Is the internet making music... better?

(xpost, damn, I'm not answering the question properly, but I'm not going to delete this now)

Now, you do an internet search, quickly find sites telling you great stuff about the band, download a couple of tracks from slsk, and discover that it's OK, but not really your thing.

So in the end, it takes you fifteen minutes instead of two months to come to the exact same conclusion.

Which means you save a lot of time, even though that "saved" time gets reinvested in discovering more music. So before, I might investigate ten bands and wind up liking four of them. Whereas now, in the same time frame I can investigate 100 bands and wind up liking 40 of them.

Systems Inputs [exposure to music and information about music] > the listener experiences > Systems Outputs [what music is bought, consumed, enjoyed]

a person who has more control over their systems inputs will make better decisions and this will increase their enjoyment.

these theories can be expanded by looking at:

music psychology: music cognition / music perception: a wider exposure of music leads to better understanding, increasing cognition and perception abilities

systems thinking/ theories: increased personal control of decision making

more slants can be aided by media theory in relation to cultural studies

(DJ Martian just stated these ideas in a diff. way)

on the other hand, when europeans brought their genetic diversity to the new world a few hundred years ago, the native species was decimated by all the previously unseen diseases they brought with them.

so i'm not entirely sure i agree with all this.

musically speaking, i think the shrinking cultural world that the internet and other modern developments have brought upon us -- a world where a remote village in china is all of a sudden not so remote any more -- may well be leading to a wiping out of regional culture. eventually musicians in that remote village in china will be making the exact kind of music as musicians in new york and miami and berlin and cairo. it may be a really cool new previously unimaginable new kind of crossbred music. but what will be lost as a result?

i know there are still differences, but i think the differences have shrunk and i'm not so sure that's a good thing.

This restricts systems inputs:

including the individual judgements of radio station executives/ Djs within a particular station.

Clear Channel uses systems to increase profits, that delibrately reinforce their controlling media gatekeepers role: artists that don't conform to their mass market business agenda are delibrately shut out.

my issue with music and the internet - and i know i'm straying from the OP's point here, but so is everyone else - is that it's ruining any notion of anticipation. take the thread about isis, for instance. i've really been looking forward to that album - still am, in fact. but i'm also very aware that a few minutes' searching will yield all these leaked tracks. so i'm torn between the instant fix of hearing them, and staying true to the ideal of the album (ie not sullying the entire experience with what could prove an unsatisfying sneak peek).

i think the next generation of listeners will have very different expectations to mine (i'm 29, by the way, but was listening to the top-40 rundown at an absurdly young age, hence all the wittering on in other threads about OMD and godley and creme). the traditional arc of single-expectation-album-climax is being replaced by immediate bursts of gratification. which, of course, puts the whole notion of albums in jeopardy: after all, if someone can just grab a clutch of songs from the net, will they ever experience the joys of listening to a collection in a considered sequence and learning to love the gems that take time to reveal their lustre?

mind you, everyone said the same thing about CDs when they came out - people would just skip through them.

The problem, I think, with the internet's effect on music-listening is precisely that there's so much more information, so much that you get a bit exhausted of it after a while. And because there's so much personal choice involved you can restrict yourself to stuff you're already sure you'll like. Too much choice can lead to a sort of... wilful ignorance of a lot of options because otherwise you'd be overwhelmed, in my experience at least. There's no need to listen to the radio to find new stuff, so there's less the element of surprise, of discovering that actually you're into something you'd barely heard of before.

i plead guilty to the charge of oversimplification.

but i do believe indigenous cultural qualities will be markedly altered at the very least. it's not just the internet. it's years and years of encroaching global villagication. a lot more people in remote chinese villages have heard western pop music today than 20 years ago. and, from the other direction, it used to be really really hard for someone in the average u.s. city to find a record made in africa or cuba. now it's really really easy. that's a good thing in almost all ways, and will lead to some cool new things. but things will be left behind and lost at the same time. i don't mean to be all purist and shit. but i LIKE the fact that i can theoretically go to the backwoods of louisiana or the frontwoods of mongolia and hear shit that i can't hear anywhere else, and i like to the fact that the people making that music can theoretically develop and mutate in weird ways without anyone from clear channel or the sam ash electronics department getting in their way.

which is all my way of saying, in answer to the original question and to dj martian's thesis, global villagication will automatically change music (and other art) but it won't automatically make it better.

heheheh, excellent "theoretical" point. it's certainly an interesting idea for a holiday. "what shall we do this year, darling?" "well, i fancy going to the outer reaches of civilisation in search of new sound." "oh. i quite fancied skegness."

i suppose, though, that there are already such sounds that have been lost to our ears, simply because something somewhere, be it internal or external, superseded them. all part of the evolution of music, i suppose. i mean: even in this digital age, not everything can be archived.

I'm also very much with cis about feeling overwhelmed. I recall how some of my most favourite albums of all time were those it took many many plays to fully appreciate, albums that at first listen didn't appeal to me much at all. Were I to come across one of these today, it's likely I would miss it entirely because I only really have time for the things that hit me with "wow" right away, right now.

I don't want to seem ungrateful for the wealth of information and music now available to me. But hardly a week goes by that I don't feel overwhelmed and think "my god, it's a whole different ballgame these days".

I wish I could quote who actually said this but it was in some type of article about music blogs somewhere, and the quote went along the lines of "Nowadays it's not hard at all to find new music; it's how to balance the boat in a sea of riches." To me that just says it all.

rather annoyed that i'm off on holiday tomorrow because all this is likely to throw up some interesting/thought-provoking comments. i shall look forward to catching up upon my return!

i reckon there is more need than ever to summarize/ synthesize/ recap/ analyze trends in contemporary music - e.g like the classic end of year opinionated reviews in Melody Maker in the late 80s or the regular overview think pieces particularly practised by Simon Reynolds in the Melody Maker from 1986 - to circa 1994.

the reliance on the ongoing static album reviews i.e a consumerist guide approach focusing on albums as isolated entities [e.g uncut/ mojo etc] - and NO ongoing anaytical debate/ overviews in the printed press is one i find rather strange and insubstantial in understanding contemporary music.

I would like to see magazines reintroduce the analytical/ systems thinking methodology format, giving space over to key writers.

ofcourse this is demanding:

many hours of informed dedicated music listening to comparatively compare/ contrast music in qualitative / subjective terms
good writers that are encouraged to be creative - with the necessary space to articulate their opinions
knowledge/ understanding of systems thinking and ability to apply critical thinking

Music editors/ writers would benefit from studying Systems Thinking:

Systems Thinking
http://www.isss.org/primer/4domains.htm

THE EVOLUTION OF SYSTEMS INQUIRY
http://www.isss.org/primer/003evsys.htm

A lot of books could be replaced by abstracts. At least that's what I told myself at university.

Witness the death of indie retail, see also the death of indie distribution, see also the death of hardcopy ARCHIVABLE print media.
When I say indie I don't mean Pavement fans, I mean most non-big 4 music is on the ropes right now.

There is a lot to be said for easy access to lots of different and obscure music for free, but there is also something to be said for only having a few records and absolutely living in them for long periods of time because you have less competing product. I have not owned a computer for the last six months, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I am also interested in how applying systems thinking can change things on a societal/ cultural level via the mass media which includes the music press, which also influences other media such as radio.

ILM/ Blogs only reach a limited audience.

Mojo/ Uncut have sales over 100, 000 and a even higher readership - they can reach a critical mass.

But maybe all I meant was that it promotes certain new features in music (at the expense of old 'good features', perhaps).

What might these be?

Or do you really think the internet can have no effect at all on the music that is being produced, only on the consumption of it?

Alternatively, you get that kind of overstuffed, every bar must have bells and whistles, production style of Kish Kash. Too many inputs adding up to a musical grey goo?

I definitely think we're only at the beginning.

(*, non-illegal, commercial (not free) totally unrepresentative of anything except those who can buy into the sytem charts, really)

REMIXED IN UNDER 24 HOURS

THE INTERNET WINS

1. Is popular music really still evolving? [yes, please, let's look at
Libertines as an example]

a. If so, is it still actually capable of substantially evolving in the way it seemed to up through the early 90's?

b. If not, is the internet system of music delivery enough of a catalyst to kickstart it into doing so?

I don't think so. I think it may NOT be the tyranny of the corporate monster or outdated technology that is responsible for the crap music around today, but simply that music has naturally, stylistically run it's course. That doesn't mean there isn't a hell of a lot of talent out there, and a hell of a lot of music we can all learn about and enjoy.

But where is the cutting edge? I grew up being excited by music because I often heard things that sounded like nothing that had come before. And I don't think it's just music that has lost it's cutting edge, either. It's *all* forms of culture. Fashion, even.

I can't see how the internet is going to change that, sadly.

xpost

I'm sorry I'm a little late here, but is this a joke? This is maybe the most ridiculous thing I have read on ILM.

I think I agree with this! I don't know much about music, but I do follow computer games a bit, and, well, a big part of why I hate the retrogaming movement so much is because I really feel the loosening of technological limitations has allowed games to be, not just prettier, but smarter, more original, more varied... For every Voodoo Ray (Reynolds sez it was originally gonna be 'Voodoo Rage' but the sampler didn't have enough memory!), I bet there are hundreds of genre-forming masterworks we haven't heard because what they try to do is/was currently impossible...

B...b...but I think if that were true, I think there'd be a lot more from say pre-1998 that didn't now feel dated, in some way. And I find it hard to think of, well, anything, in any medium. I am young though.

That's the thing about 'Toxic' tho - the only 'edge' to it is that 'oooh I've not heard THAT in a pop song before' really no?

There are certainly more tools avaliable to Mickey Musician than ever before - I usually find myself utterly overwhelmed by the amount of options I've got when I start something. Why this isn't translating to lots of that shock-of-the-new stuff I'm not sure.

One of my theories is that there's a pissload of genre names about and when you make a lot of basic decisions on a track you can see lights going on in your brain - take the tempo down to 100bpm you're thinking hiphop, up to 160 you're thinking dnb, add a pad and you're thinking ambient, acoustic and you think folktronica . . . It's a trap to avoid, the best successes I've had are when I've ignored it and the same goes for pretty much everyone else I know (this is one of my problems with Momus - his need to ascribe genre to what he does, often BEFORE he's done it - this is about audio, not textbooks) . . . . . but I digress as usual.

T'internet definitely makes label/artist easier - I can finish a track and have people at the label hear it and comment within a few minutes. When they've been designing sleeve art its been passed back and forth between us and taken far less time than it would've as a result. It rocks.

So I suppose the internet is making Making Music easier in some respects. I will concede, however, that most of the above would be utterly useless or at least a lot more complicated for Johnny GuitarBand or those that still use all that archaic 20th century crap (joke).

As far as the net goes as a delivery system, well I'm pretty positive about it. For Frankie Filesharer there's a lot more varied, immediate, choice yadda yadda yadda stop me if you've heard this one before. I've taken some fairly venomous bile from music biz people for my attitude. I'm quite extreme - I don't think you should be able to be done for having an mp3 of a copyrighted track - it's like being done for having a postcard of the Mona Lisa. Plus I feel it's just deserts for an industry that moved too slowly then panicked. As someone who is trying to make money out of this I guess I'm shooting myself in the foot, but hey, greater good and all that.

I do think that the whole filesharing shebang is going to get harder. I can see a situation where some sort of meritocracy arises where proper 1337 geeks will be the only ones able to get around whatever measures appear. I know countless people who next to nothing about computers but can use Soulseek and download a track, far less who would know how to crack piece of software. If downloading gets that hard then the current meritocracy that governs software downloading applying to music too. There will always be ways around whatever people come up against, 128bit encrypted file sharers, Digital Watermarking WILL be cracked . . . . for every 20 geeks making a piece of digital technology there will always be 200,000 out there trying to hack it.

What I think the most exciting possibility is with the net is that the old record-contract n' labels system will get put by the wayside as a bad idea. It is. With the amount of mergers going on now we're pretty much near to having one company in control of the whole of the high-end. One Love indeed. And while this carries on we're still going to see labels creaming off a stupid percentage while the artists themselves get a pittance. The Problem with Music by Steve Albini to thread.

Some sort of way of the artist being able to get out tracks that bypasses huge business is probably what I'm after, but it doesn't take a genius to realise that there are inherent problems with this - promotion being the main one - how do you compete with their budgets?, how do you notify about the new? Plus with the net being the net all the power is with the person browsing (which is the thing I've found that really irks the suits), advertising works on controlled repetition and let's face it we all close pop-ups as soon as they appear or get our browser to block them. And while the Big Boys have an absolute stranglehold over radio and TV it'll be a cold day in Linux before you get anywhere near them.

I know there are some sites that are trying to this kind of direct operating but they do tend to be uni-genre or they have poor quality control and fizzle out. Or more often than not they're scams. Hmm. A way to use the net as a delivery system effectively is still something that no-one's figured out. I-Tunes and the like are a start, but I'm already worried that a lot of the diversity of filesharers is lost when you switch to pay-per-download. The choice isn't there (yet) and I'm already seeing a lot of music that is away from the mainstream setting up their own seperate services (see Warp). Plus, as with CD's and Vinyl, the creative and practical people involved in what you've bought are still getting a fucking insulting cut of the money and shitgulpers like Coca-Cola are now getting a cut too.

Probably the biggest thing that is effecting music in general about computers and the net and such is random play. I'm a total Ricky Random, an artist needs to be really, really impressive to make me sit down and listen to the whole thing (thankfully there's a lot of these recently). I like random play because it makes you appreciate each track on its merits without any of the bullshit. It's definitely increased the different amount of styles and genres that I listen too - many that used to give me and ice-cream headache I can now have one scoop of then move on. It's let me softly-softly get into a lot of acts that I'd otherwise have deemed to bland or too rich to get into.

In summary, breezes.

good: mp3 blogs, allmusic.com, forums, etc. means much more exposure and less relience on corporate choices (like radio) hopefully.
Therefore more "good" music is heard/found by anyone bothering to have a quick poke around the net.

plus less focus on the crap narrow playlists the wealth would be spread wider to more bands, not just those in the top 10, so less mega-rich superstars but more well paid good bands

Being able to try things out easily has personally meant i'm into so many more styles of music, not just rock or whatever but all good music.

bad: more of a split between music lovers and non-music lovers. if you take the time to look at the net you find so much great music and really love listening to all this great stuff. if you dont take the time and listen to the radio passively you never get inspired at all i guess.

Also i think there is more not so good stuff to sift through, especially if you havent found any websites/blogs that suite you :)

In terms of making better music i dont think thats possible. humans have been making music/art for years and technology doesnt change how good it is, just other aspects of it. Great artists exist regardless of what techology there is.

rock!

Oh wait, I see there have been lots of legitimate posts here that I've missed.

You rule.

I think the sounds I experienced while having two MRIs in the past were more interesting than most electronic music (and most modern rock).

My friend Stripey compared her MRI experience to some of the albums by Main, FWIW.

Yes, Alba that is what I meant about Libertines as an example of the way music is NOT evolving. Thanks.

Gribowitz - where were you quoting that paragraph from in italics? I'm pretty sure I've read this whole thread and I don't remember anyone saying that. I can't seem to place it by doing a search for other threads/messages, either.

The only thing I can say in response right now is that I have had the feeling that this sort of thing will end. "The seek" and all that, these riches will end. That's what keeps me up at night later than I should be, sometimes. That's why it's hard to leave the house sometimes. That's why I can't tell sheer brilliance from mere excellence, sometimes. Although I do think I am honing this skill. I am learning how to adapt to this technological situation. Random play is a good idea. Luckily I am obsessed with one particular band right now, and frankly I'm very glad that's FINALLY the case, but eventually I will want to try random play on for size.

Alba had mentioned the idea of everyone kindof splintering off into their own small groups. Surely this can only be a good thing if those groups communicate and spread information? Will there no longer be a collective in the new world?

I suppose I'm just really frustrated, I spend a fuckload of time on the internet per day and am never far away from decent music-based resources that are used by very passionate people, not just ILX but other boards, AMG, blog communties etc. and at the end of the day the actual content, the music itself, is nowhere to be seen. Then off I'll go and speak with some people who have some power, however large or small, in the industry and they're utterly clueless. Most would treat ILX with horror, they just want to be able to follow the old easy routes of their old easy jobs to sell the old easy genres (DON'T get me started on A&R policy in the UK).

I've seen some brightness though - one of the best *ting* great ideas that I've heard recently is thus:- For the last God knows how many years small to medium labels have been using EP's to get bands started . Your new band doesn't have to have a decent portfolio of songs to do it, maybe just one decent track and some filler. It gives them something to sell at gigs and something to send to Peel or whoever. Tried and tested, hell it's how I'm getting started. I'm sure you've all heard people say "nobody makes any money on singles", well it's utterly true. They don't cost enough retail for people to get a decent return per unit. But how else are you going to get a new band with only a 5/6 song support set at their disposal into the commercial arena?

Download only EP's. No pressing costs. No distributors taking a cut. Labels can offer deals to the artist that are way, way better than your usual 5% of 12% of fuck all. Also, I can see many small indies furiously chasing the best of the laptoppers over the guitar acts as *hey* no studio costs. As a further more base version you can offer free download singles. My label's just started doing this, as has Twisted Nerve and doubtless many others. I'm incredibly chuffed to be involved in a label that's forward thinking about these things, hell they even link to Soulseek off their website. It's insanity to start condemning your consumers for something they all do (and you probably do to).

I've heard many say that the downturns caused by downloads are going to hit the little indies - and to be honest I've seen some truth in it. However I think it's the little indies that have the most to profit out of the net. It can make your running costs megamegalow and your output heavier than before. Plus you can have instant feedback and more of a relationship with your consumer.

I hate the distance between bands/labels and the consumer these days - new band's climbs up the ladder are so pre-programmed and by the time they've come to your attention they're already seperated by a barrier, six bouncers and a T-shirt stall. In many ways I GET the NME's coverage of the Libertines as much as I think it's sick and immoral:- 99.9% of acts that they are given to cover consist of nothing but bland press releases which tell them everything they've got to say and dang will they ever get bollocked by the Ed if they dare write off-the-script : at least there's something there with the Libertines that is unpredicatable and real, even if it is a terminal drug addict.
But I digress as usual.

Anyone can design and run a website, it's insanity how some outsource it for a stupid fee and then are frustrated because they can only update when other people let them - it's too slow for a thing like the net.

Not that bands are w/o blame - "we want a pro-looking site" er why the fuck exactly, yer a fucking punk band, not a car-spraying shop or a domestic appliance manufacturer.

I suppose I'm just really frustrated, I spend a fuckload of time on the internet per day and am never far away from decent music-based resources that are used by very passionate people, not just ILX but other boards, AMG, blog communties etc. and at the end of the day the actual content, the music itself, is nowhere to be seen.

Can you clarify? Do you mean that you spend so much time on the internet reading and corresponding that often at the end of the day, there's no actual music to be had? Cause if so, I can totally relate.

I didn't find it. This seems worth reviving though :P

Alba your posts absolutely scream "mac user" :-D Which isn't nessacarily an insult, I'm thinking I just don't understand my own thought processes much these days, am ossifying with age, and perhaps have prejudices/fears w/r/t "systems thinking" self-doubt and a billion other issues.

Anyhow. Has anything changed since Sept '04 or not? Have things that were coming into view then simply arrived and become an inseperable part of the myspace machine in general?