How Virtuous is the Virtual World?

How Virtuous is the Virtual World? – Music2MyEars

We were wondering how much of our lives we spend looking at progress bars. Why are they so compelling?
Everyone uses the internet as an example of how artists can democratically control their destiny. How realistic is this though? Indeed how many artists want to spend a large part of their time updating web pages and networking on MySpace and Facebook? And if the internet is so democratic then why do we need these social networking sites created by 25 something geeks who are now rich beyond their (and our) wildest dreams?

At the end of last year we saw the start of the bun fight over whose idea ‘Facebook’ was – quite frankly do I care? Once something becomes this big it no longer has the attraction for me because it becomes part of the same monolith that we were running away from! These successful social networking sites are easily snapped up by major media players and then become nothing more than online billboards for incessant advertising. This is probably exactly what they wanted, though of course they never told us that, but is this really what we want?

There are also plenty of pundits who will advocate giving music away is a good way to promote yourself as an artist. Why is that such a great idea?

Surely music has value and should not be given away free, but how do we make it possible for people to consume music and satisfactorily reimburse the creators?

The popular notion that everyone loves downloads is continually being undermined. I talked to people about it and was surprised to find how many of those who actively prefer physical CDs are the younger music buyers. Apparently the buzz of actually holding a CD (or vinyl album) in your hand is still real! I also wondered whether the concept of ‘the album’ was still relevant – if everyone is downloading off iTunes one song at a time then isn’t ‘the album’ dead? Not so my young friends tell me – we love idea that the artist has created a body of work especially for us and packaged it in the way they would like us to hear it.

Cool!

I guess these findings are supported by the growing success of festivals like All Tomorrow’s Parties where someone actually ‘curates’ the artists on the bill and creates a whole experience for a weekend. Will this take over from the mega-festivals that have become a fixture every summer?

This has led me to wonder whether the same issues will arise in the live music sector as have done in the recorded music sector. It is arguable that one thing that has contributed to the demise in CD sales is the bad value offered in recent years. We have all bought an album on the strength of hearing a couple of the songs and then been disappointed to find they were the only worthwhile tracks on the album. Perhaps this is starting to happen at gigs and festivals? I heard some very varied reports from last summer’s offerings and they haven’t just been about the weather!

What about concert gigs? I went to a gig some months back – even bought a ticket! This was an artist I really quite liked and whose album I had also bought. It was terrible, the venue was too big for his reticent style and the moody intimacy of his music was swamped in the cavernous sound from the P.A. At first I was annoyed with the artist – then I considered whose fault it actually was – I now blame the promoter who had gone for the two nights in a big hall rather than more nights in a more appropriate, smaller venue. Greed? Very possibly but this attitude of short term gain will lead to long-term problems for us all. Promoters don’t actually seem to live up to their name these days anyway when they insist the acts they put on to bring their own audience – we all know who I mean!

Perhaps this is what is happening to the internet too? Already the advertising is driving the content and ISPs will take very little responsibility for the content they allow through their portals so it has all become something of a mess.

Let’s have some ideas for using the internet to really let artists become the creators of their own destiny – then I will start believing again in the democracy and the power of the web.


Music2MyEars © 2008