Streaming - A New Genre of Music?

Streaming - a new genre of music?

With the introduction of Napster in the late 1990s, early 2000s, the music industry underwent a downward spiral of huge profit loss and unforeseen levels of piracy.  Almost all areas of traditional revenue streams for record companies were becoming useless and dried up. Following Napster, websites such as Bearshare and Limewire etc , along with downloading software such as bit torrent, followed the Napster tradition and offered similar services which undermined the record companies and artists. Record companies did their best to stop these sites whilst at the same time reluctantly getting pro active with technological advances to the consumption of music. Cory Doctorow touches on some of these facts and the problems encountered with trying to police copyright online at his talk on the coming war on general computation, such as the introduciton of the 1996 WIPO Copyright treaty passed by the World Intellectual Property Organization, which was designed to save the proposed information economy. These laws were cleary unsuccesful, and still today record companies and other companies too contiue to fight for copyright, with attempts such as SOPA  (Stop Online Piracy Act).

In the 2000s companies such as Apple offered somewhat viable online shopping solutions for these dinosaur record companies. This helped the labels to enter into the modern age of technology whilst enjoying some healthy earnings at the same time. Still however, the levels of illegal downloading and piracy were still ever present. The fall of the Major labels from six to just three - Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and Warner, portrays the seriousness of these problems. Only harsh record deals, such as the infamous 360 deal (read about it here http://www.lommen.com/pdf/Bob-Donnelly-360-Article.aspx) and innovations in technology seemed to be the ways in which these companies and artists could retain their earnings.

Interestinlgy though, today, or more so the future, downloading, whether it be illegal or legal, is not as important as it used to be. As technology continues to advance, many futurists, such as Gerd Leonhard, suggest that streaming services are the way of the future for the music industry, a point of view which I agree with. Ownership is not as important as it once was with certain types of entertainment. Im going to focus on Spotify as an example of a streaming site as it was only introduced in my home country, Ireland, late last year.

 What does this have to do with culture and convergence though? As Henry Jenkins notes "Convergence does not occure through media appliances, however sophisticated they may become. Convergence occurs within the brains of individual consumers and through their social interactions with others."

 The way in which people consume music today is much different than what it was 10 – 20 years ago. This is not an unknown fact. With the recent turmoil over at HMV, closures of numerous Tower records along with so many beloved independent record stores closing their shutters, the traditional ways of consumption are clearly out the door as a mass market.  CD sales have plumeted and physical ownership of music is now regarded as merchandise as opposed to the only way one could listen music. The idea of a cloud network where people share information is becoming more and more apparent in todays society. I would argue however that this is not as bad as a lot of opponents of digital music make it out to be. For the first time in history, music enthusiasts, consumers and ultimately the whole  general public now have the option to essentially (with some exceptions of course) listen to any song in the world from any time period with less than a few clicks for free. What this means to future musical content is truely exciting.

Historically for example alot of new genres had came about through social interactions between different cultures and mash ups of older genres. One could look at the post punk movement in Britain in the 1970s as a cross over between genres. With its roots resting in New York, the reggae scene in London seen a huge influx of punks to their clubs, in return influencing the current music.

Some examples of these mash up of genres include...

The Clash - Bankrobber (1980)   
                            

The Slits - Typical Girls (1979)

Today, one can look at the latest music available, outside of the mainstream mindframe, and start to see new mash up of genres being cultivated underground. For example, DJS such as Blawan, Container, Frak and Cuticle, have helped to bridge gaps between techno and experimental noise music - a genre now coined Technoise.

Heres an example of this kind of mash up genre

Blawan - Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage (2012)

I am not one of these DJs so I can not say that their influence resided in the fact that everything is available online. The point I am trying to make is that for those who are hungry to be innovative and creative with music they now have the option to grab influence from so much regions and cultures without having top leave their bedroom. The idea of record digging, where one spends along time in record stores digging through records to find an unkown or rare gem has entered a new phase. Spotify offers a lot of clever apps built into its system. One example being the Blue Note Records App, an app built around the legendary jazz record label, shows the ease of listening to high regarded music from the past.

This new phase is another way in which I view Spotify as another important instrument in convergence culture. The cost of pressing a vinyl, back in the day, and still today was quite expensive. Studio time to record was steep and even still it was labels that ran the game in terms of air play and finical backing. Today however one can record an album for next to nothing. Thom Yorke for example recorded most of his solo album - The Eraser, on a laptop. The album debuted at #3 on the UK Album charts and at #2 on the Billboard 200  in the United States, selling over 90,000 copies in its first week.

Thom Yorke - The Eraser (2006)

This ease of access to recording is nicely complemented by the ease of access to get your music on Spotify. By simply going through internet distrubutors such as CD Baby or Tunecore, musicians can easliy have their music documented forever, for extremly low costs. This relates to the article by Jay Rosen - The People Formerly Known as The Audience. "You don’t own the press, which is now divided into pro and amateur zones. You don’t control production on the new platform, which isn’t one-way. There’s a new balance of power between you and us."

Spotify presents opportunities for acts to be heard swiftly coupled with biographies and related artists. So the platform for new artists to distribute their work is huge and the plausibilty of music going viral is quite high. Take for example Jai Paul. This artist released one track online - Jasmine (demo) and very quickly went viral and he was picked up by the prestigous XL Records.

Jai Paul - Jasmine (demo) -  2012

By looking at the article "If it doesnt spread its dead", one can draw similarities to the viral spread of music today on spotify. Through cleverly integrating Spotify into social media sites such as Facebook, friends can see what other friends are listening to, further increasing the sharing aspect of the programme. Music now has the option to circulate without much barriers. Even musical fads such as Solja Boy or Gangnam Style can be viewed all over the world.

Spotify, along with Youtube, Soundcloud and numerous other applications and websites, are still in their very early days. In terms of musical genres crossing over I would argue that it will happen subtly. Possibly more african rhythms in Electronic House music, or more electronic influence on punk music. Who knows? One thing can be said though, that the people who are enthusiastic about creating something new and innovative have a huge resource at their disposal to gain influence.

Alan Duggan