The Lines Got Blurred
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Though the nightmare scenarios concocted by the music industry during the Napster scare of the late 90s haven’t exactly become reality—people still buy music and records still go platinum, albeit not in the numbers they used to—the millions of users who’ve taken to file sharing in the intervening decade have undeniably dealt a serious blow to record labels large and small. Aggravating the plight of the majors are their institutional inertia, suspicion of digital commerce, and frequently uncool treatment of musicians, all of which have made indie labels and self-released records more attractive to fans and artists alike. The ability of DIY artists and small labels to adapt relatively quickly to new technologies and markets gives them an edge over the dinosaurs as the entire industry languishes in what might be a permanent slump. Not only punks—traditional advocates of a DIY approach—but also top-shelf rappers, AOR folkies, and some of the biggest rock bands on the planet are self-releasing free albums, which makes me feel like I’m living in some fantasy world dreamed up by an old-school hardcore kid toting a copy of MIM Notes.
Lil Wayne
A DJ has to use a program like Serato Scratch Live, which costs several hundred dollars, to lend digital files a tactile dimension even remotely comparable to the feel of a spinning piece of vinyl, and the digital perks attached to an iTunes Album pale next to the pleasures of a well-designed gatefold LP. So yes, there are certainly advantages to music that’s manufactured in a physical form. But they’re nothing next to the advantages of music that isn’t. Your sister’s high school emo band can accumulate a few hundred thousand fans without the assistance of a label or a manager, and even casual listeners now have easy access to tons of localized tweaks on hip-hop and dance music from places like Angola and Brazil—stuff that even dedicated heads would’ve had a hard time digging up just a few years ago. Not many Western labels are willing to underwrite something like a compilation of nasty booty-lectro from the slums of Rio, but that’s fine; we no longer need them to.
Micachu
