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Originally Posted by Genteel Death
Some good points straight from the horse's mouth. Personally, I share streaming music, especially on FB or on here, with the intent of getting people into it and hoping they'll take an interest more intense than clicking on links because of a concealed, imaginary duty of doing good service to ''good'' music, to the ''right'' music,.Definitely not, like some champions of this forum often gave me the impression of, for bragging about an admirable mp3 collection that will eventually cause you a headache because you'll never have the time to listen to attentively before you start an engaging discussion about music in general. Plus, I have a strong visual sense of anything I hold in my hands, so even though I feel often ambiguous about the whole downloading thing, I know I prefer to hold in my hand something that looks like it's been made by someone and admire its artistry. I still don't have a problem downloading or listening to music that's on the internet. Why should I? I know I hate almost all of you and I don't care if you live or die. Anywayz, what do you have to say about this (see thread title)?
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I realise that you're not necessarily talking economically, but I think this isn't primarily about format. Some of you like tapes (which I abandoned as a format ages ago and haven't missed). Some of you like digital formats, some LPs, some CDs. Most have a mixture of all of them.
I tend not to like having music on my computer because my primary relationship with music was that it was a physical thing. Lee is the same, apparently. A lot of people on this forum are. Whether one is better than the other is kind of moot to me - call it a primary psychological bond, if you will. The fact I tend not to feel anything on my hard-drive is 'real' is less to do with the facts of the matter and more to do with how my emotional relationship with music was formed.
But the economic thing is a biggie. I do think that it's had a negative effect on the ability of bands/ musicians to be musicians. There are fundamentally two reasons why your favourite band aren't visiting your town/ city: they're broke, or your scene's shit - both are from the same cause, IMO. I don't mean your scene's lacking in hype bands - I mean people don't go out to watch bands. Where I'm living now has
just enough people watching gigs to make it run at a moderate loss. It's run on goodwill, but at least people turn out for the gigs. Where I was previously had some good bands who would routinely play to no-one; a large-ish out-of-town band comes around and suddenly people can be bothered to leave the house.
[Edit: please note that the reason ATP are throwing money at bands to reform is because it's much more of a money-spinner than supporting bands through years of not-selling-that-well, and they're the biggest shakers in 'alternative' music]
I think it's difficult to impute a direct causality between 'change in relationship to music' and 'bands are broke as fuck therefore no-one can tour' - there are, obviously, many other factors at play. But fundamentally I see the over-consumption of free music as essentially devaluing music itself. We don't need big studios and massive vans; but unless I'm headlining a 100+ venue (unlikely at present), I can't afford to play in the next nearest city, and it's unlikely I'd get paid for supports. With a full-time job I can make the loss 'because I care about the music, man' but ultimately musicians aren't getting paid and the music scene is struggling as a result.
This is kind of a trickle-down thing - don't worry about downloading BEP's album, they make their money back on product placements in videos and other indirect revenue streams. But the idea we've inherited from the 80s - perhaps emblematised by Fugazi or whoever - of 'indie or die' simply can't happen any more, and most decent/ creative/ experimental/ blah musicians will not come to your town until they're retired or win the lottery.