The Radio Flyer

One-Track Minds: Perspectives on the Future of the Single

2008-11-13T17:33:00.000-08:00

Though I have previously argued that the music industry should not dismiss the advantages of certain long-playing music formats, it is also important to recognize the continuing appeal and influence of the single. Thanks to the affordability and convenience of online music stores like iTunes, sales of singles have rebounded from their nadir at the beginning of this decade--a business so lucrative that the Department of Justice began to investigate rumors of price-fixing agreements amongst four major music labels last spring. While the collusion charges were dropped just this past week, it is still a good time to consider whether the music industry truly wants the single format to survive in the marketplace. This week I examine a post by Evan Rytlewski entitled "Now That's What I Call Music, Explored" on the ExpressMilwaukee.com blog (an online arts and culture magazine) responding to a recent New York Times article about the declining fortunes of the NOW That's What I Call Music! series of compilation albums. Additionally, I consider a post entitled "Why commercial music needs a talking-to" on the Vintage blog written by Ruhee Dewji, a Canadian musician with unique insight into the stance of the independent music community on the record industry's "one-track" mindset. My responses to both of these items can be found below and at the respective sites.

"Now That's What I Call Music, Explored"
Comment

I am glad to read that someone else in the blogosphere was perplexed by the relatively sunny attitude of the New York Times piece regarding the future of the NOW That's What I Call Music! franchise. It is also interesting that you connect the difficulty that NOW's distributors are experiencing trying to peddle even the biggest radio hits to consumers on a physical CD to the general "decline of the music industry." While the public might have gained an immunity against NOW's aggressively metronomic release schedule and its garishly bright packaging (see image at left) over the past ten years, the doubts surrounding the once-bulletproof series are perhaps emblematic of a sea change in music retailing. I am thinking of the marketing and sale of the single in particular, as a recent Idolator post compares the idea of a quarterly hits-heavy compilation to a sort of hedge fund in which each of the major record labels--Sony BMG, Warner Music, EMI, and Universal Music--could all profit (again) from the successes of their competitors. However, a business model such as this is dependent on the health of CD sales in general and is difficult to sustain in an environment where digital music retailers offer the same songs featured on each version of NOW for less than a dollar apiece.

I recognize that you touch on this point in noting that it is "not a good sign when labels begin hinting that the entire industry as they know it soon probably won't exist," but I am curious to know whether or not you think that this what the labels want in some sense. Is it possible that the industry, finally being moved by the winds of change, is recognizing that when given the option, consumers simply will not buy an entire album for only a handful of songs they truly desire? At any rate, the decline of NOW might be good for the music business if only to alter the perception that "less killer, more filler" is still the mantra of the major labels.

"Why commercial music needs a talking-to"
Comment

This is an impressive and thorough deconstruction of the divergent motives that drive the marketing of mainstream and independent music, and it is an argument that I am wont to agree with completely. Nevertheless, I wonder how you think the legal issues of the major labels over the past six or seven years alters the perspective that the mainstream music industry is content to remain "stuck in single-land." The four biggest labels just escaped a digital music price-fixing scandal which, for me, recalled the 2002 class-action suit in which these corporations were convicted for colluding to artificially inflate the price of CDs. Perhaps the focus on the quick and easy distribution of singles in the digital marketplace is better for the mainstream consumer in the long run, as well as a safeguard against the sometimes questionable ethics of the major record labels.

On the other hand, your point about what constitutes a "throwaway track"--and how many of them should be reasonably expected on a full album--is well taken. The discontinuity between Billboard's top singles and albums charts (see image at right) illustrates the failure of commercially-oriented artists to conceive of the album as an organic whole. Contrasting this to your take on the independent music scene, "where often the single (because it is more commercial and supposed to be radio-ready) is the throwaway track and the deep cuts are the best stuff," I am little confused as to whether you consider "throwaway" to mean a song that is wholly unmemorable or simply an arbitrarily small piece of a more satisfying whole found on the complete record. Indeed, independent artists might not have their singles prominently featured on a radio playlist, and thus count on the buzz generated by a song's circulation on music blogs or MySpace to spark interest in their albums. Though your post posits many good reasons why the music industry should not stake its financial and creative fortunes entirely on the production of good, catchy singles, I believe that the format is too integral to the expansion and continual reinvention of the business to be totally discarded.

Tone-Deaf Tinseltown: Seeking Recognition for Original Soundtracks

2008-11-06T11:58:00.000-08:00

As the calendar turns to November, the entertainment industry gears up its marketing machine to promote talent that will hopefully spur big holiday sales and resonate in the popular culture long enough to gain accolades at the major winter awards ceremonies (the Golden Globes, Oscars, Grammys). For cinephiles, this is therefore the time of year to anticipate an advertising blitz unleashed by the movie studios promoting their most critically acclaimed films, directly politicking for Academy Award nominations through "For Your Consideration" (FYC) ads in trade publications. By contrast, for audiophiles, the Oscar campaign season (which unofficially began a week ago) has dwindled in importance over the past fifteen years--a development that I find lamentable since the erosion of the unique cultural platform for pop music created by the Oscars is hardly the fault of the musicians, songwriters, and composers that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) seeks to honor each year. In particular, the Academy Award for Best Original Song has suffered in reputation, and what was once a show-stopping, highly forecasted moment is now treated like an amusing subplot on Oscar night.

Perhaps the explanation is that the film industry simply cares insufficiently about the idea of the original motion picture soundtrack to make it an integral part of any movie, not to mention movies that are expected to contend for awards. The economic success of recent best-selling movie soundtracks like 2007's Music from the Motion Picture "Juno" obscures the fact that they contain few original songs beyond the film's incidental or orchestral score. Such a strategy would have been unimaginable in Hollywood only a decade ago, as the biggest would-be blockbusters of the 1990s stocked their soundtracks with commissioned pieces from a mix of both high-profile and up-and-coming musicians. More recently, however, an original movie soundtrack has been eschewed in favor of amalgamations of classic radio staples, retro '80s tunes, and forgettable modern rock--not just in summer "popcorn" movies but also in films across the board. The first wave of FYC advertisements for 2008 appears to support this theory: the whimsical ad (see image left) taken out in Variety by Disney, an entity with a long track record of scoring Best Original Song nominations and wins, for the consideration of Wall-E omits any mention of its soundtrack centerpiece, Peter Gabriel's "Down to Earth," already the recipient of Best Original Song laurels at the 2008 World Soundtrack Awards. That any studio would summarily ignore an easy-pickings category like Original Song is puzzling given that studios spend hundreds of thousands of dollars sweating out their awards-season ad campaigns, precisely because an Oscar win can be, according to the recent statements of a "specialist awards PR tactician" in the Guardian, "worth millions in publicity."

The Academy itself may be beginning to recognize the potential obsolescence of the Original Song competition in the current climate for film music, overseeing a change in eligibility rules. The 2005 ceremony boasted an embarrassing three nominees in the category, indirectly resulting in the approval of three nominated songs each from the films Dreamgirls and Enchanted in 2006 and 2007, respectively, to mask the supposed dearth of worthy entries. For the 2009 event, AMPAS has decreed that no given film is allowed more than two song nominations in a stated "attempt to level the playing field." However, this change is having little effect on increasing the buzz associated with the category and soundtracks in general. Prognostications for music Oscars tend to be limited to a pre-emptive crowning of Bruce Springsteen by over-eager bloggers for his theme to The Wrestler, a movie scheduled for release in December. By all early (and perhaps unreliable) accounts, it is exactly the type of original soundtrack song that defined the field in the late 1980s and 1990s: a specially authorized track from an established artist written and performed through an affecting emotional lens but of little consequence to the plot of the movie.

These new rules hopefully signal an effort to include more variety in the field of Original Song nominees, which means desirable national exposure for more musicians. Yet one cannot help feeling that, in this case, the award-show pundits and AMPAS are hitching their wagons to a falling star. Premature plaudits for what very well may be a superlative new Springsteen track are nonetheless indicative of a severe cultural myopia regarding movie music. The lukewarm attitude from journalists like the Los Angeles Times' awards specialist Tom O'Neil towards the nomination hopes of "Another Way to Die," the newest James Bond theme from the upcoming film Quantum of Solace (see image right), is startling given that the Bond film franchise is one of the last cinematic institutions to emphasize the original movie soundtrack and place it front and center, if only for a few minutes during the opening credits. Furthermore, a notable composition like Huey Lewis and the News's title song for the 2008 summer comedy Pineapple Express is likely to be left out in the muddled world of Best Original Song nominations. This is not only because of the song's drug-referencing subject matter, but also because its self-referential lyrics and direct connections to the film's plot are a drastic departure from the general nature of nominated songs, which tend to address their associated films abstractly (and often generically) through theme or mood.

Sound can be taken for granted in movies, but many films are remembered specifically for their attention to combining soundtrack and image in ways that exhilarate the viewer or clinch the emotional impact of a particular scene. Unfortunately, one of the best tools in cinema's aural arsenal--the original song written for film--is a struggling art form garnering little respect from entertainment industry authorities like the AMPAS. Perhaps the notion of a star-studded album of music created for a specific film is hopelessly outmoded, but it is not hard to imagine a minor comeback for soundtracks in the realm of the digital single, an appealing option to a casual music buyer due to its convenience, value, and instant gratification. And while more Oscar recognition is not the only way to validate the merits of the original film soundtrack, it is undoubtedly a crucial element in convincing the public that movies are supposed to be a feast for the ears as well as the eyes.

Internet Killed the TV Star: Music Videos Disappear From Music Television

2008-10-30T10:45:00.000-07:00

For a solid decade, MTV's flagship music program--Total Request Live, or TRL for the abbreviation-obsessed Internet generation--was one of the only things legitimating the "Music" descriptor in the network's moniker, a hyperkinetic American Bandstand for millennial youth. Now, after airing daily countdowns of popular music videos over the past ten years, MTV is pulling the plug on TRL, announcing a star-studded two-hour series finale for November 16. Almost simultaneously, the station launched a new online initiative, MTV Music, opening up its vault of music videos for on-demand and completely free consumption. In my travels through the blogosphere this week, I focused my energies on responding to two blog posts that address these separate developments. The first, "MTV Killed the Video Star," is an emotional reaction to the impending cancellation of Total Request Live by the contributor "cerealmom" on Because It's Our Prerogative, a provocative pop culture blog. The second, "Do You Still Want Your MTV?" is a brief evaluation of the MTV Music website by Bob Sassone, a writer for TV Squad--a blog devoted to breaking television news and fan-friendly commentary. My comments addressing the authors of each post can be found at their respective blogs and are reproduced below.

MTV Killed the Radio Star
Comment
Thanks for your passionate and humorous take on the end of Total Request Live's ten-year run on MTV--or, if the Associated Press article you cite is to be believed, the hiatus declared by the network to "give [TRL] a break after an unprecedented run." I personally doubt that TRL is ever coming back since the program's success relied as much on the personality of the VJ as its interactive elements. As you point out, it is difficult not to associate the show with the mercurial Carson Daly (see image above left), a much-maligned figure in popular culture but also an oddly reassuring presence of calm amidst a daily circus of screaming teenagers and flash-in-the-pan pop music acts. Whatever your opinion of Daly, he at least stood out from the succession of bland talking heads or eccentric fashion plates that emerged after his departure. And considering that you reference other music video countdown shows that are or have been superior to much of TRL's run, I would be interested to know your further thoughts on MTV's presumptive replacement for the show: Feedback Nation MTV, or FNMTV. By choosing a host with built-in celebrity recognition--Fall Out Boy guitarist Pete Wentz--and pairing performances from major label artists with video premieres of independent acts such as No Age and She & Him, it is clear that MTV is trying hard to re-create the buzz surrounding TRL's heyday.

I must also take umbrage with your assertion that "finding new music that actually challenges you is hard when you are all alone on the endless interweb." On the contrary, I think that such independence allows one to deliberately seek out artists and songs that exist outside the major promotional pushes of record companies and the radio industry. The development of direct-distribution sites like MySpace Music and the presence of so many well-written music blogs on the Internet have democratized the distribution of popular music. It might take a little bit of searching, but the resources similar to the ones you desire (based on your invocation of the dearly departed Muxtape) are not impossible to find.

"Do You Still Want Your MTV?"
Comment
In your reporting on the launch of MTV Music, I must say that I enjoyed your enthusiasm for the MTV of a bygone era--when it was, as you so succinctly state, "THE MOST IMPORTANT TV STATION IN OUR LIVES." With the recent cancellation of the last bastion of the music video on "Music Television," Total Request Live, it seems as if the network is willing to abandon the format. And while I can also appreciate the nostalgia that permeates the MTV Music project, it is clear that MTV has strayed about as far from its original 1981 mission--to play music videos and disseminate music news--as conceivably possible. A look at MTV's typical daily schedule and even the curiously redundant title "MTV Music" underscores this sad irony. I cannot help but think that this is worrisome for the future of music videos as a whole. There is little economic incentive to produce music videos without a broad platform for exhibition and although the Internet has picked up some of the slack from television, it is inconceivable to think that more than a few videos each year could reach the type of cultural saturation common in the 1980s and 1990s.

It is interesting that several other comments on this post have mentioned a desire to see MTV Music evolve into a full-scale cable channel as a sort of hybrid between VH1 Classic and MTV's barely-adequate once-a-week video premiere show FNMTV. I, for one, do not think a channel like this would be successful because of the pop cultural evidence that the music video is barely respected as an art form anymore. The video for Rick Astley's 1988 hit "Never Gonna Give You Up" (see image above right) is both a "Top Rated" and "Most Viewed" clip on MTV Music, undoubtedly on the strength of its popularity as an absurd online practical joke. Despite MTV's best efforts to highlight long-lost classic videos and artists obscure to MTV's target audience, how is MTV Music anything than lip service to the obsolete product that made the network rich? I also want my MTV, but I do not expect to receive it anytime soon--at least not in any form that I will embrace.

Record of the Year: The Unlikely Resurgence of Vinyl

2008-10-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

As I discussed in a previous post, the distribution of music over the Internet has forced record companies and retailers alike to re-evaluate their business model and invest more in digital distribution as an appeal to a new generation of creative, computer-savvy consumers. An intriguing, oft-overlooked detail regarding this shift in strategy is that the process of buying music has almost completely transformed from a physical experience to an ephemeral one. The typical consumer can, theoretically, acquire music in a vacuum of extrasensory stimulation: just point, click, and wait for a file to download, with no need to talk to a store clerk and no distraction from the sights and sounds of other music for sale. However, despite the digital format's convenience and efficiency, the emergence of a fervent cult around the unexpected revival of the vinyl long-player (LP) epitomizes a small if determined revolt against the tyranny of modern technology and the reclamation of popular music's tactile personality.

While increased vinyl sales, suddenly materializing after nearly two decades of dormancy, have not revolutionized the business of selling music, the return of the record is highly unusual amidst an environment of slowly eroding "physical sales." Recent articles in the Deseret News of Salt Lake City and the Chicago Tribune discuss the mathematics of this trend, noting that while compact disc (CD) sales suffer double-digit percentage drops, vinyl has claimed and built upon its small foothold in the world of music retail. Record suppliers and manufacturers have noticed an increased demand for vinyl--6 million units 2008, according to the Tribune, a twofold jump from the previous year. Yet these numbers should not be misconstrued. As the aforementioned article from the Deseret News notes, vinyl only accounts for a small fraction of music sales (roughly one percent of all units sold, physical or digital), and CDs still boast a huge market share (almost eighty percent).

Nonetheless, many factors contribute to the resurgence of vinyl while the CD format slowly withers on the music industry vine. The compact disc admittedly has its supporters--particularly those that came of age during the format's 1990s heyday--but the vinyl contingent advances a wide variety of reasons for the format's continued appeal. Adherents often cite a richer sound quality derived from a process free from complicated digital conversion. As explained by Wired magazine, the digital compression process emphasizes the loudness of sound at the expense of its texture while "records generally offer a more nuanced sound." In essence, digital technology imposes artificial limitations on the capacity of the human ear to detect subtle gradations while barraging it with pure volume. This is exhibited to humorous effect on the NewmRadio blog, which compares the digital mastering of Metallica's new Death Magnetic album to the analog mastering on an LP of the band's 1988 release ...And Justice For All. The blog author's technical plea for more vinyl releases actually boils down to an aesthetic concern: "Vinyl demands nuance."

And in keeping with such artistic considerations, the embrace of vinyl by several generations of audiophiles amounts to an expression of individual personality. For some, it is the pure material pleasure of record-buying that is lost in the digital transaction. The uniqueness of LP packaging attracts many buyers, as the size of a vinyl disc allows the consumer to appreciate bigger and bolder cover art, not to mention more legible liner notes. Furthermore, vinyl encourages active listening; it demands maintenance, such as flipping the record once a side has finished playing and, for audio obsessives, listening for skips and needle drops that signal a disc in need of cleaning. This rejection of passivity often carries over to the process of acquiring LPs. For record enthusiasts, it is important to patronize and support the type of independent record store that still carries a large selection of vinyl, especially as these stores continue to go out of business.

Ultimately, the true miracle of vinyl's resurrection is that the demands of the LP market niche are by no means incompatible with the financial goals of the music industry or the desires of the mainstream consumer. The alternative newsweekly Nashville Scene reports that vinyl releases of new albums--especially those on independent labels--now often come packaged with a special coupon for a free digital download of the music on the record, a concession to modern consumers who appreciate both the concrete materiality of LPs and the portability of MP3s. Also, large retailers such as Best Buy are devoting more retail space to turntables and new pressings of both recent and older albums on LP. The design of today's mass market record players, which consciously mimic old radio cabinets, and the conspicuous marketing of canonical classic rock albums utilize the powerful feeling of nostalgia evoked by vinyl to broaden the format's modern appeal beyond the hip, pop culture-obsessed iPod generation. Young or old, classic or avant-garde, the vinyl LP is slowly regaining its cultural cachet after years of consumer indifference. Surely, vinyl has taken its time rediscovering its inherent appeal but, like an old favorite spun for hundredth time, it has finally come full circle.

It's Still Rock and Roll to Me: A Look at the Online Music Zeitgeist

2008-10-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

This week I tackled the daunting task of evaluating the web's expansive body of sites and resources pertaining to the critical role of popular music within American culture. Using the criteria established by the Webby Awards and ISMA, I have produced a linkroll of twenty sites (see below right) that display superior functionality and content within an immersive online environment. My goal was to provide a list of links highlighting the best the web has to offer in analyzing the constantly-evolving zeitgeist of popular music and reflect some of the current cultural tensions evoked by each these sites. To aid in my explanation, I group each site within one of four categories as I evaluate their significance to my blog and the web at large.

The first cluster of links concerns a topic that has consumed much of my blogging energies to date: intellectual property, as the protection of copyrights and the notion of fair compensation are firestorms of fact and opinion. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a logical starting point, a professional, elegant site that promotes legal music downloading practices and parental resources. However, the RIAA's site has the feel of a publicity front, whereas the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) provides a real environment of consumer empowerment in the "Intellectual Property" section of its website. The EFF's somewhat vague but well-meaning mission manifests itself nicely with links to ongoing legal battles over digital rights. Less pedantic is the blog "Recording Industry vs. the People" which despite its populist biases and distracting advertising layout, is packed with superb content written by a New York-based lawyer specializing in infringement cases. On the other hand, the site of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is dry but easy to navigate and approaches intellectual property rights as a multifaceted issue, counter to the "us vs. them" spirit of the RIAA and the EFF. Finally, FreeCulture.org suggests an interesting alternative to legal wrangling: a community of artists and consumers avoiding a financially-driven model for all types of culture, including music. The site is somewhat sparse in design and content but provides dozens of links to grassroots projects and organizational chapters.

It is important to note that the copyright debate was sparked in part by a revolution in the distribution of music, which includes the resurgence of radio and the development of many non-traditional avenues for broadcasting. The Media Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an excellent place to keep abreast of seismic shifts in the laws governing broadcasting, but it might be difficult for the average citizen to find useful information buried under a digital deluge of red tape. The online home of Friday Morning Quarterback, or FMQB (see image below left), is a better place for a casual web surfer to find music industry news paired with intriguing information about radio technology. However, FMQB appears to rely heavily on corporate press releases to keep a steady flow of updates. More industry-oriented is Radio 411, which addresses the entire broadcast spectrum (news, music, sports, etc.) with an impressive diversity in content--sometimes too diverse, in fact, as the site attempts to mix useful applications like career-building resources with random news headlines from wire services. The creation of actual listening communities fares better at Live365 Internet Radio, where users can browse a wide variety of radio stations that stream audio over the web and become Internet broadcasters themselves, though the site's interface makes wading through the many amateurish broadcasts more difficult than it needs to be. Conversely, CMJ.com--the website of the College Music Journal--is an appealing site providing chart information and other resources for college radio stations, despite the presence of irritating animated advertisements.

Print publications like CMJ are increasingly building an online presence to tap into the desires of a new generation of consumers that demand more diverse and immediate information. Rolling Stone's "Rock and Roll Daily" blog is a great example of one of the "old guard" putting together a very slick site that tends to address the past rather than the present vanguard of popular music. There is nothing inherently wrong about this type of nostalgia, but Spin Magazine's "Daily Noise" is a better sample of a "corporate" blog that at least brings the discussion on popular music into the current decade. Nevertheless, both blogs have a specific audience in mind and serve them well, if in a sanitized fashion. The highly commercial but quite useful Billboard Music News and Reviews site is perhaps the most up-to-date example of mainstream music journalism; its design is pleasant and accessible even for non-industry types. MTV's Buzzworthy is a little too synergistic for my liking, mostly focusing its coverage on artists most likely to appear on the parent network, but has a unique energy and a generous amount of multimedia that keeps visitors anchored to the site. Conversely, the refreshing NPR Music blissfully exists outside of the mainstream and covers oft-neglected genres, even if the site lacks adequate contextualization for non-aficionados.

Spearheading a new trend of influential music publications that never actually appear in print, Pitchfork Media has the gloss and the clout of a mainstream music news site with the esoterica and elitism of an alternative periodical. Though the site's layout is a little hard to follow, Pitchfork is nonetheless an essential trendsetting site. The "Andy Whitman on Music" blog, written by the Paste magazine journalist, is a more irreverent destination with main page "jump" links that occur too frequently but are worth following. And for people who find Whitman too boring, there is My Old Kentucky Blog, which pushes the concept of the sarcastic-yet-incisive blogger to its farthest limits; however, its coarse brand of "infotainment" is motivated by a clear love for the music it covers. Coolfer, a level-headed music business blog, looks staid in comparison but supplies a rare commodity--staunchly independent commentary on the music industry. Last but not least is Stereogum (see image above right), a hybrid blog/cultural salon that, despite engaging in some triviality, combines unobtrusive and largely ad-free design with crowd-pleasing features like a built-in media player. Features like this elevate the site's status from simple time-waster to unique online destination--a commonality among the sites and blogs of "new" paperless music journalism that has the old periodicals and institutions scrambling to stay relevant.

The Pretenders: Pop Music and Political Pandering

2008-09-25T18:40:00.000-07:00

American popular music, from Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan to Public Enemy, has a long history of communicating political messages and shaping public opinion. Though a long way from its chart-topping zenith in the 1960s, politically-oriented music survives throughout the United States in hues of both red and blue. However, the greying of the rock 'n roll vanguard--the American youths of the 1950s and 60s--and strength of popular culture as a national vernacular has complicated the artistic landscape by making every chord and every lyric subject to both political and commercial re-interpretation. Ever since Bill Clinton adopted Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" as his campaign anthem in 1992, encounters between politicians and pop music have inspired a great deal of cultural commentary. This week, I chose to respond to commentary in the blogosphere about the campaigns of Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain continuing a trend of capitalizing on the emotional nostalgia and raw immediacy of popular music to make their candidacies seem simultaneously familiar and relevant. The first case study, "Jackson Browne and Copyright" comes from John Carroll of the ZDNet technology blog, who writes about the hazards of Republicans utilizing the music of liberally-inclined musicians. Carroll frames Browne's recent lawsuit against McCain as a display of petty political gamesmanship rather than a legitimate copyright complaint and captures my attention by tangentially raising the issue of artistic intention. I also consider a Paste magazine blog post from Loren Lankford entitled "Obama to Release 'Yes We Can' Campaign Soundtrack" and the limitations of music-as-art when bounded by the demands of a specific public image. Lankford's playful writing style underscores the frivolity of celebrity campaign endorsements but, in her ironic wittiness, inspires further consideration of the album's cultural agenda. My comments addressed the authors of each post can be found at their respective blogs and are reproduced below.

"Jackson Browne and Copyright"
Comment (Permalink)
Kudos on bringing attention to this intriguing situation and providing plenty of robust contextualization to boot. In the case of Jackson Browne, I agree with your sentiment that opportunistic political agendas, rather than copyright issues, are at the heart of this dispute. There is no fundamental wrongdoing associated with Browne's protection of his intellectual property if allowed by current federal law, but again I find logic in your excoriation of the "double standard that separates printed media from audiovisual media" and the long, long highway that awaits art on its journey to the public domain (a concept that unfortunately seems on the verge of obsolescence). However, I would be curious to know where you stand regarding an artist's prerogative to protect the original intention of his or her work. As you mention, "intentions don't matter" whether you agree or disagree with the messages embedded in forms of popular culture and media. But in mediating how the work of musicians like Browne is absorbed and appropriated, do you mean to paint both spectator and artist with the same brush? Should the original thematic context of "Running On Empty," a song about 1970s Me Decade alienation, be at least noted if it is to be transformed into another type of propaganda? This imbroglio reminds me of the Reagan campaign's attempt to spin Bruce Springsteen's cynical "Born In the USA" into a sunny patriotic anthem in the 1984 presidential race until Springsteen spoke out against such a blatant misrepresentation of his artistic intentions. The gulf between Browne and McCain might not be as vast with regard to the campaign ad in question, but in many instances the exploitation of popular music by politicians is just as opportunistic and unseemly as Browne's grandstanding lawsuit. Nonetheless, I found your post a highly thought-provoking and well-researched object lesson about the continued limitations on the mutability of media in an ostensible age of access and choice.

"Obama to Release 'Yes We Can' Campaign Soundtrack"
Comment
Thank you for a brief but informative post saturated with information on the relationship of the current musical zeitgeist to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Having read recently about John McCain's difficulties in getting approval from Jackson Browne and Heart to use their songs in campaign materials, your post displays a fascinating polarity between the two candidates and the formation of their respective cultural images. Also, the brief concession to the Yes We Can: Voices of a Grassroots Movement "soundtrack" as perhaps another example of the media's fixation on Obama's "celebrity" is a rare combination of respect and lightheartedness. Your comment that the album "will be sold right up until Nov. 4 as a campaign fundraiser (and afterwords as a 'fundraiser' for record company Hidden Beach Recordings)" is a great reminder of the commercial and political agendas driving the appropriation of the music.

What intrigues me the most in this post, however, is the issue of semantics. Firstly, do you find any irony in the album's subtitle ("Voices of a Grassroots Movement")? The term "grassroots" gets thrown about by many politicians but often sounds like faux-populist pandering, though the publisher of the record could be more to blame in this case. However, with the album gaining the full endorsement of the Obama to the point where it can be found for sale on his campaign website, it behooves us to examine just who the "voices" of this movement are: highly successful and affluent musicians, such as John Mayer, Stevie Wonder, and Sheryl Crow. Additionally, I am curious to know what you make of the rather middle-of-the-road composition of the tracklist. Though the inclusion of Kanye West may help the endeavor strike a somewhat edgy posture, your allusions to independent musical endorsements from the likes of bawdy rapper Ludacris are likely to pique more attention from those outside the Starbucks-music demographic. At any rate, this is indeed "a new twist on raising money for a presidential campaign," vastly different from the now-obligatory classic rock campaign anthems and even 2004's Vote for Change tour that was more about arraying support against a candidate than for one; however, I personally doubt that Obama supporters are willing to pay a premium for an album that--at least after Election Day--literally undermines the familiar campaign lament of the rich getting richer.

Armchair DJs: Napster, Muxtape, and the Dilemmas of Democratization

2008-09-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

The online distribution of music has fostered the growth of new commercial and artistic opportunities for both musicians and record companies. However, this has also created a conflict between the traditional arbiters of taste in the music business--major label executives and radio station programmers--and the individual record-buyer, who has wrested a great deal of control and influence away from the industry elite. So while record companies and large broadcasters relish the immediacy and immensity of the Internet as a marketing tool, the democratizing potential of new online tools for the average armchair DJ have threatened to tip the scales in an ongoing music culture war from the corporation to the consumer. The recent sale of Napster, the former illegal fire-sharing network and current online music store and streaming service, to big-box conglomerate Best Buy for $121 million epitomizes the scramble to climb higher in the pecking order amongst online commercial music ventures (the highly successful Apple iTunes service being the alpha dog of the digital music world). But what of the ventures that consider the establishment of self-sustained, eclectic cultural communities as high of a priority as making money? The disappearance of Muxtape, an online playlist-sharing forum, at the end of August due to continuing legal issues with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) (see image below left) illustrates a latent tension in the struggle to adapt old business models to the potential of new media. While corporate attempts to mediate this transition are legally justified and morally sensible, they harm the framework of a great democratization in popular music that is crucial to the continued financial and cultural success of the industry.

Most music lovers have experience in the pleasurable art of the mixtape: a craft of equal parts technique and taste, culling tracks from radio airplay and personal collections to create a sequence of songs with a brand new emotional resonance. Muxtape, founded by entrepreneur Justin Oullette, essentially provided a way for users to replicate this process with their MP3 libraries and disseminate their mixes not only to personal acquaintances but also far-flung strangers. From a commercial standpoint, this type of purely sociological mission enthusiastically invites criticism. Dan Frommer, a technology critic at the Silicon Valley Insider blog, notes that "Muxtape hasn't sold itself -- either to a bigger media company that can shoulder its costs or a record label looking for a hot brand." His broader point about the sustainability of a community like Muxtape is valid enough--the server space to host all those playlists is not cheap--but his solutions are too utilitarian for the online music zeitgeist. Turning a completely independent, democratized environment like Muxtape into a record company sandbox would suffocate the hypertextual, cross-pollinating forces unique to online music ventures. Furthermore, a deal with a larger media conglomerate also complicates and restricts the potential for musical discovery and evolution with issues of exclusivity.

Yet it is also important to consider the issue of legality in the case of Muxtape, a problem that Oullette does not seem close to solving despite vague ideas for monetizing the site and some requisite anti-RIAA fist-shaking. The Best Buy/Napster alliance provides an expedient example of a harmonious democratic promise fulfilled, though this outcome is not without its own contradictions. Napster (see image below right) has remained a player in digital music by adopting a subscription-based business model after its infamous origins as the lawsuit-baiting Wild West of tune-swapping. The concurrent rise of iTunes alongside a tamed Napster points to a winnowing of a generation's rebellious impulse towards the rank injustices of actually paying for music. However, the recent sale has commentators in a rush to display their ambivalence for what is largely analyzed as a mutually desparate business transaction. To Bruce Houghton of WebProNews, the $121 million purchase confirms that "Napster was worth even less than I thought" and a Product Placement News article reports the story as if Napster had not been operating as a legitimate online music store for the past five years. After Napster's own RIAA imbroglio, the perception of the site and the brand has changed, perhaps irrevocably. To the many (including myself) who remember Napster's outlaw salad days, the Best Buy sale inspires nostalgia and, intriguingly, stories of much-appreciated cultural access and eclecticism. Though initially attracted by the smash-and-grab approach to music shopping, the comments at the Geeksugar blog reveal that the new philosophy behind the perpetual motion of the music industry--including leaks, giveaways, and other forms of fan diplomacy--is the power of exposure and appeals to new consumer sophistication.

The goals of free culture and free capitalism, arguably impossible to reconcile, at least now share a commitment to combating homogenization in the online realm. Whereas traditional over-the-air radio gradually becomes saturated by programming "systems" with absolute sets of standards (such as the DJ-free Jack FM), the world of digital music offers a hopeful alternative. Limited-access audio streamers like LastFM and 8tracks (potential heir to Muxtape's recently vacated throne) exemplify the accordion affect of vast online music exposure. The local armchair DJ posits a cultural identity to a global audience, which is then consumed, processed, and shared amongst similar cultural niches. The democratization of online music, the very peer-to-peer immediacy of the act, demonstrates that in our time the local is the global: all that great ideas--and great songs--need is a bandwidth wide enough to transmit them.