If you can't remember life as a music fan in 1999, you'll have to imagine it. No iTunes. No iPods. No Spotify. No bottomless quarry of music clips on YouTube. A new album cost £16.
Fred Durst was the biggest rock star on earth, Campag Velocet were on the cover of NME, and about the most fun you could have online was clicking around a Compuserve chatroom at 3am, wishing you were dead. Or maybe that was just me.
Now look: a torrent of music, never more than a keystroke away, much of it free. Music surrounds us as never before. Meanwhile, the process of making it has been democratised.
Artists no longer need record labels. For those willing to exploit it, the web represents, in Thom Yorke's words, "the most amazing broadcasting network ever built". Lucky us, right?
Not exactly. We may listen to more music than ever, but our connection with it is shallower, more fleeting. The past ten years of online free exchange have created a paradise for consumers of music, and meant catastrophe for the people who make and sell it.
Indeed, at the risk of sounding like a Jan Moir editorial, you could build a strong case for the internet being the worst thing that ever happened to music.
Some figures. Global sales of recorded music have halved, from a historic peak of $37 billion in 2000, to $18 billion in 2008. The videogame industry overtook the music business in 2007, and is projected to utterly dwarf it by 2011.
So what happened? Just as iPod culture boosted the importance of single tracks at the expense of albums, piracy caused the market value of those songs to plummet to near-zero.
Consequently, the CD – the magic format that kept the industry's profit margin at a blockbusting 30% throughout the '80s and early '90s - has been steadily displaced, first by the MP3, and then by the death of ownership itself. In the next decade we won't download, we'll stream, mostly on our mobile phones.
Social media has played a part in this – though not in the way you might think. In 2005, the press decided en masse that Lily Allen and Arctic Monkeys owed their success to Myspace. This was largely a fantasy.
Lily Allen had the benefit of Parlophone's marketing budget before she ever posted a blog – and Arctic Monkeys were hardly social media gurus: according to Alex Turner they had "no idea" what Myspace was, leaving it to fans to create the page and upload the songs.
What was radical and prescient about the band's early rise was the simple fact they gave their music away for free.
But they were critical in other ways, too. Arctic Monkeys were the last new band to have an explosive, full-spectrum impact, uniting musical tribes, thrilling critics and record-buyers alike.
Increasingly, the net has eroded such universalities, replacing broad consensus with an infinite number of competing viewpoints. That's why it's impossible to pin down precisely what the noughties have meant, musically.
In the 80s there was post-punk, synth-pop, rave; in the '90s there was Britpop. How would you symbolise the past decade? A skinny tie? A Spotify logo?
When Taio Cruz hit Number 1, did you even hear the song? The web makes a mockery of the 'mainstream', sheltering us within our own chosen niche. Yet, curiously, this atomisation has led to a narrowing of diversity. Hype Machine aggregates thousands of blogs, yet somehow Radiohead are always at the top.
After a while, recipients of 'blog buzz' all start to sound alike – vaguely Flaming Lips-y, wonkily eclectic, a bit short on tunes. There's even a genre, 'pitchfolk', to describe the kind of earnest acoustic acts championed by indier-than-thou US bloggers.
More dangerously, blog culture has led to an acceleration in the turnover of new bands. It's an old criticism that NME builds them up to knock 'em down – but our supposed fickleness is nothing compared to the startling speed and ruthlessness with which the blogosphere hypes new acts only to discard them weeks later.
Pity the poor members of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, or Annuals, or Cold War Kids, trying to book a tour once the buzz has dissipated, wondering forlornly where all the good reviews have gone.
Recorded music is no longer profitable. To plug the gap, artists are forced into corporate tie-ins which rob them of their dignity.
When Gallows are tacitly sponsored by Relentless Energy Drink, and Blur and Iggy Pop star in Lego Rock Band, it's hard not to feel that rock and roll's status as an outsider discourse - a release-valve for youthful passions - has been undermined.
Meanwhile, the shift in power from record labels to giant promoters such as Live Nation means the industry is increasingly dominated by a narrow clique of super-league heritage acts.
How to sum up an entire decade? Let's attempt a crude evaluation. Things we've lost: fans queuing at midnight to buy a new album; mixtapes that took an entire Saturday to compile; labels with the budget to take a punt on endless new bands.
What we’ve gained: instant access to a limitless universe of cheap music.
Which is healthier? I know what I think. In 2002, David Bowie predicted music would become a utility, like running water. He was right. The trouble with water is, it has a habit of slipping through your fingers.
NME.COM blogs contain the opinions of the individual writer and not necessarily those of NME magazine or NME.COM.
JimmyTheExplodeR [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 15:01
Music of this decade has given music straight in to the hands of the consumer bypassing the factory so sto speak. While this undoubtably devalues the finacial asspect of music it makes it more personal.
People are more proud of their individual tastes and the querky tracks on theirs ipods. Being confined to just a punk or Rocker, or Ravers has become to much. As a society we've generally become more open and tolerant of other ideas and cultures. And as always music reflects current events. As we move forward to the next decade it'll be interesting to what form music will take to become sustainable. Will this be our liberable years like drugs and free sex of the 60's? To be later repressed in the following years. Over dramatic that may sound its completely plausable. Already legal downloads as a ratio to illegal have tipped significantly to the legal over the course of the deacade. Personally i relish the sounds, and in a decade which has seen the niche's of Afro-pop, alternative folk, R'n'B, Rap Rock, Club, Drum and Bass, Emo all be in the mainstream at once i look to the future and look forward to reaping the benefits of an apparently "saturated music scene"
louis [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 16:02
i'm a musician with an album out now. sales are dismal. why buy an album when you can get it on spotify and (with premium) store it on your hardware. also, promoters as usual are booking big names if you're small, you get packed into some shithole with a 15 second set and a few pennies for the loss of your dignity. it's bleak friends.
Luke Lewis [Member] //November 18 2009 at 16:03
You missed the chance to plug your album Louis... what's your band called?
Denis [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 16:19
Firstly, what a depressing article. I've noticed NME getting more and more down on online music recently, but I still retain the same viewpoint: a true artist shouldn't care how much music they're selling.
Secondly, we hear a lot about how bands are suffering. How about the electronic music scene? Are thing similarly dismal? It seems to me electronica has been going from strength to strength for the last 5 years or so, and for me guitar bands have failed to match the inventiveness and energy coming from dance music and synth pop. Maybe I'm wrong.
P.S. I'm buying more music these days than ever. All because of the internet.
David [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 16:45
The most pithy state of the nation article on this issue that NME has yet published. It's all over bar the shouting folks. Mind you, a return to 18th-century-style patronage and widespread amateur (i.e. not-for-profit) musicianship may not be such a bad thing. If only the Internet could kill off Syco and the TV-tie-in crap; can't see that going anywhere fast.
[Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 16:47
I always get dirty looks from people when I tell them they should buy the music they own rather than downloading it illegally, lets face it, it's stealing no matter what way you look at it
Personally I prefer having the album as a physical thing becasue otherwise you don't have the 'whole' thing. I like looking through the booklet with the pictures in it and the lyrics and I like putting it in a cd player and listening to it straight through. It seems wierd to my friends, I'm fourteen and most of them download music and send it to each other but then, I love music alot more. I find that lots of albums have themes that run through them and the songs are meant to be played in a certain order, if you don't have the album your missing out on that.
Rory [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 16:59
It used to be said that there were 100,000 bands at any one time looking to get signed. I remember being in one, looking for a record deal (it never came - because we were shit). Whatever you might say about the music industry and all the crap that surrounds it, someone has to spot the rare talent among the dross and provide the funds so that bands can record, promote, and survive. This is in danger of all being swept away, to leave 1000s of amateur acts all screaming for attention - and X Factor. You might hate Simon Cowell, but that is the future and the real music story of the decade, because without record sales it is far more profitable to play covers live than originals. Electronic acts are in the same boat - most of them DJ to pay the bills. It is simple - even the best bands need promotion, which is increasingly difficult for record companies to afford. The acts of the X factor get the best promotion possible, which is why they dominate the charts.
[Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 17:03
I love downloading illegally. Love it.
THECOWSAYSMOO [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 17:07
here's some thoughts in no particular order cos i'm slacking off at work:
did video kill the radio star?
the internet is a medium just like television and whatever else. did the VCR kill sales of televison shows?
record companies have done it to themselves by churning out the same band over and over again.
there's a reason radiohead (as an example) are on top - it's because they make interesting multi-layered music which HOLDS UP to repeated listening.
do you really think that's the case for groups like Cold War Kids?
perhaps modern technology (and the relatively easy access to it) has created an outpouring of average acts who would not have ever gotten a record deal in the first place 20-30 years ago. this over-saturation of the marketplace is what is causing sales to slide. give people something worth buying at a reasonable price and they will go for it.
video games do well because the audience wants interactivity with their entertainment - perhaps that's why live shows still do well.
ianbrown72 [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 17:15
First off, I'm 37 so I've lived through how things "used to be" and obviously how they are now. Why are new bands complaining about not selling records because of the internet, when they really have no idea of how things were before? There was a letter in the NME a few weeks back from some new band complaining they had hardly sold any records, but had sold out their home town venue of 1000 people. 10 years ago, that band would have certainly sold more records, but they would have only gotten about 100 people out to their gig... Cause not as many people would have even heard of them. I used to read about bands in the UK press (I'm in Canada), and not actually hear their music until months later... And sometimes by that time the band had slipped away and then there was some new band that everyone was talking about. Now, I can read about a band, and instantly go to their myspace and check them out. Not only that, but I can't tell you how many records I've bought based on hear say or reviews or hype that turned out to be crap. Now I can check something out online before I decide to buy it. I do sympathize with bands not selling as many records as they used to before, but they have to understand that it's a trade off for more people hearing about your music. This ultimately equals more people going out to hear you play.
StrawberryFields [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 17:28
Well, I agree with Denis that “a true artist shouldn't care how much music they're selling”, but I'll also point out that any person, artist or not, needs to pay the bills. Personally, I download lots of music without paying for it, but then I go to the shops and get the physical thing. I'm not paying for all the mp3 stored in my computer, but thanks to the internet I've discovered lots of bands I wouldn't have heard of and bought their music and tickets to see them live. The whole music industry is based on a model that worked 50 years ago, but as good old Bob would say, the times they are a-changing, and if you want the industry to keep going, you need to adapt it to the people's necessities. If we can easily get the songs for free, they'll have to offer us something else we can buy. I'm a music fan, and as such, I want my records collection to keep growing, cos the mp3 thing is alright, but I want the real thing. However, it's a rip off when you get a cd and the sleeve is like two pages and the only thing you get are the same songs you downloaded for free. Add a dvd, a well designed sleeve, a code to download an extra song from the artists' website or to get the chance to win some tickets, anything... but you need to give the consumer something else, cos the old system is not working anymore. The problem is not kids getting free mp3 on the internet, the problem is that the industry still wants to enjoy the situation they've had for years, and I'm sorry, but that's over.
Erik Bergsman [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 17:38
this is a response to Louis..
Indeed, it may seem bleak for your band, but these desperate times call for desperate measures.
I'm close friends to people in a NME 'hype' band at the moment, and the extent to which they dedicate themselves and 'put themselves out there' is incredible. (Granted they have been in the music scene for years in different projects before making it big this year)
It really goes beyond the common, traditional drives of the past by playing the odd shows, releasing an album and expecting it to be a success.
It takes a great deal of innovation and entrepreneurship to even get noticed these days.
The music industry is evolving, but this also requires bands to evolve and adapt. That is the key to the success of contemporary bands.
Sludgefeast [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 17:41
I still buy tons of new music, but only on vinyl. I don't think you can truly appreciate the music unless you also have that tactile experience, and also enjoy the cover art work as it was meant to be viewed.
So Shush [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 18:42
Ten years ago we had serious hopes of being signed – hand written letters from labels, etc – but everything fizzled out an we went back to ordinary lives – even stopped gigging.
Now the web thing has created a huge (for us) audience and numerous connections number small time radio, press, blogs, podcasts, etc – we’re having a ball. Although there isn’t much money involved and we didn’t give up the day jobs - the web has given us (AND THOUSANDS LIKE US) an outlet for doing what we absolutely love doing – creating music.
Whatever one’s taste is – the music culture is still as rich, diverse and vibrant as ever – all that’s changed is that the establishment filters (labels, msm, even NME) are functioning in a parallel universe of celebrity, notoriety and marketing.
The music industry as something that makes money is in the decline – the industry as in people making, listening too and talking about music is in a renascence.
[Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 18:48
itunes should sell a self deleting trialversion of an album for 2 dollars and then if you like it you can pay 8 dollars more for a permanent copy. puts pressure on bands to make good music. boom i just save the music industry.
murray [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 20:07
Iv been saying it for years and its only now that its too late people are starting to realise how much of a culture stall this decade has been its not just music its everything and despite its perks the common denominator is the internet I feel like nietzsche when I say this but rock n roll is dead clearly or at least dying fast and I dont know what if anything can replace it and by the way the Arctic Monkeys were not the last new band to have an explosive, full-spectrum impact, uniting musical tribes because there are no musical tribes anymore thats one thing the internet undoubtedly killed in any real or new form
RockAngel [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 20:30
I have a lot of thoughts on this, and not enough time to get them out. Can I say that models like Lala.com are really on to something though? It's so easy to try out an album for free and then buy it, and it stores your whole library online. I think there are models out there to make money, we just have to be creative to find them. I also have heard that touring is really where bands make their money anyways, not the record, and doesn't a further outreach on the internet lead to more people coming to shows?
waytagojoe [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 21:02
I do not download any music without paying for it. I will not copy CDs. If a friend or family member gives me a burnt CD I keep it. Otherwise, I pay for what I get so that Iget what I want.
waytagojoe [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 21:03
By paying for what I get I have freedom.
waytagojoe [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 21:09
If music keeps getting worse. . . then I will just keep reading books.
Alan [Visitor] //November 18 2009 at 21:19
I take it you mean Florence &... sold 64 PHYSICAL copies of Rabbit Heart, not digital.
Ciara [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 00:49
If I listen to an album and I like it I will then go out and buy it. The internet saves me from buying Cd's that I'll never listen to again.
Ciara [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 00:53
Also of course a band is going to care if you don't buy there record. What you expect them to live on? crackers? Making music is a legitmate business. Downloading music is the same as stealing a painting. Someone has put their heart and soul into a record f course they want a reward. BTW anybody who is signed to a record label is in the business with the aim of making some money.
Phillip Kotler [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 01:09
Read about sigmoid curve. Describes this perfectly.
metal_still_rulez [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 03:03
Lets get this straight, musicians aren't getting paid? What about the hip hop industry? Getto fabulous crunk knuckleheads driving bentleys to and from their lavish LA mansions, parking beside their Rolls Royce and getting drunk on $500 bottles of booze because they can. Why? cuz they're friggin loaded. Music sales may have gone down but ringtone sales are skyrocketing! Here's the answer kids, sell out like your favorite star and you'll get rich, just like them, too bad anyone with real taste for real music will set you aside, real fast. I never wasted my money on an album based on a chart hit, chances were the rest of the album sucked. Back-in-the-day we recorded that song onto a cassette off the radio. (You mean there were pirates before the Internet came along?!?! NO WAY!!). Now-a-days people have the option of listening to the whole thing before making the commitment to purchasing potential crap, forcing the industry to step it up and stop signing 10th rate bands. Ask yourself this, is your band even worth signing or are you the next one hit wonder? I haven't bought a CD in 3 years. I know, you all hate me for my honesty. But i have spent at least $1000 over the last year alone on concerts, and bought a t-shirt or some other kind or merch while there (i have 8 metal band beer cozies that i don't need, that's right , 8). And guess what, I would have never heard of any of these great bands without the Internet. There are still countries where its illegal to own a heavy metal album and a capital offence to smuggle one into, but now due to the net you've got kids banging their heads in Pakistan. Whats the diff between Norwegian and Scandinavian Black Metal? I bet most people didn't even know there was a music scene in Norway. Try buying one of these bands albums in a small towns local music store. What? Small towns have music stores? No problem, you can order Cd's from the back of your favorite zine.... oh wait, that was back in 1995, even so, what 15 year old has a credit card, or even seen a real hand written cheque for that matter. My point is, music is finally accessible, for everyone, everywhere. This is the effect of the Internet on the music industry. Oh and hey, maybe if your band didn't suck, you might make a couple of bucks on side, while more importantly contributing something that means something.
Ari from Aus [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 09:26
I'm 15 years old and live in Australia and a lot of the music that I love is British and rather obscure - without the internet I wouldn't have an opportunity to listen to the music I love. Bands whose albums I buy are always bands whose music I have found over the internet . . . as a full-time student I admit to downloading quite a lot of my music but I try to buy albums where I can, go to gigs and buy some merch . . . For me and for people like me the internet opens a door to music that I wouldn't have access to (and wouldn't buy) without it - it's as simple as that. I'd rather not think about what most people my age listen to and what I'd be stuck listening to if I didn't have this gateway to music scenes half a world away *cough*MILEY CYRUS *cough*
Nazr [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 09:37
Again Luke another good post. The way I look at it the internet has its pros and cons on the music industry. Like Louis said sales will struggle and musicians might find it hard to survive in an increasingly tougher climate thanks to the internet's effects on the attention span of the listener and the opening of floodgates of musical competitors. However it leads to more discovery of new music and more live exposure just like ianbrown72 wrote. For better or for worse internet has changed the way we look and listen to music so musicians and the industry have to come up with something new and creative to adapt to the changes and for the sake of music in the future.
Leon [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 09:49
On a positive note. I think music travels a lot better..Being a music fan from New Zealand, a lot of N.z bands wouldnt even have dreamed about touring overseas 10 years ago.. bands like Cutt Off your hands, Collapsing Cities, The Brunettes, Shocking Pinks. Go N.z music !
Gavin, Cardiff [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 09:55
Basically, we have so much music available now that no-one can keep track of it all. A rough (and invented by me just now) formula says that more bands means fans are spread thinner between them and it becomes harder to find social movements in music, because fewer people will unite behind AN Other bedroom folktronica guy. With that in mind, its harder to see another punk or Britpop happening. There's just too much out there. That is why disseminators of music, such as NME and other music media outlets, become more important than ever. But we, as music fans, are buying these publications in increasingly fewer numbers. Without them, the average fan will find it much harder to pick out decent music in a flooded/drowned market. I know I'm preaching to the converted here but we need to make sure we keep our music media culture alive. Rant over.
Kev [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 10:36
"We may listen to more music than ever, but our connection with it is shallower, more fleeting."
Speak for yourselves.. my relationship with music is as "deep" and "meaningful" as ever. I can listen where and when I like, and I can discover as much as I want because an album no longer costs £16. But when I find something I really connect with, I play it to death - that has not changed for me, and never will.
whoever [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 10:41
How old are you Luke? I only ask as you're coming over like some 80yr old luddite. And your facts are all wrong. I have no connection to the label or anything/anyone to do with Florence but that single, in it's first week sold 400+ on 7" and almost 20,000 paid for legal downloads. How come you don't want to count the downloads... I can only assume you don't count these as 'real sales' because they're on on vinyl or cd or some other format that 99% of the public don't want anymore (and I don't work for iTunes!). It's like saying that only cassette singles should qualify for chart.
Surely it's better that it takes 20,000 sales to get top 20 single as opposed to the days when Maximo Park could get a top 10 single on 7" alone selling 6000?
In fact maybe you're in Maximo Park?
At least you could try and get your facts right. Then the rest of your argument might have some value.
Luke Lewis [Member] //November 19 2009 at 10:46
@whoever - actually, you're right: I've checked, and that figure of 64 was based on midweek sales, not end-of-week sales. I'll correct that now.
Luke Lewis [Member] //November 19 2009 at 10:56
And I'm 29, by the way. I know this piece makes me sound pretty reactionary - but I'm not going to pretend that we live in a digital paradise just for the sake of coming across as young and edgy. Besides, you've missed the point of my argument. I'm not mourning physical formats - I'm mourning the loss of music as something with actual value; not just in terms of the money you spend on it, but the time you put into tracking it down, and your emotional investment in it.
Max [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 10:57
Apart from financial profit on the record labels behalf - what are we really losing out with music becoming digital? I think a lot of people views are obscured by the romanticism of owning a vinyl record. Why is hearing a song as the band want you to hear it only possible through hard copys? With digital music you can slap the tracks on your ipod and listen to them literally everywhere, allowing you to match music to suitable surrounds, thus more of an experience than listening to it in a 6x12 bedroom. I'll never forget being in a plane, flying over the Australian deserts listening to Kasmir by Led Zep.
All the uncertainty of what the future holds for the music industry does nothing but excite me. It feels as though this decade has been some kind of transitional period that I've not heard of before, readying the Century for something new.
SirPsychoSexy [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 13:00
interesting......
NotSurprised [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 15:06
Luke, This whole internet problem started because as you state, "the industry's profit margin at a blockbusting 30% throughout the '80s and early '90s" which is a ridiculous rate of return that any oth industry would kill for! Music buyers knew damn well that they were getting screwed by record companies and started to resent paying those exorbitant prices for CD's. Consumers searched and found a way to skirt that which led to not a 30% profit, but a 0% profit. The reord companies weren't about to, according to them, fix what wasn't broken. Hell- they're gettin' rich, bitch! They blew it. They weren't proactive enough and so as always the record companies are to blame for everything.
Also- true music fans appreciate the quality of good recorded music and will continue buying CD's or vinyl to get that quality instead of stealing crap mp3's. Another missed opportunity by the industry has been failing to market that. Oh well....
arianna [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 15:09
Good point Luke. Music has lost its emotional value. I do listen to a lot of music off the internet, and i have made some interesting discoveries. Still, how much of it is worth listening over and over again? most hyped musicians i forget what they sound like - not to mention their names - after a few months, if not just weeks. Sometimes even after going to some packed underground gig (a musical one night stand doesn't really cost you that much) . And here i find myself at night listening to the same old records in my headphones, because they actually meant something, and never sound boring. We killed Music but it wasn't the web,it wasn't downloading illegal mp3 files, it's this easy shallowness we (as a society) have chosen...
John Johnson [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 15:14
Great post and, unfortunately, right on the money. I'm 24 and work in the industry. I just about remember life before the internet became such a massive feature in our lives. Queueing up to buy 'Be Here Now' and watching in awe as Sebadoh appeared on Top of the Pops. Nowadays, nothing unites us. As for all the idiots who say 'A real musician shouldn't care about how much money he makes' - this is nonsense. A 'real musician' is still a real person who needs to eat and pay his or her rent. A decline in professional musicians will mean a (general) decline in the quality of music. And the fact that bands rarely get past their second album means we won't see bands developing and reaching their potential. I dread to think what would have happened to The Smiths, Radiohead, Bowie etc... in today's musical climate. For all the ridiculous surveys that tell us downloaders are more likely to pay for music, there is a pile of far more convincing empirical evidence showing massive declines in sales. If we're to accept that these downloaders are telling the truth, then we must suppose that the rest of the population have simply become disinterested in music (because the downloaders haven't reduced their paid-for intake, have they?). Indie music is also cursed with this ridiculous notion of 'selling out', where any interest in making money is seen as a sleight against an artist's authenticity. This is a silly development. Chuck Berry refused to play gigs till he had the full fee in cash sitting in his back pocket. Look at John Lennon's response to US journalists asking for a song when the banded landed in America ('We don't sing unless we're paid').
If you want any semblance of a normal life, do not try to make a living from your music at the moment. And by 'normal life', I don't mean 'mundane'. I mean being able to pay your bills, put food on the table or (God forbid) have a family of your own. Chances are that if you play in band that can sell-out the Forum in London or Academy I in Manchester, you'll be able to scrape by on £12,000 a year for 3 years before being dropped with nothing to show for it other than an album which barely sold 10,000 records. There are obviously exceptions to this, but their scarcity when compared with 10 years ago only goes to prove the general rule. Piracy has utterly fucked music in terms of quality and connection (remember when your favourite band actually grew... when you saw them play Top of the Pops for the first time, somehow infiltrating the world of pop?). Likewise, the breakdown of barriers of entry into music itself (myspace, garageband, cheap computer recording) means that anyone can make. Which means we end up with a huge torrent of shit that we have to wade through whenever we try to find good new bands. Back in the day, only the very good, very driven or very lucky musicians had the chance to exhibit their wares to the world.
Anyhow. Rant prematurely over.
Anto [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 16:15
Another fine article by Mr. Lewis who would make a dream deputy PM (the rt.hon Nicholas Wire being dream PM of course). I hate being considered a "music consumer". I think of myself as a music lover cos I'm pretentious and romantic like that. I find the gloating over the decline of record shops especially unseemly. Not cos of some Nick Hornby-esque wistfulness, but rather cos the harsh reality of good people losing their jobs makes the "wonder" of digital media lose its sparkle a bit. There is too much pressure to venerate stuff simply cos it's modern and easy.
Him Out Of Menswear [Visitor] //November 19 2009 at 17:17
It was better when labels had unlimited cash to throw at new bands. The public in general will still only really take notice of a band if they're on a proper label. Not a 'Made The Name Up Meself' home release bollocks. In the mid 90's, every Tom, Dick & Harry got signed. If you were any good, you sold records. If you were shit, coz the A&R who signed you was coking it up/a relative of the labels biggest band, you sold no records. And no-one at the label noticed coz they were in The Barfly vying for the next buzz band. Now no-one hears about anyone, coz there are no A&R anywhere, and the ones that are there have to stay in the office, coz they've only got a 20p a year budget.
The main problem though, is the lack of music TV in Britain to give bands proper exposure. (But you need a label to get proper TV/radio exposure anyway)...And the fact that every bell-end with a laptop thinks they can make a decent record. Good producers cost money. Good studios cost money. To get that money, you need people to buy the records. And you can't expect bands to make all the cash from touring, coz when you're on tour you haven't got time to write & record the next album. Not if you're a proper rock star anyway.
[Visitor] //November 20 2009 at 02:08
I was always under the stance that when CD's were the only option and were being priced usually between £10 and £16 that it was ridiculously over priced and always thought the decline in Physical sales would not have been so bad if CD's had been lowered to a more standard price of £5 and maybe £7 for a brand new release much earlier on.
I will admit, I have not purchased an album in over a year, the ones I do purchase are only to bands I adore and are my favourites.
But this is the thing, downloading may be huge, some say a problem, some say it is brilliant, but I tend to download a lot of albums that I would never have purchased if that was my only choice, I got to hear a lot more new music, my taste in music is changing, I am finding myself liking some of these new artists and albums that I would not previously have got to know and If I really like them, I actually pay to go see them on tour, in that sense I praise downloading and online music as it has opened me up a whole variety of music I previously would never have got the chance to listen to.
1999 wasn't a great time for music, the Radio would only play the same few songs and only cover a very narrow genre, only a few songs that were different to boring pop bile would make it to the mainstream and they were not really the best bands of that movement, just the ones who had the best label budget behind them. Music channels were my only way of hearing something that I was more interested in and that at the time was full of repeats of the likes of Nirvana's Smell Like Teen Spirit and Metallica's Enter Sandman.
People in the past could really define themselves by a type of music that they were really in to, now it's interesting everyone is into a lot more of wider range of music and it is really difficult to be "cool" or "interesting" for having a varied music taste as we all have one now.
Sean Parker [Visitor] //November 20 2009 at 10:44
Max's post above is sparkling, and a reason to be cheerful. At 34 I'm as nostalgic for bloody mixtapes and vinyl as anyone else, but most of my students and other kids I know don't give a fuck. They just surround themselves with tunes they like, and still play them to death, hit myspace and go and find another bunch of things. So the music industry is dead - no, just changing. More people are listening to music and going to shows than ever before. This is how things should be. A&R, HMV cashier, CD plant printers - go find new jobs (it won't be that hard - try your local Apple store). Music this century will be everywhere, in the ether, a utility like water - yes. Stealing music? Piss off, you can't steal something that doesn't exist (I'm a musician). Max and Bowie are right: exciting times of change are afoot
Jamie Danan [Visitor] //November 20 2009 at 11:44
it blows my mind. this topic could and should be a book. all these new models are great. access free and available now. though does make our impatience problems worse and our love and support is a lot more fickle as we are quite willing to move on and find another band to love within about an hour sometimes, let alone a year, as it used to (rightly/wrongly) be. my one wish is that every 'musician' had a simon cowell type figure (not him of course as his taste is for shit but you get my meaning) to stop them at the gate and give them the permission to proceed to upload tunes on my space or wherever and become an 'artist' and try their luck, or told "no", spare the world and your own time by not wasting ours and yours with this oh so average and sometimes complete shite bag of songs you've written and can't perform properly. Go home and just listen to those who can and accept it should be a karaoke pasttime for you my friend. Cos all these no hopers are just making it harder for the real things to get through to the top as they should be, based on who they know/what financial backing they have... Am not saying the major labels are the best filter as they've given us crap for years but they do also get it right a lot of the time. So the rulebook has been ripped up. Great. But we are still in limbo and in need of a decent shit-o-meter. however down to subjective nature of musical taste alas NME and everyone else are unable to provide this therefore my whole comment is rather redundant but been fun chatting music with some other music fans which is one of the greatest things the internet has brought us.
Streams [Visitor] //November 20 2009 at 16:16
Am I the only one who feels that things will get more creative if there's less money floating about?
I don't really listen to much pop-music, but there's not been money in "interesting" music for a long time. I can't see a problem.
There's plenty of people who struggle through on an 18k a year job doing something utterly boring. Who says that because a person writes music they deserve £1million paycheques?
Record PLayer [Visitor] //November 21 2009 at 15:55
VINYL WILL SAVE THE MUSIC INDUSTRY!
Peter [Visitor] //November 23 2009 at 15:45
I've got into plenty of music as a result of the internet. I have bought plenty of CDs as a result of hearing songs from them and judging the music worthy of my hard earned cash! If it was left to me to go and find music for myself I probably wouldn't have bothered and I would still be listening to "A Rush of Blood to the Head" and "So Much for the City" and, despite the fact that I still like these albums, this shows that availability to large music is a good thing. Admittedly most of the music I have since gone out and bought was not made in this decade. Crappy structure, fair enough but I'm thinking as I write and I'm far too lazy to go back and edit.
Harry [Visitor] //November 24 2009 at 19:33
One word: Synergy!
Rock 'n' Roll!
On the other hand [Visitor] //December 1 2009 at 14:34
An interesting view point. It's worth remembering that ~95% of bands have always had a lifetime of ~12months, so why should things be any different now ?
The industry's greed in keeping CD prices inflated hasn't helped them in the long run. The idea that artists can aspire to Led Zeppelin / Rolling Stones lifestyles has rather unravelled as well - and maybe that is more good thing than bad. For a lasting career musicians will need to play live more, and look forward to a lower return. If that sounds like a 9-5 job rather than an escape then perhaps it's just a return to a pre-rock and roll music business model for the artists.
If unified support of bands is limited to those who break through via the X-factor leads to an end of corporate rock and the stadium experience, so much the better - but the success of big festivals seems to argue against that. The narrow corporate live dominance may, only may, lead to a resurgent independent sector. Can the internet music fans get off their hands though and do something like organising clubs in alternative venues ? Time will tell on that.
The internet age seems to have exacerbated a trend to lazyness (for want of a better word) - you can make it big by doing less and less. Compare it to bands like The Byrds or (pre dark side) Pink Floyd who would be expected to do 2 or 3 gigs a night, sometimes at different venues. Sounds like hard work, and it had its consequences, but again the old model may be the new model.
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