By Carrie Brownstein
And it's naptime. (courtesy of The Patton Veterinary Hospital)
It's hard to believe that we've reached the end. For the past two weeks, all of us -- the NPR Music Team, a handful of outside contributors and myself -- have explored the last 10 years in music. Did we cover everything? No. Did we try? Gleefully.
I feel immensely proud of the sheer amount of writing that we've put out there. So many newspapers and print publications have cut their music sections and critics, and so many music magazines have resorted to the only plausible life raft, which is to ape the Internet (or at least its effect on the attention span) by churning out lists instead of articles, and gossip and news bytes instead of treatises. I can honestly say that it's been a long time since I've seen this much thought, polemic and discourse on a single Web site -- from a variety of voices -- dedicated solely to music and to the music industry.
On the other hand, I also got the sense that some people didn't exactly want to read about or dissect music; they wanted to listen to it. James Blur wrote in the comments section, "I want to hear great music, not the 'reviews' of what other people think is good or bad." Fair enough. I understand that any attempt to summarize a decade in music is cause for unease. Perhaps that's because we each have our own version of the events, and the impact of the events on each of our lives is wholly subjective. Therefore, one person's exploration of the decade might come across as singular, even unnecessary.
Matt Love commented: "I guess it's human nature, at the end of a decade, to try to figure out what the decade was about... well, it's just an arbitrary slice of time, and it wasn't about anything; it was just a bunch of stuff that happened. But I know one thing -- I didn't spend it listening to music I don't like, and nobody else has to, either. They don't need to listen to it; they don't need to worry or complain about it." On a similar note, Matthew Argalas wrote, "Stop worrying about everything! Music allows the listener to recognize or realize things within themselves! As long as the individual enjoys the music, why fret?"
Short of quoting the over-quoted Aristotle -- you know, the one about the unexamined life -- I will say that I am a staunch defender of exploration, discussion and participation. For me, participation has always been visceral as much as it's been intellectual. And, while I do enjoy sitting back, letting go and tuning in to music, I have absolutely no desire to tune out. So when someone basically asks, "What's all the fuss about?" or "Why can't we all just get along?" -- while I appreciate their contribution to the discussion -- I disagree with their premise that this decade, in its tearing down of walls and barriers, somehow also ushered in an era of post-criticism. There is a fuss, we don't all agree, and it's in those uncomfortable crevices, the gray areas, that we get to grapple, to search for meaning, or to sit and revel in the unknown. But to simply want out unscathed, or to never get your hands dirty, is not only a privilege, but also a cop-out.
But just as I don't agree with the dismissals of our examinations of this decade ("Stop worrying about everything!"), it's unfair for me to dismiss the reactions to and critiques of our endeavor; reactions that seem, in and of themselves, to be byproducts of the changes that took place in the last 10 years. After all, what was this decade if not an invitation to compile 15,000 songs on our iPods and never have to take the headphones off to listen to anything other than what we wanted to hear, music or otherwise?
In fact, if there's one recurring theme to the end-of-decade coverage and the reader commentary surrounding it, it's that a sense of cohesion has eroded. And what exactly has atomized? The music industry as a whole. The ways we listen to, obtain and discover music. Bands themselves, as they've splintered off into side project after side project because it's so much easier to be in multiple bands, record an album with each member never having to leave his or her individual city, and then release the songs the very next day.
Albums themselves have been broken up into singles, remixed or iPod-shuffled into oblivion. Genres have disappeared, blended and multiplied. The location and context of artists are unknown or obsolete. Labels hardly matter, or so some say, while intention and politics are divorced from the music unless implicit in the lyrics. And, of course, there is more, more, MORE music than ever. For some of us, this unraveling of the structures and the means of exploration we had grown accustomed to is unsettling. For others, it's freeing. Some don't know it any other way. And for most of us, it's a mixture of awe, enthusiasm and at least a little bit of skepticism.
One topic wherein we managed to find common ground pertained to the ways technology contributes to greater accessibility. There are fewer gatekeepers or roadblocks standing in the way of those long-lost musical secrets and gems, and nearly anyone can track down hard-to-find records, singles and artists. Plus, newer musicians and bands -- including the unsigned and unheralded -- can get their music heard. Hooray, no doubt. Furthermore, recording equipment and software make the process of music-making that much easier.
Where we begin to disagree, however, is on whether unfiltered, uncurated, non-contextualized, genre-less, everyman, everywoman music is better. While some celebrate and insist that we're in a post-genre, post-record-label, post-gender, post-music-industry world, not everyone, including myself, thinks that you can keep a knife sharp when it has no edges. I don't want art, specifically music, to become a blunt tool, with no point or purpose other than to be held.
But, like many of you -- and I'm just basing my feeling on a hunch, though there's plenty of evidence on this blog within these past days to support it -- this might have been one of the best decades for music ever. One of my favorite parts of these past two weeks has involved receiving and listening to more than 150 songs that people recorded in a matter of hours, and for no other reason than them wanting to communicate a feeling or an idea. The willingness to share, to participate and to create was inspiring. And the comments people left in regard to the songs were full of generosity and encouragement. Thank you and bravo!
I also loved the fact that on these "pages," via the posts and the subsequent comments and discussion, we seemed to form a genuine -- if temporary -- community. We argued, we supported and we challenged one another. I was honored that so many friends, colleagues and readers contributed time and energy to the project. We talked some about what role community plays in music, now that the notion of community has been expanded to basically mean everywhere. It was reassuring to realize that "everywhere" isn't so diffuse as to render it "nowhere." And, while I prefer the actual and the real to the virtual, the coalescing of so many ideas, opinions and voices on this blog during our end-of-decade coverage felt hefty and tangible. Almost, I dare say, like a modern-day fanzine (minus Kinko's and glue).
So, what now? What's next? And what are my hopes for music in the next decade? They are no different than what I always want: for music to be surprising and unpredictable, and to knock me off my feet.
4:32 PM ET
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11-20-2009
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By Jess Gitner
Past covers of Vibe. Chris Brown will be the cover boy for the relanuched Vibe's first issue. (courtesy of Vibe)
Len Burnett helped launch Vibe, a hip-hop music magazine, back in 1993, and he's just launched it again. NPR Music's Frannie Kelley recently spoke with the founder and Co-CEO of Uptown Media Group about Vibe's dominance then -- and its relevance now -- in the changing landscape of the music industry.
In an exciting time for hip-hop and R&B, the major labels of 1993 were thriving while smaller labels like Bad Boy were just emerging. There was no shortage of hip-hop music and urban culture for Vibe to cover.
But by 1999, the landscape was beginning to change. In spite of hip-hop's popularity, Burnett saw labels cutting back on traditional black-music divisions.
"There was a continued deterioration in the willingness of labels to work artists," he says. "There was a deterioration in the diversity of music within the labels, and there was a sense of getting the most out of a little. Labels were quick to lean on the hardcore hip-hop, the stuff that sold immediately, instead of working the records that had a little more positive energy."
Burnett and Vibe tried to make the best of it, and they succeeded: Vibe held its own as one of the most popular hip-hop magazines on the market. But eventually, the Internet and digital media caught up with them. The traditional models that Vibe, and major record labels, counted on were no longer profitable.
"Record labels not adjusting to and embracing the way people were going to buy music was a signal to me that the industry was not getting it," Burnett says. "Those were signals to me that it was never going to be the same, and that we needed to find ways to adjust and to embrace it rather than fight it."
The job wouldn't be easy, and Vibeexperienced some hiccups. Burnett left and returned to Vibe several times before departing for Uptown Media in 2007. In July 2009, the magazine announced that it was closing its doors. News arrived just before what would be Vibe's 16th anniversary. But Burnett and his company, Uptown Media Group, would not let the Vibe brand die. Instead, they revitalized the product with a new focus on digital media.
"We're looking at our business not like there's a magazine and a Web site. They're one together," he says. "In years past, there were folks that worked on the magazine and folks that worked on the Web site. And rarely did those two meet. We've stripped all those barriers down."
Vibe is back. The first issue will hit newsstands in December. It's been reduced to bi-monthly publication, but Burnett says he isn't worried about the change, and that he's confident the site and magazine will complement one another.
"Let the magazine do what the Web can't do," he says.
Through all the ups and downs, Burnett maintains that Vibe is the one of the most urgent brands in hip-hop today. The music industry is changing, but hip-hop is here to stay. And so, apparently, is Vibe.
3:43 PM ET
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11-20-2009
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By Jace Clayton, a.k.a. DJ /rupture
Jace Clayton, a.k.a. DJ /rupture
(Stefano Giovaninni)
A new mix album of mine was released this week. I'm told it is in stores, Google reveals sites in Romania and the Netherlands who've pirated it already, and you can purchase it online, legally, in a variety of digital formats. We've got options. Ethics -- or is that ease-of-use? -- guide music consumers in the 21st century. Full disclosure: The last CD I bought was in Mexico City. It cost me 25 cents and contained about five hours of music as low-quality MP3s.
I grew up in the '90s. Toward the end of that decade, I upgraded to a PC with a CD burner -- amazing! But, as a DJ, I still coveted vinyl LPs, not because they sounded "warmer" or "better" to my ears, but because I could literally get hands-on with them and use the slabs of wax as raw material in a mix session. Pre-MP3 smorgasbord, I would haunt the record shops and tape the radio, getting cassettes via mail order. I learned obscure paths through music -- pre-Google, pre-Blogosphere, before Ms. Internet and Mr. MP3 got married and made us all their children.
A decade, in music, is a terrifyingly long time. Long enough for genres you love to drift out of fashion; for innovative groups to bloom and then wilt into facsimiles of their younger, brighter selves -- if they survive that long. A night at the club may now require babysitters and earplugs. Music is the province of the young. And, due to the increasingly viral nature of music production and idea dissemination, it's constantly speeding up.
Especially this decade, when everything went haywire: More of everything! More musical memory, more forgetting. More rigorous public discussion, MORE ALL-CAPS SHOUTING MATCHES!!! Music found itself simultaneously compressed and dispersed, zipping around digital networks with unprecedented shareability and access. Sounds now move faster than the speed of context. Value imploded; distribution bottlenecks melted into YouTube streams and file-sharing pools. You like late-1970s vinyl from Central Africa, as hoarded by European obsessives? Chances are, a few bloggers out there do, too.
Continue reading "'Free' Music And The Unbuyable Sublime" »
1:40 PM ET
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11-20-2009
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By Laura Sydell
This is all Americans get of Spotify. (courtesy of Spotify)
Back in 2001, I sat in a San Francisco federal courtroom and watched a judge order Napster to shut down. The record companies won their battle against the world's first peer-to-peer file sharing service. But, as everyone now knows, it was a Pyrrhic victory; to reference another Greek myth, Napster turned out to be a Hydra. File-sharing services are a multi-headed beast, so every time the record companies cut one off, two more pop up to take its place. Now, 10 years since Napster's peak, the number of songs traded illegally over the Internet amounts to more than 15 billion tracks a year, according to the online media tracking company Big Champagne.
Arguably, the mistake the industry made back then was being tone-deaf to the needs of its customers. Fans wanted singles and were sick of paying $16 to $20 for a CD with one good song. Instead of finding a way to work with the new technology, the industry tried to stick its head in the sand and sue its customers. It took the labels a long time to offer music in a way that fans were willing to pay for, and even then, it took outsider Steve Jobs to get the ball rolling via iTunes.
According to Eric Garland of Big Champagne, an increase in the availability and convenience of legal services is causing the number of illegal downloads to flatten or even decline. But this is a fragile moment. The recording industry needs to keep focusing on what fans want if it's going to survive.
One of the most chatted-about models comes from Spotify, a Swedish company offering access to six million songs from major and independent labels. You can listen for free as long as you're willing to put up with a few ads. It caught on quickly in Europe and now claims to have more than six million users. The company has been trying to make money with a higher-level subscription membership that grants access to the music without the ads and gives access on iPhones and Android phones.
But if you visit Spotify's Web site from any computer in the U.S., a message pops up: "Why is Spotify not available in my country?" If you click on the questionm the answer is that you can't get the service because of "licensing restrictions."
Garland says the labels gave Spotify a shot in Europe as an experiment, but that they were wary of a launch in the much more lucrative U.S. market. Spotify, he says, predicted that it would be able to lure a large percentage of its users into paying for higher-level ad-free service. But that hasn't been the case: The company won't reveal the numbers, but fewer than 10 percent subscribe. Unfortunately, the ad model doesn't generate enough revenue to satisfy the labels.
Spotify executives say they're likely to launch in the U.S. early next year. But Garland says they probably won't offer the free ad-based service. Instead, in all likelihood, only the subscription model will be available, downgrading Spotify to just another Rhapsody or revamped Napster.
Even if the ad-sponsored Spotify were to make it to the U.S., many people -- including this reporter -- might find it unsatisfying. I want to own my music, not rent it. I want to store it online and access it from wherever I am, whether I'm in China, France or Cleveland. But the labels don't like his model; they want to charge customers for both purchasing the MP3 file and storing it in the cloud.
Back in 1999, during the height of the dot.com boom, a company called MP3.com tried to offer that service. But, the record labels sued and won. They said that allowing people to listen to their music from anywhere amounted to letting them broadcast it for free. Essentially owning a MP3 file doesn't mean you have the right to play it over any device.
We have been slowly creeping toward a world in which there are easy options to legally download music. But the emphasis is on the word "creeping." When will we have the ability to buy music, store it online and access it from anywhere? "At the rate we're going," Garland says, "I'd predict 2020 or 2025." The last decade has brought a world of change, but it's sounding like the next one is going to move pretty slowly, at least for new music technology.
11:39 AM ET
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11-20-2009
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Look, it's the new version of Conan doing the new version of In The Year 2000! (courtesy of NBC)
We want to know what you think about music during the '00s, so we're posing a question every weekday from Nov. 9 to Nov. 20. Then, we'll post and discuss some of the interesting, fun and ridiculous responses.
Nov. 20: How will we listen to music in the next decade? How will we acquire it? What will it sound like?
11:19 AM ET
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11-20-2009
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