FEATURE:
Propogandaland:
IMAGE CREDIT: Bolshoye Gore Malenkoi Zhenshchiny by Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, 1929/Collection Susan Pack
Is Modernity and Technology the Way Forward for Music?!
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MANY might irk at the proliferation of this…
PHOTO CREDIT: Getty
topic on my pages! The clash between modern-thinking and progressive creation/traditional and analogue recordings is something I have seen coming to the fore a lot lately. This is the second consecutive article that brings in Kate Bush – can you tell I am trying to secure an interview with her?! I will talk about nostalgia and musical past; bring some academic studies into the fray – that argue for and against the digitisation of music – but I want to bring Bush into the argument (I shall leave her be in the coming weeks!). To me, like Björk and Kate Bush symbolise what music should be. Björk is someone who has pushed boundaries and embraced technologies but at her core is the tradition and foundations of music. She is an artist who embraces digital means but does not rely on. It may seem like Björk symbolises the Internet culture and those enamoured of music’s digital growth. I feel the opposite when thinking of her: there is something of the older-day and nostalgic when one thinks of her. Maybe it is the way her music creates nostalgia and memories; the physicality and beauty projected from the speakers. If she modifies technology and is keen to explore the limits of the modern day – her music still reminds me of a time when artists were not reliant on big studios and gadgets. Many modern artists are recording in a D.I.Y. way. They have iPads and other tablets where they can create a song and stream it to the world. That is not, necessarily, a way to bypass the studio – cost and economy have forced them to take a more self-sufficient route. I mentioned Kate Bush (again) because, as recently as 2011, she was expounding the virtues of tape and analogue sounds. She, like most out there, cannot eke out a living relying solely on tape and older technologies – in a hyper-digital and computerised industry; she would not be able to get her records out to people. We are told music needs to be shared on social media and streaming is the way forward.
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Whilst I agree social media and these services are invaluable promoting music; I argue recording in a digital and modern way is the way we should be going. I am seeing a lot of artists, aside from Bush, expound the benefits and purity of tape. We see modern stars and shots from the studio; these glossy and fulsome sounds coming from our laptops. There is a double-link of intangibility right there. We rarely sit alone and listen to a record player or stereo: most of us are connected to phones and have their minds strapped to laptops. As I write this, I am on a laptop and listening to music through headphones. I wonder whether we are connected to music the same way we were, say, a decade ago?! Before I expand on my argument; I want to bring an article from 2009 - that reacted to the rise of technology and the Internet in music – claiming digitisation was not the worst thing that could happen to music:
“Chart-topping artists and superstars rarely sell more than half a million CDs in large markets such as the UK and Germany. To return to generating a good level of sales from each piece of music and to take account of the changed pattern of media use by consumers, developing additional revenue streams is vital to success. No record label can afford the luxury of passing up contributions to sales from Apple's iTunes, Nokia’s Comes with Music or Amazon’s MP3 Shop. “The major music labels have largely ignored the internet trend and are now having to hand over parts of the value-added chain to the new players if they are to succeed in still cutting themselves a slice of the digital cake,” said Peterson.
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For more than a decade the industry has needed the structural preconditions for more fragmented music marketing (in the form of downloads, live concert streaming, ringtones, video game music or merchandising) to be put in place. The changes required were new business models for subscription services and licences to internet portals, new contracts with artists to cover the full scope of the digital value-added chain, and—not least—innovations by new market players.
Price war on music downloads leading to erosion of margins
The new sources of revenue are likely to lead to an upward trend in music market sales
after 2010 for the first time since the mid-1990s, although the traditional market players will have to share a significant part of those sales with the new download platforms.
Despite the positive prospects, the change process in the music industry is far from being completed. Necessary innovations in how it approaches its customers, continued and increasing fragmentation, and new market players will maintain the pressure on business models and prices. There are still open questions during this experimentation phase – for example, whether the trend towards even cheaper music will continue, or if charges for hits from well-known artists will increase in future. At present, new players are forcing themselves into the market, using combative pricing to position themselves as price leaders and secure significant market share as quickly as possible. If this strategy wins, margins will melt away for all market players.
IMAGE CREDIT: Pinterest
Media industry still faced with digital turnaround
The print media are currently undergoing a similar structural change, as are TV providers and the cinema sector. “The example of the music industry shows that critical competitive advantage can only be achieved with consistent alignment to the new needs in relation to media use, together with intimate knowledge of customers and rapid positioning of new ideas on the market,” said Peterson. “Just as the music industry served for a long time as a warning of how a media sector can be steamrollered by digitalisation, now it is demonstrating that digital turnaround with fresh growth in sales is possible.”
The strategic principles determining whether and how traditional media groups can profit from this digital change process are being set down right now. The music industry demonstrates that only groups with structures capable of adapting can make a profit from the dynamism of the internet”.
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I am a hypocrite in the sense most of my musical tastes and time comes from the Internet. I stream artists and look at videos on YouTube. When one looks at a YouTube video they are invariable witness to a parade of grating and obnoxious adverts that are hard to shift – often promoting technology and the latest piece of must-have kit. I wonder whether there is too much influence coming from technology companies and streaming sites. There are benefits to the streaming sites – which I shall look at – but I wonder whether we are being told digitisation is the way music can progress. The headline for this article – and the photos that score it – seems like I am accusing the music industry of being Soviet and communist. They are not, as I know to be true, forcing anyone to put their music out a certain way. We do not have Stalin-like figureheads banning warm and traditional forms of music. The industry is an open and receptacle one that welcomes innovation as much as heritage and legacy. Combining the two would seem the idea solution, right?!
PHOTO CREDIT: Eternity in an Instant via Getty
One cannot write and release in 2017 and negate the Internet and technology. That, in itself, might compel ethical conundrums and issues but there are plenty of advantages available to musicians. They can release music quicker and get it to a bigger audience. No longer do they need to rely on the record companies to get their music on the radio – that was the way it happened before the Internet. Unlike previous decades; unsigned artists have the same chances and exposure as some of the mainstream’s best. That parity and equal platform is exciting and inspiring. I do wonder whether the listener is losing out the more electronic music becomes. I revert back to Kate Bush who, in an interview with a Canadian radio station, said she prefers the warmth of tape and analogue. She has said it many times and had another point: one does not get the same listening experience listening through a laptop. When we used to rely on record players and tapes/analogue; you got a real feel and sense of connection to the artist.
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Now, this far down the line, are we sacrificing the potential of music? Its humanity and physicality is being switched with instant appeal and gratification. We are a consumer society that wants takeaway food, fast; we desire our good delivered in a one-day window; we crave the limitless T.V. channels and the expedience of technology. How many of us, in reality, sit down and think about what we are buying/watching?! Often, things go in one ear and swiftly exist the other. We absorb and experience things at the rate a hummingbird flaps their wings – losing out on the true nature and potential of music. I can listen to a song from, say, Madonna from the 1980s, through a C.D., and match that against a song off of Spotify, fed through my laptop. Even if the songs have equal quality and appeal – the effect I get from the former is much stronger and resonant than the latter. Whilst music can only develop and survive through technology – given the exponential growth and population explosion – I wonder whether the need to provide and sustain is compromising quality and nuance. How many of us hear a song now and feel we’ll cherish it decades down the line? The artists might have the promise of durability but is it the way we are digesting their sounds resulting in scepticism? Certainty, I am someone who hears a lot of music and there are few that remain in the brain that long.
PHOTO CREDIT: Spotify
It is not their fault: the saturation and wave of music we are exposed to is challenging. Are we being forced to listen to music in a manner that means we are always looking for something new? That might sound cynical but many of us jump to the next artist and rarely stick with something. In a sense; we are always looking for something shiny and fresh – streaming sites are creating a market where attention spans are short and the imagination is curtailed. I will continue my point but want to bring in an article from this year - that examines the connection between digitisation and capitalism: how music’s economy and D.N.A. is being directed by the rise of technology. There are some interesting thoughts that captured my attention:
“One striking feature of culture in modern capitalist societies is that the main ways in which people gain access to cultural experiences are subject to frequent, radical and disorienting shifts. This has been very apparent in recent changes in musical consumption. Over the last 20 years, there has been a marked change in dominant ways of experiencing recorded music. In the mid-1990s, most music consumers in wealthier parts of the planet would buy CDs or cassettes from specialist or general record shops, and play them back via electronic devices in the home and car, and in some cases via mobile devices such as the Sony Discman or Walkman; radio and television provided important further exposure for musical recordings. There was a shift in the early twenty-first century to the personal computer and mobile digital playback devices such as Apple’s iPod as the prevalent ways of consuming music. More recently there has been a further change. A new ecology of musical consumption is emerging, based on subscription audio streaming services and Internet-connected mobile phones. While only a minority of music consumers currently consume music in this way, even in the relatively wealthy Global North, this configuration is slowly reviving the ailing music industries, and looks set to be the future of recorded musical consumption in many places – until the next transformation comes along”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush (who has said she prefers the warmth of analogue tapes)/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty
Is the obsessional we have with technology and easy access denigrating music’s fabric and the way it affects us I feel people are yearning for nostalgia and older music is not, necessarily, to do with quality and a lack of real depth. We are implicitly and worryingly being fed this notion streaming and modern ways is where music is stronger. By that; the consumer is not able to bond with a musician the same way they once were. Maybe that is invariable and unavoidable. The study examines the see-change since the turn of the millennium; how music has altered radically given the impact of digital methods:
“The digitalisation of music after 2000 seems to have pushed more and more academics to turn their attention to the question of change in the music industries. Copyright and intellectual property have rightly been treated as major issues, with some addressing music as part of broader accounts of problems concerning copyright in the digital era (e.g., Vaidhyanathan, 2001Vaidhyanathan, S. (2001). Copyrights and copywrongs: The rise of intellectual property and how it threatens creativity. New York, NY: New York University Press. [Google Scholar]), and some devoting their attention to the particular struggles that have taken place concerning copyright in the wake of digitalisation of music (David, 2010David, M. (2010). Peer to peer and the music industry: The criminalization of sharing. London: Sage. [Google Scholar]; Hesmondhalgh, 2009Hesmondhalgh, D. (2009). The digitalisation of music. In A. C. Pratt& P. Jeffcut (Eds.), Creativity, innovation and the cultural economy(pp. 57–73). London: Routledge. [Google Scholar])”.
Is it a coincidence I am more drawn and comforted by older music than the new breed? Maybe there are too many artists out there – meaning any long-term relationship is unlikely – but I feel there is an intrinsic relation between digital means and the way music makes us feel. Nowadays; modern artists have one eye on streaming figures and getting those viewing-figures at their peak. Are they thinking about the way people see their sounds and take them to heart?! If our mainstream best are more concern with popularity and numbers: do they have any realisation in regards the short-term nature of their impact and (the fact) their songs will dissipate before long?! It is so hard for modern artists to remain in the consciousness given the way music is ‘evolving’? What have been the biggest changes we have seen this century?
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“In the twenty-first century, consumers remain subject to regular and radical changes in the prevalent ways in how music is experienced, but new technologies have untethered listening from the home. Today, instead of CE corporations, it is mainly IT companies and to some extent telecoms companies that shape musical experience. The power of these companies derives from, and in turn contributes to, an interlinked set of economic, social and cultural changes in modern capitalist societies. Seeking new markets, businesses have moved the key frontier of commodification and consumption beyond the homes and cars of the era analysed by Williams (though of course these continue to be key markets), via his concept of ‘mobile privatisation’, to what we might call networked mobile personalisation. By reducing the pooling of resources and sharing of products among families and communities, this encourages greater purchasing and stronger individual affiliation. It permits burgeoning networked interactions between individuals that can potentially take place anytime, anywhere, and be monitored. No doubt this shift answers to desires for personalisation, mobility and connection, deriving from a new sense of individualism and even atomisation in modern societies. It is deeply shaped by advertising, marketing and the promotional industries. And it is a source of disorientation, expense and huge social waste.
What is more, these changes in how music is consumed may be having negative effects on the role that music plays in people’s lives (see essays by Marshall and Toynbee in Marshall & Laing, 2014Marshall, L. & Laing, D. (Eds.). (2014). Popular music matters: Essays in honour of Simon Frith. Aldershot: Ashgate. [Google Scholar]). Many music fans report a sense of loss regarding music’s power. Some would say this is merely nostalgia, but the ubiquity of music, its constant presence as background, heard in a rather distracted way, seems to be connected to a loss of its cultural and emotional force. It is hard to say how much this derives from sociocultural and political changes as they affect what musicians produce, and how much from the new formation of musical experience itself, including which music comes to be circulated widely. It may well be both”.
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The study I have quoted raises valid concerns/points but there is a band of artists keen to take music back to its truer times. It is no coincidence so many artists are recording to tape and ignoring the ultra-hyper-new shine of the studio. I will write a separate piece on the 1980s but I am discovering so many new acts reverting to that sound and incorporating the decade into their music. I feel the reason for this is not to push music forward but hint at the past and how good it used to be. Again; that is not an indication regarding quality and the short-term impact of modern music: it is a way of bringing in the simplicity and analogue joys and fusing them with the new and exciting digital times.
I feel a lot of modern artists are investigating past music – and sampling older songs – because the mere mention and suggestion of them take their memories and minds back. I listen to older music because it hits me in a different way. Algorithms and statistics are defining the business attitude of modern music. I yearn for a time when music concerned the way it made you feel and what you would take from it. Listening to music on a cassettes/vinyl was like stepping into the song and embracing every aspect and component of it. I worry we are only getting a limited sense of connection and quality from modern music. The fact we have opened the floodgates, and offered this unguarded market where everyone can make music, means the battle between quality and quantity is always hard. I think the real issue lies with the dependence and need to embrace the advancements of the modern day. The rebellious and disassociated artists – who feel their music is being led by business and popularity rather than longevity - are reverting to older means of recording and methods like tape. I feel something as simple as recording to analogue makes a huge impression.
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I could listen to a modern song recorded on analogue and hear it on C.D. Compare that to the same song recorded in a modern studio – and heard through a laptop – and there is a marked difference. Something as simple as that could be the difference between a song remaining in the mind for years – or is racing out of the brain minutes after it has ended. My greatest hope – sticking with my themes of revolution and propaganda - is seeing a clan of musicians go against convention and not putting their music on streaming services. That might seem suicidal but what would be the result if artists stuck with physical forms and recorded their music on analogue? They could perform modern genres/sounds but would rely on older technologies/formats to get their music out there. I am worried that is the only way new music will have the same durability and meaning as that which has gone before. There are things that need tackling but I feel we are too far down the rabbit-hole to really go back. Generations to come will experience music in a very quick and damaging way. They will be bombarded with artists on Spotify/YouTube and abandon listening to music through hardware. With that will go artwork and all the components that made classic music what is was. If artists are not worried about art-work and getting the sound right; taking time to craft something memorable and inspiring – will the artists we hear today be remembered and celebrated in decades to come?! Maybe musicians from the 1960s and 1970s will still be more popular than current favourites.
IMAGE CREDIT: Prodanny Appetit by Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, 1928 (USSR, Russia, Nikolai Okhlopkov, 1927)/Collection Susan Pack
Maybe the reverse will be true: we will forget about the better days and rely entirely on streamed and digital music. This is a debate with two sides and no easy answers. I feel the business aspect of music is detrimental and corrosive. There is too much focus on cracking markets, breaking records and producing something quickly – rather than a piece of work that will compel listeners years from now. Comrades of the music world! The way we will match the brilliance and memorability of our pasts then we need to ignore the mindset that suggests all that is digital is gold! Too many musicians rely on it and are producing music to satisfy marketing minds – rather than amaze the listeners. This needs to change because, if we carry on down this road, music will lose its magic and potential. I am not sure whether there is a way to make quick and effective changes but making small steps is the way to cure the issue. I miss the days of cassettes and find analogue a much richer and warmer sound – the likes of Kate Bush are not wrong! We can still hear analogue music – and those classic artists – but, when they take up more of our time than modern artists; does that signal real issues for the music industry?! I would like to see a greater promotion of traditional recording/release and a relinquishing of this eternal and hardcore grip of the digital. The quality is there (and artists have that promise) but living in this digital-focused and technology-obsessed world means…
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PEOPLE like me will always prefer the music of the past.