8Sided Blog

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Reclaiming the Intention of Fandom

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Warren Ellis has been reclaiming his physical media, sorting through collected DVDs and CDs — and sending off for new additions — in defiance of this century’s model of ephemeral, digital distribution of art. Ellis’s re-transition is occurring in public, through his fantastic newsletter — Orbital Operations — and photos appearing on his blog. There’s a touch of paranoia about treasured music becoming unavailable, whether through hard drive failures, platform redundancy, the whims of corporate interests, or technological apocalypse. It’s a calculated “withdrawal from feeds and streams,” he says, meaning the download option is considered a form of ownership. Here’s a section from today’s issue of Orbital Operations:

This is, of course, all part and parcel of my withdrawal from the feeds and streams … also, a continuing personal rejection of Music As A Service. I purchase all my downloads. And if something for sale is offered for free on a streaming site, I try to track the thing down and buy it if I love it. Sampling is fine. That’s what radio was/is for. I use YouTube and other services to sample things, and I think – I hope – it can help artists. But renting a music collection is bullshit and bad for everybody. (As is, of course, acting as if music is free like air. That only works if you don’t let all the trees die.)

(But, I reiterate, personal. Not trying to make you feel bad for streaming here. This is just what works for me, and I am well aware of my personal privilege of having an amount of disposable income for music.)

These thoughts intersect with Darren Hemmings’ piece I mentioned in a previous post, and how many of us are re-evaluating our relationships with the transitory delivery of digital art. Hemmings’ reservations mainly come from wanting to give an artist his or her due — some coin directly in the pocket — and a reasonable suspicion into the goals of a company like Spotify. These feelings also motivate Ellis, but he adds the wild card of wanting to own his music and movies and to enjoy them in a way that’s not dependent on a corporate subscription platform. In other words, something other than a platform that encourages ephemerality and distraction through endless options.

And this dovetails into my preoccupation with the societal effects of music streaming and our perception of ‘music’s place in the 21st century.’ I was a late adopter of music streaming — a casual free-tier Spotify user, the launch of Apple Music is what got me fully on board.1 Know that my late-adopter status wasn’t a Luddite-like resistance — I wasn’t listening to a lot of music in the first half of the 2010s, something I may get into at a later date. I went through multiple stages of the streaming listener: excitement at all my favorite albums at hand; discovering new albums and artists based on reviews in niche blogs; getting seduced by the fun of playlists2I temporarily switched from Apple Music to Spotify as my platform of choice during this stage.; and the realization that an obsession with playlists was turning me into a passive listener rather than an intentional one.

Passive vs. intentional is a recurring theme on this blog and it’s something I think about a lot. One effect of ‘newsfeed culture’ is it creates passivity in our consumption — what we see and hear is determined by an algorithm or a curation, a diet of someone else’s choices. This passivity isn’t always bad. When we listen to the radio, we are listening passively, and there have been times when a random radio experience changed my life. But the erosion of intentionality is a disassembling of personality. This condition can deprive us of the agency of our thoughts.

Fandom requires intention, as we decide the artists worthy of our obsession and adulation. Of course, the fan can discover a new artist through radio or a playlist, but there needs to be a push – an inner encouragement, even — to explore further. Whether by design or not, I find that playlists encourage the opposite. There’s always that new niche playlist — updated regularly! — front-and-center on the platform’s launch page, drawing attention with delightful sonic promise.

Like Hemmings and Ellis, my struggles with this brought me to Bandcamp and my personal library.3Unlike Ellis, I won’t go as far as embracing physical media. I’ve flirted closely with hoarder tendencies when I was ‘collecting,’ and I don’t want to go back there. My practice was independent of their individual screeds. Several months ago, I started building a Bandcamp collection of music for sleeping. I noticed that familiar satisfaction of purchasing a release and knowing the majority of my payment will go to the creator — a much different psychological experience than a monthly subscription payment to a DSP. And I was picky about what I was purchasing, thus committing the music to multiple listens and an attachment to memory. At first, I left these releases to play via Bandcamp but soon downloaded the lossless files, adding them to my iTunes library. More satisfaction; I was creating a walled-garden library of music that I intentionally discovered and considered top notch. Sort of like I did when I was a teenager buying record albums and arranging them in a milk crate.

And now I’m visiting Bandcamp more often than Apple Music or Spotify, and I’m purchasing more than ‘sleep music.’ Admittedly, I’m still experimenting — this whole era of digital music has been a constant experiment — and I’ll continue to document all this on the blog. But behind this post is a fascination that as all things internet have lost their luster other listeners and music fans are arriving at a similar place. There’s a questioning of music’s role among fandom and the artists that wish to cultivate fans. I feel like we’re all at a critical crossroads and I couldn’t be more excited.

Less Radio, More Intention: Streaming at a Crossroads

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This Medium post from Motive Unknown’s Darren Hemmings is getting a lot of attention, and rightly so:

We are constantly being told by the likes of Spotify that they can enhance our music discovery. Algorithms and their own curated playlists should give us no end of music to enjoy. But the sheer volume, coupled with zero friction, results in the much-cited “paradox of choice”. Selecting anything is horribly hard, but equally, with zero friction in accessing it, no emotional investment is made and our own consumption becomes entirely shallow. […]

At every step of the way, streaming services are essentially gaslighting us that this ecosystem is an amazing new development. Just like Silicon Valley in general, there is this mindset that having everything available all the time is a good thing. It isn’t — and it is arguably damaging art and culture as a result. […]

In 2019, artists need meaningful patronage, not a speech about how they could get more streams. That patronage might come from merch or other means, but it should come from music too. As someone who makes his living from the music industry, it also occurred to me that frankly, I owe these people. Without them, I wouldn’t have this job that I love.

The author continues with an opinion that streaming is more of a replacement for radio — rather than for albums or fan-cherished media — than we realize. Like radio, most listeners approach streamed music passively and ephemerally — a song or artist listened to now is forgotten fifteen minutes later. Hemmings feels this is partly due to a lack of listener investment (the purchase of the music) as well as the psychological effect of a seemingly endless amount of content.

I still think that music fans can utilize streaming with intention, but it’s not effortless. Rather than clicking on playlists and random recommendations, listeners can seek out albums and new releases from trusted sources (reviews, online radio shows, friends). And once a great album is discovered, learning more about it and its artist is just a few clicks away. That said, requiring intention won’t easily convert casual listeners to die-hard fans, but the seductive nature of playlists and algorithmic recommendations is turning fans into more passive listeners. Intention used to be inherent in the medium. Gone are the days of merely perusing the CD or LP liner notes (or holding a curiosity-inspiring album cover) and digging further.

The comparison with radio may predict another inevitability: that streaming platforms will become more exclusive rather than aiming to contain every available musical recording. Just as you know to turn to a top 40 radio station to hear that format, or a jazz FM station for be-bop, or the local college station for freeform, esoteric selections, we may see a similar separation in streaming outlets. I believe this could be a good thing, and we’re seeing seeds in the Bandcamp model — that platform isn’t actively courting the new Taylor Swift single.

The ultimate model is for artists to create portals for music through their sites like Neil Young has done with his Archives project. If a fan wanted to hear the music first and in the best quality or format then the artist’s site could be the destination rather than that of a corporate third party. This also gives the artist freedom over presentation, to have ‘liner notes,’ videos, behind-the-scenes documentaries, and such featured alongside the music. The emphasis would be on fan-building as opposed to platform-building. One step further is for artists to be connected and networked, perhaps via an organization like Merlin, so music from similar bands are discovered through the artist’s portal.

There are still many possible directions for the future of the streaming industry. I know it feels like we’re at the end-point, that Spotify and Apple’s dominance and agenda-setting are the way things are and will be. But, as we’re learning with society’s now mainstream skepticism of social media, we’re still at the ‘figuring-it-all-out’ stage with digital media. Expect more than a few forks and unexpected crossroads along the way. And if an independent artist’s future is outside of Spotify — just as independents were rarely included on MTV or commercial radio — then it’s likely that artist will end up stronger for it.

🔗→ Music Streaming Services Are Gaslighting Us

Sun Ra Exotica

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There’s an effort to make the entire Sun Ra catalog available online, and that’s no easy task. The inimitable jazz artist’s catalog is vast and perplexing, and previously unknown recordings are unearthed on a regular basis. Admittedly some of his work is impenetrable to the uninitiated, creating an impression that Sun Ra is a cacophonous weirdo. That would be a misunderstanding. Irwin Chusid, who is managing the reissue series via Sun Ra LLC, had this to say in an interview with Bandcamp Daily:

He is an institution. He is a cosmic force. He is a genius. He’s one of the great neglected composer-musicians of the 20th century. There’s no question what this man created is singular. There’s no one like Sun Ra. […]

I think 75 percent of Sun Ra’s sprawling catalogue is accessible … Is it slick? No. Is it smooth? No. Is it mainstream? No. But it’s fun. It’s musical. It’s engaging. It’s adventurous. It’s diverse. And a lot of it is jazz.

Diving into the catalog is daunting but rewarding, and it’s not difficult to find starting points. That Bandcamp Daily article suggests many good intro albums. This piece in Vulture has some excellent recommendations, too.

I’ve been going down the Sun Ra rabbit-hole, exploring the extensive catalog available on Bandcamp, and ran across the compilation Sun Ra Exotica. I do love the strange ‘50s genre of ‘exotica,’ exemplified by the likes of Martin Denny, Les Baxter, and Arthur Lyman. The style, in a way, is a precursor to what Jon Hassell coined ‘fourth world music:’ a blending of different traditional styles with Western music to create a previously unimagined sound.

I had never thought of Sun Ra in the context of ‘exotica,’ but it makes sense. He was, after all, an exotic dude. And his oeuvre is so expansive that contextualizing groupings of his compositions under a theme, like ‘exotica,’ reveals something new about Sun Ra’s work.

From the release notes to Sun Ra Exotica:

Was Exotica kitsch? Did it represent “cultural appropriation”? Was it a dilution of indigenous art? Who cares? Music should be enjoyed on its own terms. … Exotica has roots, but those roots are uncopyable. What emerges is something derivative, yet original. Here you have Sun Ra, of African-American extraction, influenced by Les Baxter, a Caucasian from Texas, who was in turn influenced by primitive jungle rites. It’s a cultural feedback loop, best enjoyed by leaving politics out of it.

Sun Ra Exotica is a terrific starting point for those unfamiliar with Sun Ra’s spaceways. It’s also a pleasure for this longtime fan, the 25 tracks fitting together effortlessly in Ra’s cosmic sonic puzzle. It’s the soundtrack for my weekend.

Tearing Up The Rules Of The Album

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Ars Technica:

Teens of Denial couldn’t possibly exist 15 years ago—least of all because songwriter Will Toledo hadn’t yet turned 10 years old. Toledo instead stands as a “new” voice among a younger generation of musicians (ala Chance The Rapper, age 23, or Torres, age 25) who grew up alongside our current digital music ecosystem. As such, Car Seat Headrest’s first original album for a label represents a culmination of many changes the industry has gone through in the past decade-plus: instant accessibility to vast catalogues; the democratization of recording and releasing; the need to share it all immediately.

Perhaps equally as important as making the music, Toledo always had a home for it. His first release (called 1) dates back to spring 2010, and it still lives on Bandcamp (which itself dates back to 2007). At the age of 23, Toledo already has 11 albums and an EP to his name on the Car Seat Headrest Bandcamp page (Teens of Denial will make it an even dozen).

Toledo’s first release for Matador, last year’s Teens of Style, didn’t include a single new song. Instead, the label wanted Car Seat Headrest partially because of this built-up history. Teens of Style essentially acts as a best-of for Toledo’s Bandcamp output, although the musician re-recorded each selected track. This highlights perhaps the most modern characteristic of Car Seat Headrest: any song can be a continuous work in progress.

Over the years, Toledo has kept a consistent presence on Tumblr (a service that coincidentally started the same year as Bandcamp). He posts plenty of ideas and early demos, including a recent Radiohead tribute. This transparency and symbiotic interaction with fans became part of his process. So whenever Toledo made the types of sweeping changes that services like iTunes might demonize, “people commented, but now people don’t really remember that was a thing.”

You may have heard about someone else trying a similar approach earlier this year. Kanye West released his Tidal faux-exclusive The Life of Pablo on February 14, tweaked some tracks in mid-March, and then shocked fans by producing an almost entirely new version on March 31. “What Kanye is doing is a lot more recognizable to younger people who are more used to this sort of low-key LP release,” {Toldeo} said. “Even with official LPs, people get leaks and half-finished versions before the album actually drops, and this only became prevalent with the Internet. People today are used to the having the LP come into shape more slowly and not get dropped all at once, so what Kanye did was brilliant. He got so much shit for it being a disastrous release or whatever, but that’s not what I saw. He understood the power of the Internet, and he was using his massive celebrity to use Tidal like it was the next Bandcamp.”

Who’s To Blame For Music Startups’ Bleak Outlook

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David Pakman in Medium:

(The) bleak outlook for profitability among standalone digital music companies is a direct result of the high royalty rates incumbent upon startups who wish to license digital music for use in their apps. Whether you negotiate voluntary agreements or avail yourself of the existing compulsory licenses, you will not turn a profit. At least, no one ever has. The few that refused to pay these rates were often sued out of existence.

The end result of these perilous market conditions is that the only companies who can afford to be involved with digital music are the internet giants prepared to subsidize their digital music services with profits from their other businesses. The high royalty rates and up-front cash advances required by the record companies prevent profitable, sustainable businesses from emerging. As a result, the recorded music businesses is left only with these giants: Amazon, Apple, YouTube and, to a lesser extent, Spotify and Pandora.

But this is a “crisis” of their own making. Many of us argued for years that it was in the industry’s best interest to create a healthy ecosystem of hundreds or thousands of successful companies, all enjoying successful businesses around music. But those arguments fell on deaf ears, and instead the industry fought repeatedly to raise royalty rates over and over again, despite evidence that not a single company ever achieved profitability.

In my mind, it would have been in the best long-term interests of the recorded music business to enable the widespread success of thousands of companies, each paying fair but not bone-crushing royalties back to labels, artists and publishers. But the high royalty rates imposed upon startups, even after clear signs over the past 19 years that the strategy killed companies, has prevented a healthy ecosystem from emerging. It’s a bed the music industry made for itself, and now it is left to lie in it.

On the other hand, via Hypebot:

The indie music community has embraced Bandcamp and its suite of direct to fan monetization tools. And unlike most music tech startups, Bandcamp, which launched in 2008, has been profitable “in the now-quaint revenues-exceed-expenses sense” since 2012.

Bandcamp grew 35% last year, according to new stats just released by the direct to fan music platform. Fans are paying $4.3 million to artists monthly using the site, including 25,000 records a day.

Subscription-based music streaming “has yet to prove itself to be a viable model, even after hundreds of millions of investment dollars raised and spent,” the company wrote in a blog post. "For our part, we are committed to offering an alternative that we know works.

Update; There’s now a rebuttal to the original piece, via Medium’s Cuepoint:

More and more artists have chosen to go independent, direct to consumer, self-release their art. Stuff like Blockchain is exciting. If the labels are so impossible to deal with, then shouldn’t the investment be in platforms that will succeed in a post-label world? Shouldn’t the new startups, or the established players, be investing in content and talent development directly with artists, in a more substantial way? Shouldn’t they just take their great ideas and bypass the stubborn major labels?

Update 2; via Music Business Blog:

The music industry is in a transition phase. In such periods, the old and new worlds co-exist and collide. There are statistics that both sides of any argument can hold up in their defence, in fact they can often hold up the very same numbers to support opposite perspectives. Similarly, the comparisons you chose to benchmark with, can paint entirely different pictures. Such is the nature of transitions of human and business behaviour. For example, 83% of Spotify’s gross revenue going to rights is clearly too high and unsustainable, yet $0.00098 per song going to artists is also clearly too low and unsustainable. Something needs to give, for both ends of the value chain.

Maybe if/when Spotify gets to 50 million subscribers it will feel it has enough clout to compel rights holders to rethink licensing economics. Perhaps it will take Spotify getting to a 100 million to make that happen. Perhaps it will never happen. But if it doesn’t, the economics of streaming will remain so broken that only companies with ulterior business objectives will remain viable players, enter stage left streaming’s Triple A: Apple, Amazon and Alphabet (Google). The labels need to ask themselves whether that is the streaming future they want…