provide a critical framework that is fruitful in its own right, apart from any verbal commentary.
He does an excellent job of explaining the history of ideas relating to performance as a valid and important aspect of ethnomusicological practice, including referencing the works of Mantle Hood and Richard Taruskin.
Although I never tackled the technological aspects of improvisation (something I am currently preparing to do i the near future) in my essay The Aural Princple, I did have a chapter entitled Music and the Realm of Non-verbal Understanding. While the contents of the chapter are tangential to the thesis of "Musically Expressed Ideas About Music," the basic understanding musicians expressed was that they believed music to be a complete expression that required no further explication verbally. Of course that won't stop any self respecting ethnomusicologist from tackling the social and cultural ramifications of musical practices, it points towards an intrinsic value in music itself as a medium for communication.
I particularly enjoyed and agreed with Wayne's assertions regarding the democratizing effect of technology and the internet, and I believe he's absolutely correct that embracing these modes of communication allows for a much wider and more diverse audience for the ideas. Besides, as anyone who has ever listened to someone talk about music for a lengthy period of time can attest, hearing actual music to support and further the course of a discussion is a welcome respite from processing words about music rather than music itself. Wayne is proposing to take it one step further: to let music become a discourse unto itself, and perhaps support that with some words. He's not calling for a wholesale replacement or anything quite that radical, but I believe he's right to draw attention to the ways music itself can play a larger role in the academic study of musical practices in ethnomusicological circles.
And now, to follow my own advice and shut up so you can hear some music, check out one of Wayne's examples, a mashup of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
I've just finished reading Daniel J. Levitin's book This Is Your Brain On Music, a fascinating foray into the world of music cognition and neurological studies. Levitin has written a book that tackles these subjects in a manner that might appeal to an average reader, rather than burying his thoughts in copious academic language and rhetoric. The result is a book that is highly accessible, but in my opinion lacks depth in some areas that could have been developed further without sacrificing the accessibility. He succeeds in providing an excellent overview of the current state of understanding and research, and he has a knack for providing examples that give the reader practical explanations and applications for his ideas.
The book is organized very well, moving from the basic question of why he would want to combine and mix the fields of science and music to the basics of music for the non-musician reader (a chapter I read but in hindsight could have skipped entirely), moving on to various issues concerning the neurological processing of music.
Some of the ideas that I found most intriguing were those related to the ways music utilizes so much of the neurological structures, engaging the different areas in a way that from my observations points to a unifying effect of music on the brain. His discussions of the possible evolutionary role of music in social bonding and mating advantages were particularly interesting, as he attempted to refute the idea that music was merely "auditory cheesecake" that stimulated our pleasure centers and provided little in the way of evolutionary advantages.
I thought the section on the ways various disorders such as Williams Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorders affect musical enjoyment and processing. Basically, he shows that people with Williams Syndrome have a particular inclination towards music, both as listeners and performers, and they are often quite accomplished as performers. People with autism however report being unmoved emotionally by music, although they are often interested structurally - symptoms that make sense in the scope of autistic people that have trouble reading the emotions of others. The neurological slant comes when Levitin points out that the neocerebellum is larger than normal in people with Williams Syndrome and smaller in than normal in people who have Autism, and that the cerebellum as a whole plays an important role in music cognition.
Levitin has an interesting background, as he was a producer and engineer for many years before entering the world of academia - perhaps this explains his inclination to write a book that is accessible to the general public rather than the niche academic bubble of music cognition specialists. I certainly enjoyed his name dropping and anecdotal stories and quotes from musicians like Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and Neil Young. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and I appreciate his detailed bibliography with personal notes on the books so that I can explore the subject further.
Tom Waits recently released a sprawling 3 disc box set called Orphans - each disc has its own theme, respectively Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards. It's three years in the making, a collaboration between Waits and his longtime collaborator and wife, Kathleen Brennan. I'm incredibly impressed with the box set so far, although I've only been listening for a short time and haven't really had time to digest the entire three discs.
To give you an idea of the incredible diversity of music on the box set, I'll let Tom Waits describe it in his own words: "On Orphans there is a mambo about a convict who breaks out of jail with a fishbone, a gospel train song about Charlie Whitman and John Wilkes Boothe, a delta blues about a disturbing neighbor, a spoken word piece about a woman who was struck by lightening, an 18th century Scottish madrigal about murderous sibling rivalry, an American backwoods a cappella about a hanging. Even a song by Jack Kerouac and a spiritual with my own personal petition to the Lord with prayer…There’s even a show tune about an old altar boy and a rockabilly song about a young man who’s begging to be lied to. " If you want to read the rest of Waits' description of the box set, click here - you'll surely be entertained by Waits' unique prose and vivid language.
Waits has even made a music video for the first song off Brawlers, called Lie To Me, a blues tinged rocker that to my ears evokes Howlin' Wolf and Elvis simulatenously, all filtered through a unique Waitsian lens. This was one song he played live when I saw him on his recent tour at the Auditorium Theatre here in Chicago, and it holds up on the record just like it did live.
Tom Waits is such an inspiration as an artist - someone who's evolved over time, and in his more mature years is still making vital music. He continues to change while retaining a quality that is uniquely Waits and instantly identifiable. He consistently manages to make music that has a timeless quality, that makes you think you've heard it before even if you haven't - the ballads on the Bawlers disc exemplify this quality.
If you're interested in further reading, there's a recent World Cafe interview, a Harp Magazine article, a Chicago Tribune interview, and a Pitchfork interview.
Apparently someone gets the message:
They've cut their pressing expenses to nothing, converted any distribution expenses into bandwidth expenses, and in doing so greatly increased the amount of music they can release. They're also speeding up the process of the music getting into the hands and ears of their audiences.
It makes sense for Rope-a-dope to go digital - they've got a young hip audience who I think will support their move. I know I will - I'll be happy to buy some of their online offerings if only to support their taking a chance amongst the astounding wussiness of the recording industry to go digital.
I'm also impressed that they've identified the talents of Josh Abrams, a Chicago based musician with incredible talent, whose release on the Eastern Developments label this year really impressed me.
They're doing it right - MP3s, no DRM. I hope they make a move to also offer a lossless format like FLAC in the future, but that's being picky.
What are the implications of going purely digital? I haven't had time to really let it sink in, but here are some preliminary thoughts:
The age of physical restrictions on the length of an album or collection of songs is over. No more EPs, LPs, CDs to determine how long a collection of songs can run.
One ramification of this is that it is no longer necessary for artists to create albums. They can just release songs if they want. They could release 4 songs at once as a cohesive musical statement if that fits their creative output better than 12-15 songs.
Because there is no more pressing and distribution to be done, it will be easier than ever to release music. Along with this comes increased responsibility on the part of artists and labels than we see currently. Responsibility to release only the best recordings, the best music.
If people get burned buying downloads, if they feel that the label or the artist is releasing everything just because they can, there's going to be a lack of trust, and that is why trust is important than ever.
Major labels burned those bridges long ago, but lots of smaller labels like Rope-a-dope still have that trust based relationship to build on. It's going to serve them well.
Congratulations Rope-a-dope, you deserve a pat on the back.
Another label that has been embracing the digital realm and deserves mention is Dave Douglas' GreenLeaf Music.
Chris Anderson over at The Long Tail has posted his analysis of 2006 music sales and boy does it look grim. The chart he posted is particularly interesting because it doesn't just graph total sales, but rather the number of hit albums, Gold, Platinum, Multi-Platinum, and Diamond. Overall, it's the worst year for hit album sales since 1983, and there has been a precipitous decline since 2001.
In Bob Lefsetz's predictions for 2007, his first prediction is that CD sales will continue to tank. He puts a positive spin on the situation by comparing the collapse of album sales and the rise of the digital music era to the collapse of the use film and the rise of digital cameras. The result of course is that people take many more pictures digitally than they ever did with film - Lefsetz argues that people will own far more music digitally than they ever did when they bought CDs.
Speaking from personal experience, this is certainly the case, but I think his analogy is a bit flawed. Music must be listened to and more is not always better - I have tons of music that I never get to listen to, although I like to have the option to do so if I should choose.
All of this runs parallel to the larger trend happening in media more generally, by the likes of blogs, YouTube, etc - power being redistributed to the many from the few. With the collapse of blockbusters and major label leverage, the power of independent artists, producers, and small record labels increases in comparison. We're experiencing a leveling of the playing field that represents a huge opportunity for many people to step up and stake their claim.
A big question mark still remains: how to monetize recorded music if you can't sell CDs and piracy is rampant. YouTube is apparently worth billions of dollars and it was built largely on the back of copyrighted material - so why can't file sharing be monetized in a similar fashion? There are a number of factors - one is that there is no big centralized place like YouTube to monetize with advertising, and the other is that RIAA and other old-school stalwarts are so stuck in the past that they can't see the fact that the future is already here.
I could be wrong, but I sincerely believe that people don't want to steal music from artists. Most people don't perceive file sharing and piracy as stealing from artists as much as stealing from record labels. And record labels have become "the man" in a bad sense, huge impersonal corporations with no soul and no commitment to the artistic development of their acts.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Plenty of independent artists and small record labels are hurt by file sharing as well, which is why it is important to find ways for musicians to get paid for what they do. I think if people had a sense that when they bought a CD or a file from Apple's store that MOST of the music was going to the artist, they'd be more inclined to do so than if they feel like they're supporting a corporate infrastructure.
Ultimately I think the people who completely demonize file sharing fail to see the ways it helps artists, and the people who are complete proponents fail to see the ways it sincerely hurts them by not supporting a key part of their artistic output. However, there is a middle ground that includes DRMless files sold for reasonable prices distributed in a manner that has low overhead, a system built to help the artists as much as possible.
It's time for artists to realize that the state of the recording industry is such that record sales are not going to be the cash cow they once were. Loyal fans and consistent touring are the ways to make money as a musician right now, a situation that jazz musicians had to face up to as a reality a long time ago.
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