verging_on_random

The de-commodification of music

September 1, 2006 on 4:00 pm | In Uncategorized |

I have an extensive collection of music. It’s my only vice . Well unless you count drinking rum, in which case I have two vices.

Since I got broadband I’ve been downloading quite a lot of new music. I had to get a new external hard drive to put it on … last time I looked there’s about 60 hours of mp3 files.

NOOOO I don’t use limewire or file-sharing programs! All my downloads are legal. As far as I know. And that’s the first funny thing about getting free music off the net. You have no idea if it’s legal or not. I mean in the olden days if you borrowed someone’s record and taped it you knew it was naughty …. not that it stopped anyone and I’ve never heard of anybody getting prosecuted for it. But if you saw a bunch of top 20 CDs or tapes at a local market selling for half price with dodgy labels, you had a pretty good idea they were pirated and it was illegal to sell them.

But there’s no way of telling online is there? Well there is with some stuff I suppose, like if you see a best-selling James Blunt song or something by an Australian idol you can pretty much guess that’s it not supposed to be there. But what if it’s a track by those over-hyped losers the Arctic Monkeys? I mean they’re supposed to have launched their whole career on word of mouth as a result of fans sharing their music online. These days lots of bands want you to download their music for free. Even established artists release promo tracks on their own sites.

So what’s a man to do? Hire a private detective to investigate any track he wants to download? Nah, I just do what any sensible person would do …. download the thing on the assumption that if anybody’s doing the wrong thing it’s the guy who’s got it on his web page.

Now I know I’m not a typical consumer, and if any students read this yes it’s totally wrong to draw general conclusions from a single case, but I actually can’t see anything wrong with this practice … so far. I’ve even bought a few CDs because I like the one or two tracks I heard online, and they were by bands that I never would have heard of otherwise.

What has happened though is that I’ve become a more informed shopper. Until I started downloading I used to buy most of my music on the basis of reviews in specialist music mags - mainly the British ones like ‘Q’ and ‘Vox’. They got me into some stuff I never would have heard otherwise - come on be honest, how many of you are familiar with the work of the Elvis Brothers? They were GREAT!!! But anyway along with quite a lot of good purchases I also ended up with some really really shitty ones . Anyone want to make an offer for the first Mars Volta CD, only played once?

I also think it’s true that i now spend less money overall on CDs because I can get so much good stuff for free. It’s not that I’m getting stuff for nothing that I would otherwise have bought, it’s that I’m satisfying my new music craving online so I have little reason to do the random hit and miss buying I used to do. So it’s true in my case that online music is hurting CD sales, it’s just impossible to say precisely who’s losing out.

The interesting thing is to speculate on how it will all develop. At the moment mp3 sound quality isn’t all that great but then who listens to pop music for sound quality? I reckon mp3 is good enough as long as you don’t want to listen to God Speed You Black Emperor at high volume in a quiet room. Actually if you wanted to do that you’d probably be so high a $50 ghetto blaster would sound terrific .

Some people argue that artists will only keep making decent music for the public if they think they might make a shitload of money out if it. I guess this is true of the big production arrangements that have a 60 piece backing orchestra and need to hire a massively expensive studio to record in. But there’s lots and lots of good music that doesn’t depend on that kind of investment, and people make that kind of music for their own satisfaction, or maybe to play a few local gigs and make some extra cash at weekends.

Anyone who frequents MySpace knows how many bands are dying to be your friends and have you download their music for free. And some of it is really good. Moreover the technology is improving so quickly that in a few years you won’t need real musicians and a studio to sound like a 60 piece orchestra. So maybe we’re heading into a new age where music is truly democratic (about time something was) and the mega-corporations that have run things in the past will die a slow and painful death. Hurrah!!

One thing still worries me though - how t f will anyone be able to keep track of what’s available? Out of the millions of mp3s online how will I know where to get stuff that appeals to me? There you go any students who are reading ….. when you finish your B Bus go and develop a music guide service that people subscribe to …. it gives them a feed of new tracks that fit their tastes. Nooo don’t thank me, just send me 10% when you sell the company to Google for $3 billion in a few years.

WAIT is bourbon the same vice as rum or a different one? Idk, maybe I have three vices then.