The internet is not very good for musicians these days, is it?

well, nice knowing I'm not alone ruminating on these things lol

so a new music platform with a built-in grant structure would be the solution?

idk i was just kinda rambling about my own problems

^ we all are.

obv things suck for musicians now and the internet leading to people not buying physical format musical products is a huge part of that but, i dunno, a lot of great, less popular bands from say the 80s in the uk had members working in the informal economy and/or being on the dole to make ends meet and the biography many of punk, indie, underground etc. bands from the late 20th century involves members leaving to go to university or whatever.

I have heard a very interesting argument from another friend, in the past, that the idea that "recorded music is saleable product" is itself an anomaly and one that should be corrected, along with the idea that one can/should derive an income from the creation of recorded music

That recorded music as an art form would be improved by removing accumulation-of-capital from the list of reasons for its creation

Maybe he just made that argument to make me feel shitty tho

Outic OTM re the 20th c. aberration/back to folk culture idea. Our angst is a result of viewing the 21st century through 20th c. eyes.

it's certainly an anomaly but it begs the question of what should replace it... nothing?

xp

Honestly one of the reasons I started gravitating closer to dance music is that the built-in functional, communal aspect was appealing (DJ mixes etc). Other paths (making more background-y music, sending beats to rappers, etc) seemed more likely to lead to isolation.

Also, DJs actually download tracks.

Outic OTM re the 20th c. aberration/back to folk culture idea. Our angst is a result of viewing the 21st century through 20th c. eyes.

Yeah, the entire recorded music industry was a bubble based on technological limitations. As those limitations fell away, the bubble collapsed.

Canada has a support structure in place for musicians though, no?

What should replace it? Just doing things for the love of it, and to entertain your tiny circle of interested friends? I feel like Emily Dickinson or Franz Kafka should be the models of future musicians motivations.

to expand on my point about returning to folk culture - what I was referring to was the production (and consumption) of music re-assuming several characteristics of old, pre-recording technology culture. Being performed primarily by unpaid "amateurs" for the specific purpose of entertaining themselves and their small social circle (define that however you like - friends & families, facebook/twitter followers, whatever). Aesthetics will be developed and defined not by a monolithic pop culture, but largely by the needs and interests of various, relatively isolated groups and subcultures. Previously the boundaries isolating different folk cultures was geographic, but in the internet age, while geography will still play a role, subcultures are going to be self-selected based on interests, aesthetic preferences, politics, etc.

There will probably always be an elite of professionals that are essentially bankrolled by patrons (major corporate label money).

Will music be qualitatively "better" or "worse"? I have no idea, hard to measure. What it will be is a labor of love supported strictly by much smaller, isolated communities.

xp

twitter for the community.
bandcamp for the hosting/music.
I have found the whole synthwave scene revolves around this tag-team.

patreon is the future obv, unfortunately i was struck by lightning while typing this sentence

I feel like Emily Dickinson or Franz Kafka should be the models of future musicians motivations.

I don't disagree with you point but... maybe pick more encouraging icons?

like, those are two really fucking miserable people

the recorded music industry is still a $4 bn business these days, but the vast vast majority of that cash filters to the top .001% of artists and their affiliates.

i feel like anyone doing creative work should get paid for it

society doesn't care about your feelings

hell yeah it doesn't

Emily Kafka is my next band name, thanks

Ha, yes that’s suppose I’m being deliberately glum there to make the point. Like, if the possibility of becoming lauded but never making a penny isn’t enough for you, maybe you’re in the wrong game.

I wonder how different poetry would be there had been a similar amount of cash/industry in it.

Maura just shared this on Twitter and it's relevant

http://gloriousnoise.com/2018/the-importance-of-artifact

Like, if the possibility of becoming lauded but never making a penny isn’t enough for you, maybe you’re in the wrong game.

maybe the problem isn’t me but the game

jk the problem is always me

somehow there's something less icky about a person directly commissioning an artist to make something for pay than the patreon model but I can't quite articulate why it feels that way.

because the latter involves the internet, duh

to expand on my point about returning to folk culture - what I was referring to was the production (and consumption) of music re-assuming several characteristics of old, pre-recording technology culture. Being performed primarily by unpaid "amateurs" for the specific purpose of entertaining themselves and their small social circle (define that however you like - friends & families, facebook/twitter followers, whatever). Aesthetics will be developed and defined not by a monolithic pop culture, but largely by the needs and interests of various, relatively isolated groups and subcultures. Previously the boundaries isolating different folk cultures was geographic, but in the internet age, while geography will still play a role, subcultures are going to be self-selected based on interests, aesthetic preferences, politics, etc.

Yeah, I discussed this with jazz guitarist/bassist Joe Morris a few years ago - the idea that the "star" musician is effectively dead and gone, replaced by "there's a guy in my town who's a really good guitar player." I mean, never mind selling a million records - think of how many musicians can't even afford to tour more than one or two states away from where they live.

we can't tour at all and never have! I don't really regret this decision tbh.

^ we could draw a distinction between how that change impacts artists vs how it impacts music. It’s obviously a bad deal for that guy, and it’s totally fair that we would reflect on that, but it doesn’t have to be the death of musIc as an art form (not that anyone said it was itt). Again, people still write poetry, right?

if someone writes a poem and no one reads it, is it still poetry?

Or crochet, maybe that’s a better parallel than poetry, given that there are zero professional crochet artists but it’s still a thing people do.

Simon Raymonde piece from last month entitled
‘There’s no money left in the music industry..’

http://www.longlivevinyl.net/simon-says-no-money-music-industry/

Maybe the question is, if you write a poem nobody reads are you really a poet?

http://www.longlivevinyl.net/simon-says-no-money-music-industry/

― piscesx, Monday, July 23, 2018 11:02 AM (fifty-three seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this url is a real journey

I’m crying a lot,tiredness.I feel like I’m banging my head against the wall.I make good and surprising records,I kill myself to make visual,in which I prove it’s about ideas and soul because god forbid anyone should give me a budget.But I get indifference in the industry.

— Roisin Murphy (@roisinmurphy) July 4, 2018

:(

yeah, there was a lot of reaction re her openness and honesty.
no idea if the outcome was/will be positive, but she certainly raised eyebrows.

And it's all so relative because everyone is (naturally) looking at the next step from where they already are. Obv a lot of artists would love to have her level of visibility, or think they would. Maybe it's worse if you've already experienced some financial success in an older version of the industry.

it definitely is not, so some of this is about a generational divide (borne largely of streaming services/generally devaluing of music imo) for those of us that are older and can remember when having a "scene" of people you connected to/saw on a regular basis at shows was a thing

― Οὖτις, Monday, July 23, 2018 11:47 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it’s still like this. im 26

i think the phenomena itt are more about u guys getting older than young ppl changing , or the internet changing in any fundamental way

flops stop reminding us you are young

you’re like 2 years older than me

i’m 31! but i’m glad i come off three years younger

i think the phenomena itt are more about u guys getting older than young ppl changing

this is entirely possible! tbf all I know is my world of young ppl and... most of them do not care about music/bands/shows/records the way my cohort did at their age afaict, it's not quite the cultural signifier/personality marker it was.

it's also a harsh truth that the percentage of people who care about music at all drops as you age. People move away from cities, have kids, stop going out, have to work more, most of their peers don't care about music anymore, it just drops away. I mean, count up how many 75 year olds you know with a record collection.

I think nobody questions that scenes exist, flops, but I wonder a bit about (say) national maintenance of a scene versus regional. Think there might be some more to the idea that we're returning to more strictly regional scenes in particular ways (unevenly applied, as always).

I've been out of the UK for about 15 years and now have a job where I employ mostly 16-22 year olds, and yeah, have noticed a distinct lack of the tribal musical affiliations which seemed to completely define moreorless everyone I knew in the 90s. But in some ways this seems positive, the arbitrary hate for certain genres seems to have faded away, they seem much less judgemental about other people's taste, and possibly more open too.

That observation in part reminds me of a standard framework that has grown up around the 1975 lately, that they don't have just 'one' sound, drew on many things, etc. I'd be hesitant to center them in any argument but it could still be a point to note.