Blogorama

(Post #1)

I have climbed highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

U2's chart-topping anthem (and one of my personal favorite songs) sums up eloquently what all of us here on planet Earth are feeling: a sense of searching. Some people turn to religion to fill the gaping emptiness; some turn to drugs so they just don't notice it anymore. And some people go to the internet. After all, Google is the best search engine.

The internet has everything a person needs to distract from his meaningless life, from soul mates to shopping. Interested parties can find websites and blogs dedicated to subjects as diverse as world politics and as obscure as horticulture. I have little interest in horticulture; however, I have followed with marked interest the changes the internet has made in the music industry.

Since the appearance of Napster and subsequent sites like Kazaa and Limewire, record labels have struggled to adapt. For years they tried cracking down on downloading fiends worldwide. You probably remember that crooked twelve-year-old who made headlines when a record company sued her for thousands of dollars for downloading songs. Then iTunes made downloading legal. At least then the companies could make some money off of the downloading. However, it didn’t solve one big change that the internet brought upon the companies.

In the early ‘90s, if a person heard a song on the radio that he just had to have, he went out and bought the entire CD. If he was lucky, he might have been able to buy the single. Today, if a person hears a song he likes, she just downloads it for a dollar (or for free), and probably never even thinks about the other songs. This is especially true of one hit wonders like Jet or Strawberry Alarm Clock, and songs like “Low” by Flo-rida and "Crank That" by Soulja Boy. The songs are great and people are downloading them like crazy, but the rest of the album goes virtually unnoticed except by die-hard fans.

So why am I, a mere college student, blogging about the problems the industry is having?

Like most teenagers growing up in the Los Angeles area, I fancied myself a sort of music connoisseur amongst the sheep of my generation. I listened to the Mars Volta, not Blink 182. I saw bands in coffee shops and garages, not the Gibson Amphitheatre. I was so proud of my knowledge of superior music of which the masses knew nothing. My bubble burst when I discovered that most of the “indie” bands I paid tribute to were in fact Billboard Top 100 hits, often reaching as high as gold and platinum. I finally conceded that I was just another member of the flock.

In spite of my decidedly bourgeois tastes, I’ve always wanted to be a part of the music industry. I wanted to be an A&R rep so I could spend all my time at concerts, looking for great new bands. But with record companies so afraid of losing even more money, the A&R reps aren’t really allowed to sign bands that aren’t generic and sure to bring in lots of preteen fans. Entire genres have devolved into a bland, homogenized soup. Thus another effect of the internet on the music industry has been the thwarting of my childhood aspirations.

The survival of the music industry ultimately depends on the innovation of the music industry. Maybe the record labels will think of a way to utilize the internet to their benefit. Right now they are always one (or two or three hundred) steps behind it. Perhaps someday they will get it right. Until then, I will faithfully blog about their misadventures in the ever changing world of music.


(Post#2)

Perusing the interweb the other day, I found this lovely blog from which I will be pulling some information in the future. The name is Coolfer , and it's all about the business aspect of the music industry. The author flaunts himself as a seasoned professional:

Glenn Peoples has worked in the music industry for over eight years and founded Coolfer.com while working and living in New York City. He currently lives in Nashville and attends Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management.

Although Glen lives in Nashville, the blog touts itself as being "New York-based," perhaps to lend a sense of credibility. Nashville is a huge music metropolis as well, so maybe he just liked the sound of New York better. He started the blog in 2003, with the intention of exposing "the fledgling blogosphere to the insights of a person within the music industry." Well well well, Mr. Hoity Toity.

Glenn posts nearly every day (at least every weekday, and often more than one post per day). He’s quite dedicated to his blog, often writing lengthy and detailed posts on his topics. The posts tend to stick to the realm of business. Glen makes it clear to his readers that "Coolfer.com does not review albums or concerts." He only will mention an album if it is related to music business.

The technorati authority rank of Coolfer is not as high as some blogs (it sits at 288), but it is highly regarded by such industry types as senior editor at Rolling Stone magazine Nathan Bracket , and claims to be "a respected and widely read source of news and opinion."

Glenn’s business school background bleeds into his writing—he often blogs about the consequences that certain actions will have on whatever business it is he happens to be discussing. He is professional about it, however, admitting weak points in his arguments when they do appear, and keeping his observations concise and on topic.

Out of Glenn’s more recent posts, two stood out to me as being particularly interesting and relevant to my blog. The first was his EMI Recap: Hands' Letter To Investors, Rumors About Recorded Music, which chronicled the troubling debt of media giant EMI. The second was A Familiar Dilemma, in which he compared the plight of an author who was tricked into leaking his book over the internet to record companies who do not know how to deal with the file-sharing world on the internet. This comparison of art forms in trouble intrigued me because it created a means for closer assessment of just how much the record industry is struggling.

Both these posts were relevant to mine because they deal with problems in the music industry which the internet caused by changing the status quo. Future posts will delve more deeply into these issues, but for now I merely point out these posts for your own edification and interest.

Although I will be checking for new information on Coolfer, my blog will differ in that it will not be limited only to the business side of the industry. I will also discuss the technological components of the industry and the effects they have on it.

Having said that, music business is still part of my blog and I will definitely be writing about the troubles that record labels continue to immerse themselves in. God knows they will give me ample fodder for my posts.


(Post #3)

Who would have ever thought that sites entirely dedicated to music could be stuffy? Such is the case, however, in most of the blogs that are directly relatable to my topic: technology and the music industry. Many read like newspaper articles, informing the readers of new developments in the world of music, without infusing any soul into the words themselves. Listening Post is one blog that stands out from the inexpressive crowd. It benefits from having several contributors who add unique voices to the site.

Eliot van Buskirk is the editor of the site, and he focuses more on the news and technology posts on the blog. Van Buskirk knows the value of letting his news speak for itself. Take, for example, this post about Stonehenge. Any attempt at comedy would have paled in comparison to the videos themselves, so he very wisely chose to simply explain the videos and post them. Nobody outwits Christopher Guest.



(If you like Spinal Tap at all, you need to watch these videos. Mr. Guest has once again outdone himself. Here are the other four.)

Van Buskirk does manage to slip in subtle humor into most of his posts, however newsy they might be. His wit is dry and often of the ironic persuasion, as shown at the end of his post “Dead Men Do Sell Nikes:

No doubt this would have been a huge hit with Kurt Cobain, John Lennon, Jerry Garcia and Jim Morrison, who are, of course, all widely remembered for their love of synergistic marketing, product endorsements and co-branding opportunities.

(I bet they're all really laughing about this. Kurt is, anyway. He always loved messing with his fans.)

The rest of his post, however, reads like the straight newspaper article-style of writing so popular with other industry news bloggers. He sticks to the facts, supporting them with direct quotes and links to his sources. His posts are well-proofread, grammatically correct, and intelligent-sounding, while still easy to read (again going back to the newspaper feel).

Another favorite van Buskirk line of mine comes in the post “Fans Rip Metallica a New One.” He spends the entire blog quoting outraged fans who claim that Metallica has done “too little, too late” in making their new website, Mission: Metallica, a more direct-to-fan program. The quotes tend to run along the lines of "Lars is a douche bag" and "Metallica...I hope your music rots on store shelves." Van Buskirk follows all this up with a sarcastic, "People -- tell us how you really feel.”

Van Buskirk’s subtlety contrasts with the other bloggers on the site, such as Scott Thill, whose posts are more artist-centered, giving him much more room for development of a personality and voice in his writing. He is bolder with his posts, suggesting in one that his readers attend an exhibit “naked, in the spirit of ‘Gobbledigook.’” If van Buskirk is the news reporter of Listening Post, then Thill is the odd one with the weekly column.

I loved perusing the posts on Listening Post and they will inspire anyone interested in music in general and the industry in particular. The writers know a lot about the business and they choose a wide variety of editorial treats to appeal to every palate.