8Sided Blog

the scene celebrates itself

Unplugging The Rebellious Jukebox

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Music Industry Blog:

At the Future Music Forum, Frukt’s Jack Horner observed that most music genres, and indeed media as a whole, are becoming age agnostic, which means that it is really hard for Generation Edge [i.e. our current pre-teens and adolescents] to find music that they can own, that their mum and dad aren’t going to sing along to too. This is the price to be paid for media and brands having successfully convinced aging 30 and 40 somethings that they are still young at heart and in the pocket. So with no music subculture to cling to Generation Edge has instead gravitated to YouTube stars.



For those not in the target demographic, it can sometimes be difficult to grasp exactly what the creative value is of many YouTubers. But that generational inability to grasp the essence of YouTube talent is exactly the same dynamic that music always had when it was the spearhead for youth rebellion. A kid trying to explain to his mum why Stampy Does Minecraft is worth watching hours on end is simply a 21st century rerun of kids trying to convince their parents of the musical worth of Elvis, the Beatles, the Sex Pistols and so on. That is the entire point of a youth culture – older generations aren’t meant to get it.


I’m not going to go all ‘old man shaking fist’ on this, but it does present interesting challenges for the music industry. First of all, the author’s observation on the effect of music no longer being seen as ‘rebellious’ by teenagers is keen. I’ve long believed that youth-led cultural changes related to music would start to be driven more by technology than sound or style as ubiquitous access to a world of recordings makes genre labels passé. And the fact that the YouTube movement is being driven by content creating peers of ‘Generation Edge’ (ugh – I will shake my fist at that term, actually) is a bit cool and kind of sci-fi, really. Encouraging music integration into this content will probably be key, which would require an open embrace of ‘remix culture‘ by the powers that be. Services like Flipagram seem to be on the cusp.

Inside the Rise and Receding of Russia’s Music Industry

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Billboard:

Under communism, the country had just one record label, Melodiya, which was strictly controlled by the government, which made sure that only “safe” records and artists were released and promoted. FM radio simply didn’t exist. Concerts were managed by state-run agencies, and rock musicians were mostly barred from touring. It would be charitable to characterize the last century of the Russian music industry as barebones.



Over the next two decades [following Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms], a music industry was allowed to mature with little or no government involvement, eventually growing to be worth $2 billion annually by the early ’10s, and which faced the same challenges as other, more mature markets, such as the continuing decline in physical sales and the question of growing streaming revenues.



Last year brought the symbolic end of the physical format era in Russia; the segment’s contraction led to the closure of all remaining brick-and mortar outlets of Soyuz, once Russia’s biggest nationwide CD chain.



Meanwhile, companies in the digital space, especially streaming services such as Zvooq and Yandex.Music (the music service of Yandex, “the Russian Google”) appear to be doing well.



“We’ve seen local music services closing down because of [an overall economic downturn in Russia], or losing part of their catalogue, and foreign players leaving,” Konstantin Vorontsov, head of Yandex.Music, told Billboard. “However, demand for digital music isn’t declining… there is growth.”

The Elaborate Charade to Obfuscate Who Writes Pop Music

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This fascinating article from The Atlantic reads like an episode of Black Mirror:

Impressionable young fans would do well to avoid John Seabrook’s (new book) The Song Machine, an immersive, reflective, and utterly satisfying examination of the business of popular music. It is a business as old as Stephen Foster, but never before has it been run so efficiently or dominated by so few. We have come to expect this type of consolidation from our banking, oil-and-gas, and health-care industries. But the same practices they rely on—ruthless digitization, outsourcing, focus-group brand testing, brute-force marketing—have been applied with tremendous success in pop, creating such profitable multinationals as Rihanna, Katy Perry, and Taylor Swift.



The music has evolved in step with these changes. A short-attention-span culture demands short-attention-span songs. The writers of Tin Pan Alley and Motown had to write only one killer hook to get a hit. Now you need a new high every seven seconds—the average length of time a listener will give a radio station before changing the channel.


Orlando’s Lou Pearlman apparently has a lot more to answer for than the criminal schemes he’s presently serving time for.

Side story: in the mid-’90s I once wandered into a downtown Orlando pizza place to grab a quick slice and noticed Pearlman at a table with a large pie in the middle, and four teenage boys sitting across looking wide-eyed and attentive. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall.


Update: Vox interviews John Seabrook about his book and the ‘mega-producer’ phenomenon:

When you’re talking about the Swedes, and to a certain extent the Norwegians, there you’re dealing with a different set of cultural influences. There’s this whole concept, from a novel in the 1930s, called Jantelagen, the laws of Scandinavian restraint. The idea is that individual success is to be frowned upon in Scandinavian culture, and it’s really about the group and not the individual. That particular set of influences was very instrumental in shaping Denniz Pop and his group of disciples, of whom [leading mega-producer] Max Martin was obviously the most successful. It’s a major force in Max Martin’s career.



What’s the difference between the Beatles and Max Martin, really? You could say the Beatles’ songs are maybe a little bit better, but that’s a very subjective judgment. The real difference is that the Beatles perform their own songs and that’s why the Beatles are universally recognized as geniuses, whereas Martin never performs his own songs, and that’s why outside the music industry, nobody knows who Max Martin is. It’s a hard thing for most Americans to wrap their minds around, but if you look at it in a Swedish context, it makes a little more sense.


Update 2: Bob Lefsetz reviews Seabrook’s The Song Machine: Inside The Hit Factory:

They don’t sit in studios with guitars and pianos, writing melodies and lyrics together. At best, they do that in Nashville. Rather producers come up with beats and then they have their favorite topliners create melodies and hooks on top. And if there aren’t enough hooks in the track, they start all over. They’re in the business of hit singles, not album dreck. And they know one hook is not enough, that you’ve got to grab the public instantly and continue to thrill them.



And this formula is working.



I’m not judging it, just telling you how it is.



All the people truly driving popular culture are in this book. That’s why you should read it. And that’s why you’re gonna hate it.

‘Flexibility Is Key’ In The New Creative Economy

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Cuepoint:

It’s always worth looking at who remains silent in many of these debates; while some Western artists have vocally opposed streaming, you don’t hear artists from developing markets doing the same. Maybe the heart of the debate about the new creative economy is this — are creators who were in power for so long willing to secede some of that power if it means other voices can be heard?



Is it true that some artists have a harder time making a living than they did fifteen years ago? Absolutely. Is it also true that other artists have been able to make a living where they never could have before? Yes. We now operate in an economy where flexibility is key, and if you expect to keep making a living the same way your entire career, you’re going to have a hard time. This doesn’t mean that we should ignore copyright and condone piracy, nor does it mean that artists and their supporters shouldn’t advocate for fair compensation. But to suggest that creative workers are doomed in the current market vastly overstates the case.


Steven Johnson’s infamous New York Times article really raised some dust, and I find this Cuepoint piece a notable addition to the fray as it focuses on the most important point, which was missed by most of the critics. Indeed, we’re seeing a breakdown of traditional avenues for creative livelihoods, as well as the problems caused by legacy corporations struggling to shove the genie back in the bottle. But the emerging self-employment opportunities presented by this internet disruption – coupled with a potential ‘leveling of the playing field’ in distribution and promotion for creative works – makes for exciting times for the budding artist. I’m not saying you won’t have to work a day job; was there ever a time that the overwhelming majority of musicians didn’t? But the chances of that job existing in orbit of your creative field, or under your own authority, are now greater than ever, especially if you can think on your feet. I believe that counts for something.

I also love the caption on the article’s banner photo:

iOTA, the flame-throwing guitar hero from this year’s Mad Max: Fury Road, proves that there will always be work for musicians, even after the bombs fall.

The Heat Is On: Reactions And Response To ‘The Creative Apocalypse That Wasn’t’

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Slate:

Musicians, writers, and other creative folk are still scratching their heads over the cover story in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine: “The New Making It” — packaged online as “The Creative Apocalypse That Wasn’t” — looked at how the Internet economy, instead of destroying creative careers, had redrawn them in “complicated and unexpected ways.” The story’s author, Steven Johnson, is an engaging writer, and the piece is told largely through statistics, which most readers assume to be beyond criticism. So why are so many people who work in the world of culture wondering why the article seemed to describe a best-of-all-worlds planet very different from the one they live on?


The tone of the Slate article is a little off-putting for me though I understand where the author is coming from. I do agree the trope of musicians making more money on the road, thus compensating for lost recording revenue, is a bit of a wrong turn, and isn’t encouraging to us studio hermits or songwriters. That was a trap that Johnson fell into. But I feel there’s too much focus in these complaints on the traditional occupations – session players, record store clerks, and so on – without acknowledging the newly emerging opportunities. It is melancholy to see some of these professions fade (and I was a happy record store clerk for many years), but I accept this is what happens as society and technology evolves. Again, I feel we should be focusing on the prospects of autonomy and what it can do for creative people. This is the real story for me … the possibilities that are now available, when before we had to deal with labels, and distributors, and (yes) touring, and publicists. There’s now a freedom to opt out of any or all of those and still make a living.

Here’s another paragraph from the Slate article about a larger trend that I do agree is troublesome:

It’s worth looking at the world of culture as an environment: As rents in cities that have traditionally made creative life possible – especially collaborative creative life – jolts up by 10 percent or more a year, musicians, writers, actors, and others get forced out to make room for financiers and trustafarians. If I can extend the eco-system metaphor for a second: For most people working in film, music, television, or books, that is hardly sustainable. David Byrne has made this point about the one-percenting of American cities and its impact on culture quite eloquently; “The New Making It” does not even engage his argument indirectly.


The part about ‘collaborative creative life’ really hurts. Much of the music I listen to wouldn’t exist if not for the downtrodden arts community that inhabited New York City in the ’70s. This concern is a bit outside of Johnson’s original article, in my opinion, but is something that will have an impact on the quality, and regional meaningfulness, of American art moving forward.


Meanwhile, Bob Lefsetz weighs in:

Expect a flurry of naysayers to come out of the woodwork shortly. The Trichordist will freak out, all those agitating for a return to yesteryear. But the truth is we’re never going back, even if everything Steven Johnson says in this article is wrong. So why can’t we just accept it and move on, certainly the public has done this.



So stop complaining. You can make money in music, many are. Yes, the spoils are going to the 1%, but that’s true in all walks of our economy. Turns out there’s a limited number of top-notch execs and a limited number of top-notch musicians.



The public is happy. Instead of trying to get people to change their minds and go back to a past that you want, better to give them what they want, even better, give them MORE than what they want, new and different. That’s what turns people on, not when they’re corralled and ripped-off, but when they’re enticed.


And then Steven Johnson has posted his promised response to the criticisms from the Future Of Music Coalition.

Via The New York Times Magazine:

Interestingly, in all the responses to the article, no one so far has been able to suggest a data source that suggests that mean or median incomes for musicians have declined since 1999, adjusted for inflation. Everything that I have uncovered in many months of researching this article suggests that the story of music since 1999 is one of steady but small growth for musicians. Not some glorious renaissance, but certainly not a crisis.



As I wrote at the end of the article, I do not think this data should be used as a mindless defense of the status quo. For what it’s worth, I think musicians (and other creators) deserve to see an even bigger piece of the pie. I get that groups advocating on behalf of musicians may worry that a modestly optimistic story will make it harder for artists to negotiate better deals with their labels or new streaming services, or will encourage consumers to return to their old music-piracy ways because they read some article that said the musicians are doing just fine. But I think it’s just as important to point out that it has turned out to be a very exciting time to make music for a living, one filled with many new opportunities that didn’t exist 15 years ago. It’s important, for starters, because it contradicts a (false) theory that many smart people still hold about the state of the culture. But it’s also important for the music itself. I worry that there’s a whole generation of musicians out there who will be scared by all the doomsayers toward more conventional career paths, when there is so much evidence of opportunity all around us.

(Previously) and (Previously)

Future Of Music Coalition Responds: The Data Journalism That Wasn’t

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Future Of Music Coalition:

Let us be clear: our problem with Johnson’s article isn’t that he fails to conform to some doom-and-gloom scenario for artists working today. Indeed, there are a lot of new opportunities for artists, and those opportunities are worth celebrating. Most frustrating to us is that Johnson reinforces a false binary between pro-technology optimistic futurism and anti-technology digital pessimism. And that simply doesn’t describe the state of the contemporary debate about art and the digital age.


Fair enough. And the Future Of Music Coalition fires off some worthy criticism of Steven Johnson’s numbers, which Johnson in turn has promised to respond to. It’s all very much worth reading.

I feel the true state lies somewhere in between. I know a few musicians who are doing quite well for themselves in the present climate, and I know a few who have dropped out of the business due to financial frustration. I’m hanging on, though it’s certainly a stressful arena to be making a living in. But I’m not convinced it’s all that different than it was a couple decades ago, in terms of some musicians benefiting and others struggling into disillusionment. Admittedly, one big change is that there are a lot fewer stable music industry jobs. And artists working within the traditional infrastructure are feeling the pain (which isn’t helped by labels adopting things like 360 deals). But I still think the emerging opportunities for creative people and independent companies, which the Coalition admits are “worth celebrating”, are the real story here, and it’s this shift towards autonomy that will define the future of music.

(previously)

The Creative Apocalypse That Wasn’t

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The New York Times Magazine:

Thanks to its legal troubles, Napster itself ended up being much less important as a business than as an omen, a preview of coming destructions. Its short, troubled life signaled a fundamental rearrangement in the way we discover, consume and (most importantly) pay for creative work. In the 15 years since, many artists and commentators have come to believe that (this) promised apocalypse is now upon us — that the digital economy, in which information not only wants to be free but for all practical purposes is free, ultimately means that ‘‘the diverse voices of the artists will disappear,’’ because musicians and writers and filmmakers can no longer make a living.



It seems logical to critics that we will end up in a world in which no one has an economic incentive to follow creative passions. The thrust of this argument is simple and bleak: that the digital economy creates a kind of structural impossibility that art will make money in the future. The world of professional creativity, the critics fear, will soon be swallowed by the profusion of amateurs, or the collapse of prices in an age of infinite and instant reproduction will cheapen art so that no one will be able to quit their day jobs to make it — or both.



(The artists’) financial fate turns out to be much harder to measure, but I endeavored to try. Taking 1999 as my starting point — the year both Napster and Google took off — I plumbed as many data sources as I could to answer this one question: How is today’s creative class faring compared with its predecessor a decade and a half ago? The answer isn’t simple, and the data provides ammunition for conflicting points of view. It turns out that (pessimists were) incontrovertibly correct on one point: Napster did pose a grave threat to the economic value that consumers placed on recorded music. And yet the creative apocalypse (we were) warned of has failed to arrive. Writers, performers, directors and even musicians report their economic fortunes to be similar to those of their counterparts 15 years ago, and in many cases they have improved. Against all odds, the voices of the artists seem to be louder than ever.


This article is a must-read, and not just for its refreshingly optimistic tone about the economic changes in our creative culture. I had to hold back on quoting more from it above as almost every paragraph is fascinating. The author looks at not just the music industry but also the state of film and literature and determines what those in the trenches have suspected: things aren’t necessarily rosy for the legacy media companies, but are looking good for individual creators who know how to ride the landscape. Gee, it’s almost like someone out there has been purposefully controlling the narrative, pushing ‘doom and gloom’ stories for all artists who embrace this democratization through technology.

Also touched on in the article is how there are now so many more opportunities for musicians and content creators to make income on their work. Chris Anderson’s ‘Long Tail’ may not have fully realized, but indeed there are multiple avenues of artist income available now that didn’t exist even 15 years ago. On top of this, the crumbling of the traditional distribution model – which is the source of anxiety for all these big media companies – and the dramatically reduced costs for creating new media open up unlimited possibilities. It’s the punk rock dream come true.

Related, and also recommended, is this latest episode of the Mac Power Users podcast where the hosts chat with songwriter Jonathan Mann about how he makes a living by recording a song a day. Most of the podcast is a lot of technical talk, but the really interesting section starts around 1:08:00 where Mann gets into the business of what he does. Basically none of this would have been possible for him a couple years ago.

Update: The Future Of Music Coalition has some crticisms, and I have a few more thoughts.