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roachboy · 10-17-2006, 07:10 AM

the email is abuot more than the closing of tower--which personally i do not care about particularly---it treats the end of tower as the canary in the mineshaft and is more about the end of "sound carrier" forms--vinyl, cds, cassettes--in general. the collapse of the entire old model for music-as-commodity.

i am ambivalent about this:

on the one hand i am still a real fan of geeky independent record stores--you know, the kind of places that are run by collectors for collectors--i like the browsing through bins and finding stuff you didnt anticipate--the shopping part of it. i have no such affection for the chain stores--they are in general overpriced and selection-poor.

i have been watching this phenomenon unfold in more specialized types of music for a while now--the collapse of independent distributors starting with world serpent (which had many problems of its own not necessarily related to shifts in demand, but which nonetheless stands in for lots of other collapses since)--the gradual disappearance of more independent releases in physical form, replaced with online ordering of cds and, at the limit, with the replacement of cds themselves with downloads.

on this too, i am of two minds: on the one hand, i kinda miss the graphics. graphics are an interesting extension of the music--they are ways to manipulate how and what listeners experience, how they project themselves into what they are taking in. try to imagine the psychedelic phenomenon of the late 1960s happening without the graphics associated with it; the rise of ecm records in the late 1970s would not have happened had ecm not devoted considerable attention to packaging (its use of monochrome backgrounds and high resolution color photography and--especially--smart layout)--or factory records in the early 1990s....hell there would in all probability have been no punk without the graphics associated with it, teh template for which was older situationist recycles of dada collage methods routed through photocopy machines and a deliberately cheap (diy) look.

and i kinda like liner notes, even the stupid ones (shout outs to all my crew blah blah)--in both cases less as advertising (though they are that) than as extensions of the fantasy world the music is about.

mainstream releases from the major labels tend to look and sound like shit. tower was full of that, as strawberries was before them, as virgin megastores are still.

graphics controlled by the musicians, or developed as an extension of the music are another matter. for this, vinyl was clearly better than cds, simply because they provided a bigger, more interesting surface to manipulate.

from this viewpoint, i find it a bit difficult to get with mp3 download platforms like limewire. they strip the visual element from the sound and in doing that i think reduce the sound to elements in a kind of sonic wallpaper that you can customize to fit your interior bathroom or bedroom.

and this points to the stranger dimensions: personally, i really do not care that the primary victims of this shift in distribution of music are the major record labels--let them die. their collapse should take the riaa with them. fuck them all: they were not and are not about the music or about the musicians--remember that at the height of their popularity, the beatles were making about 6 cents on the dollar.

and i dont think that the collapse of this model will necessarily affect the ways in which musicians make a living, given that most money folk make they make from shows.

part of it is that i grew up with records and retain a real affection for them---they are kinda like electricity and indoor plumbing, those things produced by capitalism that aren't so bad. i grew up in a little town in new hampshire and spent much of my adolscence dreaming that i was somewhere else and the primary instruments that shaped that dreaming were records--as objects and as sound transmission media. and i am kinda sad to see them going. i guess its nostalgia.

on the other hand, i wonder about what the new systems of distribution will look like.
i do not think that supply follows demand--i think demand is shaped by supply, that demand operates within contexts that it does not create as a kind of selection mechanism--demand is structured in terms shaped by supply.
commercial music is a demonstration of this. people want what they know about--and in the present cultural context in america, what they know about tends to be very genre specific and very repetitive within genres.
this did not happen on its own--it followed from the adoption of tightly formatted radio across the middle 1970s, which was extended and rationalized by mtv back when it actually was interested in music--now, in the states, commercial radio is a corporate wasteland and has been for over a decade.

what i guess i wonder about is how folk are going to hear new things.
there is a ton of interesting new music out there: how much do you know about?
if you dont know about it, why is that? or....how do you find new music?
do you rely on genres that you already know?
do you use one of the softwares that allows you to load sequences of preferences and that generates association trees based on them for you?
do you rely on radio?
which radio?

it seems that there has to be a radical change in the way radio is organized that would follow from this process of implosion of the old model for music-as-commodity.
or maybe radio has been a wasteland for so long now that it no longer matters.
or maybe some new media will take shape that will open folk up to new stuff. because as it stands, i see most folk wanting only more of what they already know because that is what they know.

do you see indications of new ways of exposing music taking shape? what are they? what does the model look like (speculate about it...)? because it seems to me that without one, the collapse of this old model will result in nothing particularly new or interesting, just new ways of shopping for the same stuff.

but i can't really help being a bit saddened by that email all the same.

10-17-2006, 07:10 AM	#5 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the email is abuot more than the closing of tower--which personally i do not care about particularly---it treats the end of tower as the canary in the mineshaft and is more about the end of "sound carrier" forms--vinyl, cds, cassettes--in general. the collapse of the entire old model for music-as-commodity. i am ambivalent about this: on the one hand i am still a real fan of geeky independent record stores--you know, the kind of places that are run by collectors for collectors--i like the browsing through bins and finding stuff you didnt anticipate--the shopping part of it. i have no such affection for the chain stores--they are in general overpriced and selection-poor. i have been watching this phenomenon unfold in more specialized types of music for a while now--the collapse of independent distributors starting with world serpent (which had many problems of its own not necessarily related to shifts in demand, but which nonetheless stands in for lots of other collapses since)--the gradual disappearance of more independent releases in physical form, replaced with online ordering of cds and, at the limit, with the replacement of cds themselves with downloads. on this too, i am of two minds: on the one hand, i kinda miss the graphics. graphics are an interesting extension of the music--they are ways to manipulate how and what listeners experience, how they project themselves into what they are taking in. try to imagine the psychedelic phenomenon of the late 1960s happening without the graphics associated with it; the rise of ecm records in the late 1970s would not have happened had ecm not devoted considerable attention to packaging (its use of monochrome backgrounds and high resolution color photography and--especially--smart layout)--or factory records in the early 1990s....hell there would in all probability have been no punk without the graphics associated with it, teh template for which was older situationist recycles of dada collage methods routed through photocopy machines and a deliberately cheap (diy) look. and i kinda like liner notes, even the stupid ones (shout outs to all my crew blah blah)--in both cases less as advertising (though they are that) than as extensions of the fantasy world the music is about. mainstream releases from the major labels tend to look and sound like shit. tower was full of that, as strawberries was before them, as virgin megastores are still. graphics controlled by the musicians, or developed as an extension of the music are another matter. for this, vinyl was clearly better than cds, simply because they provided a bigger, more interesting surface to manipulate. from this viewpoint, i find it a bit difficult to get with mp3 download platforms like limewire. they strip the visual element from the sound and in doing that i think reduce the sound to elements in a kind of sonic wallpaper that you can customize to fit your interior bathroom or bedroom. and this points to the stranger dimensions: personally, i really do not care that the primary victims of this shift in distribution of music are the major record labels--let them die. their collapse should take the riaa with them. fuck them all: they were not and are not about the music or about the musicians--remember that at the height of their popularity, the beatles were making about 6 cents on the dollar. and i dont think that the collapse of this model will necessarily affect the ways in which musicians make a living, given that most money folk make they make from shows. part of it is that i grew up with records and retain a real affection for them---they are kinda like electricity and indoor plumbing, those things produced by capitalism that aren't so bad. i grew up in a little town in new hampshire and spent much of my adolscence dreaming that i was somewhere else and the primary instruments that shaped that dreaming were records--as objects and as sound transmission media. and i am kinda sad to see them going. i guess its nostalgia. on the other hand, i wonder about what the new systems of distribution will look like. i do not think that supply follows demand--i think demand is shaped by supply, that demand operates within contexts that it does not create as a kind of selection mechanism--demand is structured in terms shaped by supply. commercial music is a demonstration of this. people want what they know about--and in the present cultural context in america, what they know about tends to be very genre specific and very repetitive within genres. this did not happen on its own--it followed from the adoption of tightly formatted radio across the middle 1970s, which was extended and rationalized by mtv back when it actually was interested in music--now, in the states, commercial radio is a corporate wasteland and has been for over a decade. what i guess i wonder about is how folk are going to hear new things. there is a ton of interesting new music out there: how much do you know about? if you dont know about it, why is that? or....how do you find new music? do you rely on genres that you already know? do you use one of the softwares that allows you to load sequences of preferences and that generates association trees based on them for you? do you rely on radio? which radio? it seems that there has to be a radical change in the way radio is organized that would follow from this process of implosion of the old model for music-as-commodity. or maybe radio has been a wasteland for so long now that it no longer matters. or maybe some new media will take shape that will open folk up to new stuff. because as it stands, i see most folk wanting only more of what they already know because that is what they know. do you see indications of new ways of exposing music taking shape? what are they? what does the model look like (speculate about it...)? because it seems to me that without one, the collapse of this old model will result in nothing particularly new or interesting, just new ways of shopping for the same stuff. but i can't really help being a bit saddened by that email all the same. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 10-17-2006 at 07:14 AM..