In the current issue of Atlantic magazine, editor Megan McArdle has a piece entitled “The Freeloaders,” which argues that our shifting attitudes about intellectual property will fundamentally — and negatively — alter entertainment forever.
“The Freeloaders” cites everything from the sales of Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want album In Rainbows to Pew statistics about how teenagers regard file-sharing to argue that artists may soon be dissuaded from pursuing art as a full-time career. “What happens to the supply of willing musicians when the prize is an endless slog through medium-sized concerts at $25 a head?” McArdle asks. It’s a poignant question. And a former magazine editor named Marc Weidenbaum felt it deserved an equally poignant musical response.
After the jump, learn more about the project and download the free album that resulted.
As “The Freeloaders” continues, McArdle follows her question’s thread further, imagining a future in which “the popular arts may come to look more like the rest of the Internet, many labors of love produced quickly and cheaply in spare moments.”
But Weidenbaum, a former editor-in-chief of Tower Records’ in-store magazine, Pulse!, and the founder of Disquiet, a zine about ambient electronic music, disagreed vehemently with McArdle’s conflation of album sales and creativity. To Weidenbaum, McArdle’s attitude is “one that sees music as widgets and people as wallets, and fails to appreciate that people’s involvement in, participation in, music is much more complicated and nuanced.” It fails, in other words, to take into account the exploding possibilities for collaboration, creation, and – yes – popular entertainment that recent shifts in technology and attitude have created.
Weidenbaum responded to McArdle’s piece (twice, actually) in written form, but felt that more could be made of the issue, so he reached out to several musicians, asking for a musical response to the piece itself and also to its accompanying illustration (seen below).
The results, which range from blocky chiptunes and mysteriously cracked, granulated tones to halting, then flowing piano compositions, have been compiled on Despite the Downturn: An Answer Album, which you can download here.
While not exactly the kind of album that will rocket up the iTunes Music Store charts (mostly because it’s free), Despite the Downturn is, like the illustration it’s inspired by, a fascinating auditory Rorschach blot, an alluringly open-ended set of meditations on where music is right now, and what some of its creators think about it.
Despite the Downturn‘s composers used a fascinating range of materials to create their pieces: public domain recordings of Beethoven’s “Adieu au piano,” field recordings of children playing outside in the summer, sampled bits of NES games, Risset tones, and more. They were scrambled, reconfigured, and manipulated in ways most people have never heard before. Depending on one’s mood, they can sound either stranded or intrepid, defiant or lonely, incomprehensible or exciting.
They are also pieces of music that would have been impossible to produce just a few years ago. They may be part of McArdle’s vision, labors of love produced in spare moments. But they also embody the new creative possibilities that enable musical dialog as well as collaboration, and Weidenbaum relishes the opportunity to spur those conversations forward. “I really admire people like Hal Willner and Rick Rubin,” he says, “whose production work is more a matter of setting up situations than it is of writing charts or laying down beats.”
“The decline of the record industry has made a lot of people who aren’t musicians think about the livelihoods of musicians,” Weidenbaum continues. “I think musicians are, generally speaking, all too familiar with the fragile relationship between producing art and eating a full meal, and have been for a long time, long before the arrival of MP3 players and Rapidshare.”
As such, the conversations taking place on Despite the Downturn‘s compositions are more searching than despairing. Even a track called “Adieu for Industry,” by Canadian sound artist Sighup, with its muted, prickling shuffles and chilly, digitized chords, has warmth on its horizons; the never-ending melody of the album’s closer, Jettatura’s “Is It Theft?”, as it skirts an abyss and floats in mid-air, is meant to question “the uneasy alliance between creativity intimacy and technological advance.”
“The Freeloaders” failed to point out a growing number of positive indicators for the music industry. Digital revenues, for example, continue to rise, and royalty payments from performers rights organizations like ASCAP and SoundExchange are growing quickly.
But things like Despite the Downturn might be most exciting of all. It represents a new and exciting way for music, and its creators, to engage with one another about their art. And as McArdle herself should know, as long as art continues to communicate and question what’s going on in the world, people will always want to invest in it.
Comments (16)
There will always be music… As humans i believe its in our bones. The whole world’s economy is rapidly changing. Evolve or shut up!
McArdle is a hardcore libertarian. She views everything in terms of the market. If there isn’t a market for something, she believes it won’t happen. The idea of people doing things because they have a passionate desire to do them, regardless of the compensation, is probably incomprehensible to her.
Music isnt the only thing, Journalism, cinemna, etc. We are turning into an information economy, There will need to be steps taken if anyone wants an income in the future based on creative or information exchange, not just musicians.
[...] at flavorwire.com, Max Willens wrote a well-crafted overview of the project. His story carries the splendid title [...]
Maybe “the prize” of being a musician shouldn’t be millions of dollars, but a reasonable amount for a comfortable life (like any middle-class American can achieve in other fields).
Starting a band is like starting a business: you have to market yourself and be entrepreneurial. It’s difficult for anyone to be successful in their first few years, and most people don’t expect to be millionaires.
This is hog wash. For starters, maybe ‘artists’ should realize that even great music does not deserve a pay of millions. When we start having “working class” musicians, we might actually see some artistry again instead of the studio produced teenage tramps and cock strong boys prancing around on stage who don’t even write their own stuff. Even if entertainment goes away as a medium for making a living, more music will be produced by individuals and uploaded to media sites (youtube, file sharing sites, etc). A true artist cannot help but make art. The pay is not the purpose or the end. I say all hail the death of big media! Art is liberated! (Just to be clear, I say this as a musician myself.)
I have to append something to my comment. John Lennon once said, in the 1970s, that he was displeased with the state of modern music. He said that modern music was a vanity. That is, people listen to certain musics to be seen listening to them. It was like clothing, something for the ego and devoid of artistic merit. You take the massive funds from the equation and you’ll only be left with those who really want to play. Good riddance music industry, don’t ever come back!
Goddammit, how am I ever going to get that plane like LedZep?!!
Wait, art might not be all about the money?
yep, its over
“ASCAP is growing quickly…” ASCAP is legalized mafia. It’s growing because artists have to tour because people don’t pay for recorded music but they’ll pay for live music. ASCAP strangles small businesses legally and then gives the bulk of the payload to the already wealthiest artists. The smaller artists never see a dime and the small businesses never have any recourse. I have never met anyone who has a favorable opinion of ASCAP – they are worse than the IRS which at least can show paved roads & public schools for our dollar.
[...] part one and part two. – There’s also a cool writeup of the compilation at Flavorwire here:What “The Death of the Music Industry” Really Sounds Like. – In case you missed earlier opportunities to download this cool compilation of new experimental [...]
[...] the previous post noting coverage of the project from flavorwire.com and weallmakemusic.com: [...]
There is one problem with some of what many have said here. Sure one might be able to get a gig at your local club. Although that is about as far as it is going to go without outside support. If you are a weekend warrior and performing on the side is all well and good. Although for those you actively want to pursue music as a career are going to have fewer and fewer choices down the road. What people fail to consider here is how are those artists going to be able to afford the cost of travel without financial backing? How are they going to promote themselves unless the fans are actively involved? Outside ones local bar, pub or club where will they perform? No major concert hall or stadium will have them unless they fork up some serious cash or have some connections of some sort. These are all major obstacles which will be a fallout out of all of this. Sure I might see this great band on YouTube, Myspace, Twitter or whatever but who is going to foot the bill? I doubt fans will be willing to pick up the tab? An average musician these days makes less then someone working at McDonald’s.
As much as I hate to say we need the record industry, we kinda do. There are certain aspects that I won’t miss that is for sure but without the promotion and money where is all that going to come from? In the future I just don’t see music as being a realistic career option as no one is going to be able to make a living at it. Making middle class wages is somewhat laughable as you aren’t figuring in the cost of travel and equipment and all that goes along with being a traveling band. I should know as I have done that and damn near starved to death. Without some sort of financial backing most bands wound never be able to do this. National tours would be out of the question. In retrospect most companies as least most I have ever worked for pay my travel expenses. If I had to pay for that myself I would go broke. Not to mention that if I can’t perform live in front of a live audience then what is the point. Music was meant to be performed in front of people and not your damn computer screen. That to me would be a fate worse then death. As a musician I am not sure how all this is going to help or hurt me in the end. Music as some have said very well may just become a hobby and fade into obscurity. If that truly is it’s fate then we have all lost a bit of ourselves in the process.
This is the short sighted reasoning that is common in people who grew up before the file sharing era. The music industry changed, yes. Touring brings the money now, albums are mere ads for live events. That actually makes it easier to become an touring artist, not harder. You don’t need to get a recording contract, you don’t need a manager or an agent, you don’t need a bunch of suits on your side. There is zero cost to putting your song on the internet. If people like it, tours can be created easily because there is evidence that people like the music. The record companies aren’t part of that equation, but that won’t stop people from making music or wanting to be rock stars. It just changes the landscape.
I am a musician who is earning a living through performing and recording. I probably won’t ever be a millionaire. I never wanted to be one. I want to earn a comfortable living, and I’m doing just that. I have no industry rep telling me what to do. I don’t want someone who doesn’t care for me or my band, what we do, or how we do it. We sat down, as a band, and came up with a clear, comprehensive, business plan and budget, and stuck to it.
The landscape for musicians is definitely changing, but I welcome the change. Control is returning back to the artist, as it always should have been. The music industry, for the most part, refuses to change and evolve to meet the market. Massive corporate entities are no longer needed to reach your market. A clear plan of attack, and a little legwork pays off in dividends. I will NOT miss the industry when it dies. In fact, I hope it happens faster.
As for Meagan McArdle, she’s just another confused college graduate who has no idea what true libertarianism is. Like most people who claim they’re libertarians, she is a “Capital L” Libertarian, which is basically an authoritarian supply-side conservative that read a few chapters of “Atlas Shrugged,” and owns a bong.
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