Over the next few days, I will be breaking down and writing about possible solutions for the issues facing the music industry coming out of the 2010 Future of Music Policy Summit. Being an outside observer of the proceedings, I feel that there are a few models and concepts that if applied to the industry as a whole could be highly beneficial and provide answers.
“The Internet isn’t for nerds and scientists, it’s not for business and marketing, it’s where we all live.” – Damien Kulash, OK Go, 2010 Future of Music Policy Summit
If a follower of myself (@marcuskdowling) or the site (@tgrionline) on Twitter, from Sunday through Tuesday, you likely noticed an up-tick in Tweets marked #fmc10, an indicator that I was in attendance at the Future of Music Coalition’s 2010 Policy Summit which took place this week at Georgetown University. The Future of Music Coalition provides educational resources for musicians, as well as working with issues of advocacy and research as well. In a 21st century environment that can be difficult to navigate for everyone from indie musicians to seasoned veterans, FMC does a more than admirable job in attempting to provide access to answers from everything from finding avenues to health insurance to assessing avenues to best market one’s self to new fans. It’s primarily thankless yeoman’s work the organization does, but for three days in October, the organization gets a chance to shine.
The conference was fantastic overall. If a Twitter user, I would research the #fmc10 hashtag and soak in all of the brilliance. There’s a plethora of amazing conversations that shows that music in this economic depression is alive and well, and that there are artists who legitimately care very deeply about consumers, and wish very much to respect their rights, privacy and decision making process as to just who exactly they choose to listen to. However successful the conference was on many fronts, it failed mightily in one obvious way. The future of music? In many ways tied into the future of what I’m doing right here, right now, at 5 AM in the morning. Blogging. Want to get an aggregate on where music is headed? Ask a blogger. I may hate the term because of the fact that it’s a catch all and involves people who don’t have serious journalistic aspirations like myself, but it is what it is, and for the purposes of the music industry, I am what I am. And to not see myself and those like me represented in ANY way in the discussion was understandable, but still a major failure of the proceedings. Bloggers deserve to be involved in the FMC and music industry at large’s plans going forward, and in the following paragraphs, I intend to outline the foremost reasons why such a pairing is a clear and obvious necessity.
Foremost, let it be stated that I am perfectly aware that bloggers are in many cases not classically trained journalists, and in many cases inadequately trained to adequately understand the intricacies of music. However, where the blogosphere fails in many cases in understanding the pentatonic scale, bloggers do understand the bridge between social trends and music. Furthermore, we have a rather stunning depth and breadth of knowledge when it comes to music history, and a deep understanding of the constant dovetailing of culture and media. For bloggers, music literally is our life. With rare exceptions, we all have jobs outside of being music journalists, so, in effect, writing about music affords us what starts off as a relaxing gambit, but becomes a compulsion when in cases like this site, tens of thousands of readers inform their decision making process from what we write. From this, a community of engaged music fans develops, where the worth (or lack thereof) of literally every artist old, new and in between is assessed instantaneously.
Yes, we get things wrong. Often. But, to play devil’s advocate, the blogosphere has yet to hit a tenth anniversary as a journalistic medium. The evolution of the medium will eventually allow for the music blogs to become true industry indicators as our across the board musical knowledge increases. Again, there needs to be a greater synergy between the industry and their greatest proponents. Bloggers are the super fans. The true fans. The fans who will both trade shitty quality MP3s back and forth of new acts, and for the artists who get it right, do crazy things like buy a heart shaped 12″ Mayer Hawthorne disc from Stones Throw Records, and ultimately get other fans to do the same thing. We’re the fans that other fans aspire to be, or the fans that are just like everyone else. Invalidating our presence is incredibly short sighted and like trying to bake bread without yeast. It just doesn’t work.
These are shocking and unusual musical times. All of the various and different metrics, figures and modes of understanding the dissemination of media are all endemic issues to bloggers as well. Facebook ad marketing, Soundcloud hits, tweeting v. overtweeting, travel, touring, branding and a plethora of other issues are major issues in the underground music media, too. Advancing and growing a site in an abnormally crowded underground that grows more crowded by the second in the “over-information age” is entirely similar to being an indie band struggling for visibility and respect. Anyone who takes writing about music, posting videos of music, or engaging fans of music in an open musical forum does this a) because they truly love it, or b) because they want to one day get paid to do just this and nothing else. Labels and artists need to take that potential workforce into consideration. Need someone to aggregate data who really wouldn’t mind figuring out a fan base they already understand quite well? There’s an enormous number of hungry and intelligent folks in your target media marketing range who would be overjoyed to make a difference.
The Future of Music Coalition and other like minded organizations have an opportunity to capitalize on a market that can truly make a major difference in understanding and synthesizing the key issues the music industry faces at the present time. “How can I reach Johnny to tell him I have an album coming out?” and “Why won’t Johnny buy my album?” are the two most pressing issues of many, but the ones I’m pretty sure an independent and underground media in tighter synergy with the record industry could best understand. As the tides turn and times change rapidly, it may be time for such outside of the box thoughts as the ones enumerated above. Though they may seem crazy, it may be worth a try. As this site’s name states, true genius does require insanity.
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