Music 1.0: in memoriam

“Music 1.0 is dead.” (Cohen, in Anderson 2008)

Not surprised by this statement? You shouldn’t be – the past decade has seen almost every imaginable media transition from one- to two-point-zero. Even Vegemite.

But what does this strange numerical suffix actually mean? What was ‘Music 1.0’, and how did it ‘die’?

Harold Innis (1972, in Angus 1998) suggests that in any given society, the dominant forms of communication media establish the limits of what is ‘experienceable’, and the manner in which it is experienced.

“[C]ivilization has been dominated at different stages by various media of communication such as clay, papyrus, parchment, and paper produced first from rags and then from wood. Each medium has its significance for the type of monopoly of knowledge which will be built and which will destroy the conditions suited to creative thought and be displaced by a new medium with its peculiar type of monopoly of knowledge.” (Innis 2004, p74)

Developments in media technology reconfigure the social arrangements of power and control over ‘knowledge’, which in turn reconfigures the way we understand that knowledge. Internetisation is an obvious example of the way communication technology itself can cause a complete revision of social hierarchy and interaction. To understand the implications of this on the music industry, we must look at the development of music publishing technologies which have challenged and reconfigured the existing social order.

MUSIC PUBLISHING HOUSES: THE BEGINNINGS OF AN INDUSTRY

The music industry was born in the early 16^th century with Gutenberg’s invention of movable type.  The piano was the centrepiece of every middle-class European home, and sheet music was the primary vehicle for disseminating music (Garofalo 1999, p319). Control over publishing technology was suddenly freed from the exclusive hold of the church, and placed into the hands of the entrepreneur (Sanjek 1988, cited in Garofalo 1999, p320). Publishing houses formed the new power centre of the industry and publishers began to make substantial incomes, for which they sought legal protection. The first conception of ‘intellectual property’ was born in 1710 with the Statute of Anne. The Statute sought to protect consumers by giving copyright an expiration date and creating a ‘public domain’ or ‘commons’ which was exempt from privatisation. However, royal sanctions were given to stationers’ guilds, granting an effective monopoly on publishing to the wealthy elite who had access to printing technology (Garofalo 1999, p320).

European publishing houses maintained an elitist control over the type of music they printed, favouring classical ‘art’ music from well-respected composers. In the United States, however, a different kind of industry emerged. Publishers chose to print popular works that were considered the collective property of ‘the commons’ rather than individual artists. The industry became rapidly centralised, as publishers congregated in a small area in New York known as Tin Pan Alley. Popularity, rather than high taste, became the keystone to success. Aggressive marketing and a formulaic ‘pop’ mentality became the driving force behind Tin Pan Alley’s “song factories” – traits which would frame commercial music culture for centuries to come (Garofalo 1999, p322).

the cult of indie – mdia1001 presentation.

mdia1001 slides 

 

“Music can save people, but it can`t in the commercial way it`s being used. It`s just too much. It`s pollution.”

 

 

“Undermine their pompous authority, reject their moral standards, make anarchy and disorder your trademarks. Cause as much chaos and disruption as possible but don’t let them take you ALIVE.”

 

 

“I’d rather be dead than cool.”

 

Dylan, Vicious, Cobain… all of them began as a part of some kind of underground movement, intent on overturning the status quo and putting something real into the increasingly synthetic world of mass media. Now, almost every person in this room recognizes their face as a celebrity, a symbol of an era that has been pigeon-holed and co-opted into what “popular culture” thinks it should be.

Ever since mass entertainment began to skyrocket in the 1950s and ‘60s, independent musicians like these guys have been locked in a constant struggle against the number one arch-enemy: MAINSTREAM. Major record labels held such sheer power that the independents were invariably lost somewhere in the shadows of the top 40 charts, or otherwise preyed upon by major labels: dooming them to 1% profits and an image dictated by the status quo.

Such is the dilemma that faces underground musicians: without mass media you are nothing but background noise, but with it you become an emblem of whatever the masses construe your values to be. Though the specifics did vary, these guys all had a message that was fundamentally about being real, being individual, and standing up for the outcasts in popular culture.

These days, that message sounds a little tired and overused to the point of satire – we’re keeping it real, man, it’s all about the music – and that seems to the inevitable result of allowing the media to help you voice your cause. This is not to say that these guys weren’t in any way revolutionary, or failed in their attempts to change the way society thought. What it comes down to is the idea of the “sell-out”, the shameless promotion and commercialization of ideas that begun as a grassroots philosophy but ended up as synthetic media nostalgia.

So can there only be two options for artists: to remain fledgling independent acts restricted to small local scenes, or to sell out and go mainstream, forfeiting their values for a major record release?

Maybe in the 70s, but the digital generation is launching yet another offensive against the mainstream: a DIY revolution that is creating huge waves in the previously calm, controlled waters of the record industry. Armed with little more than an internet connection, artists are able to record, upload, share and promote their music online – entirely free, entirely independent. Download GarageBand to record your song, upload it to your Myspace Music page, film your own gigs in your bedroom and upload them to YouTube, and spam thousands of Facebook groups, Twitter followers and music blogsites… bam, an international audience is at your feet. The internet has been dynamite for the indie music scene – but is this the ‘real deal’ that dedicated musos have been fighting for for generations? Or are we in fact facing another dilemma, what Tim Walker at The Independent refers to as “the globalisation of hip”?

The independent “indie” music scene has indeed become synonymous with musical elitism and a cooler-than-thou attitude. The growing indie crowd are developing an identity based on avoiding ‘mainstream’ like the plague, regardless of musical talent. To quote the infallible Urban Dictionary: “Indie kids get off on listening to music that nobody has heard of. (Often times, it is some random crap they found on myspace) If they tell you their favorite band, and you have heard of it, they have failed as an indie kid…. Avoid them, unless you’re ready to be ripped to mental shreds for liking Beyonce.”

But like it or not, a cultural revolution has begun. What the user-generated mediasphere will do for the fate of independent music remains to be seen. Will the internet emancipate true musical talent from the historical suppression of major record labels? Or are we merely allowing some strange form of vertigo to blinker us from what good music really is? Has this allergy to mainstream, cultivated by so many inspiring non-conformists like Dylan and Cobain, actually taken us further from the pursuit of real, unadulterated music? Like Lester Bangs tells young William in Almost Famous, it’s an industry of cool. The times they are a changing… but, be it Britney Spears, Bright Eyes, or your brother’s best rendition of ‘Wonderwall’, there is still music being made, shared and appreciated around the globe.
And according to Jack Kerouac, the only truth is music. (awww.)

 

LINKS WORTH CHECKING OUT:

“DIY and Indie: record labels, options, benefits and disadvantages”

 Recording Industry vs. The People (blog) 

Indie Music – Cracked.com

How to be an Indie without Knowing Independent Music
 

FINDING INDEPENDENT MUSIC ONLINE:

The Hype Machine (links to hundreds of music blogs)

Triple J Unearthed 

Myspace Music 

AltSounds: Independent Music Journalism

Drum Media (free publication from most big music retailers)

the visual and the verbiage

I have spent the last 20 minutes perusing the websites of the Daily Telegraph, SMH and the Australian. Familiar faces star across the three. From my scanning, I now know that Kylie Labouchardiere’s killer, a heartless and cold-blooded prick, has remained silent over the sweet, smiling girl’s murder. Sonny Bill Williams is back and he wants to say sorry – you can see it in his eyes – he’s still a doggy at heart. Clare Werbeloff is a true bogan legend who’s gone from witness to web star. They just went, chk chk, BOOM.

I am procrastinating. I read the headlines, take in the photo, and move on… occasionally glancing at the clock as it creeps closer to 4pm. This is what these websites are designed for – news.com.au wants me to get sucked in by the pretty pictures and flashy captions. And if, in my procrastination, that’s as far as I’m going to read, then the interplay between the image and the text is crucial to my understanding of these stories.

In her paper, Mary Macken-Horarik (God bless double-barrel last names) calls for more sophisticated analysis of this relation between the verbiage and the visual. She refers specifically to reports on asylum-seekers and the implications of the ‘Children Overboard’ affair. Recognising the increasingly ‘multimodal’ nature of modern news, she studies the ways that text and image create meaning – independently and interdependently.

Macken-Horarik uses 3 categories to analyse representations in news texts. The first is genericisation-specification: whether the main actors are referred to as identifiable individuals or members of generalised groups. In terms of verbiage (definitely word of the week), generalisations are constructed through the use of plural and collective nouns. These tend to symbolically remove the actor from our sheltered little worlds, allowing them to be more easily demonised or dehumanised. The visual can back this up by using an image to typify a certain group, rather than focussing on the individual. Take a look at the NRL stories of late. You’ll most likely find the most damning articles come with a picture of the burly players practising scrums mid-training, with a headline pertaining to “NRL players” or “league boys” as a generic group. Those trying to resuscitate Matthew Johns’ career feature close-up shots of him looking sheepish and sorry, referring to “Matty” like he’s our big brother.

Categorisation is M-H’s next tool: looking at what societal groups the actors are pigeon-holed into. Defining someone in terms of their occupation or role – functionalisation, as van Leeuwen calls it – can help build a perception of that person’s morality and values. I could refer to my dad as a lawyer, a public servant, an amateur cricketer, or simply my dad. Each one carries its own implicit values, according to the audience’s view of these different roles. News images often use ‘cultural categorisation’ to construct these stereotypes -  police uniforms and rugby jerseys carry implicit meanings about the wearer without needing to say a word. However, the interplay between these images and the accompanying verbiage can drastically alter or enhance the meaning of the whole text – so, as Macken-Horarik presses, it’s important to study both in conjunction.

Lastly, M-H looks at role allocation – whether a story’s participants are ‘agents’, doing the doing, or ‘patients’, to whom the doing is being done. What side of the doing line you stand on can change your percieved role dramatically: “representations can reallocate roles, rearrange the social relations between the partipants” (van Leeuwen, cited in Macken-Horarik p11). Reports on sexual assault allegations are a clear example. A woman can be portrayed as a victim or a provocateur, a man can be a monster, a mental case, or a victim himself. Images again play a part in constructing this role – Paris Hilton is always a perfect picture of class and glamour during Fashion Week, but when the DUIs come out she’s suddenly falling out of limos with her skirt up to her waist.

Flicking back to the Daily Telgraph site, I have just found that for some unfathomable reason, poor Kylie Labouchardiere just got replaced by the derriere of George Clooney’s new squeeze. News changes fast in this modern media world. I give in to the urge to rewatch chk chk Clare one last time… wondering what complex analysis will we soon need to apply to stories that utilise video, audio, visual AND my much-loved verbiage?

Kidding, I just want to watch her say OI BRO, you slept with ma cousin aye…

Reference:
Macken-Horarik, M. “The children overboard affair” Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 26.2 (2003) pg 1-16.