The Rebirth of an Industry: Music in the New Millennium

Some call it the most important technological revolution to occur in decades. It is fundamentally changing American culture – from the way Americans read the news to the way they listen to music. They are calling it Web 2.0, a word associated with phrases such as “blogging,” “user-generated content,” and the “democratization of the media.” And this so-called revolution is having a profound effect on a multi-billion dollar music industry that has enjoyed continuous success throughout most of the 20th century, that is, until a college freshman by the name of Shawn Fanning decided to make a pesky file-sharing program called Napster in 1999. The rest is history. This digital revolution (another one of those phrases) is also taking place just as one of the world’s youngest musical genes, hip-hop, is picking up momentum and coming into its own rite around the globe. It’s a brave new world out there. The music industry is fiercely trying to figure out how to maintain profits in light of the mass exodus from the record store to the digital store – amid an ocean of digital pirates who steal and swap songs in the Internet’s underbelly. And as music becomes easier to share, through Internet mediums like online radio, YouTube, and podcasting, artists are sprouting up all over the world –such as overnight success and underground hip-hop producer DJ Danger Mouse – all becoming new-media Horatio Algers. Bands are figuring out new ways of marketing themselves, like rock outfit OK Go’s self-produced YouTube music videos, by avoiding the muscular (and expensive) marketing power of the major record labels. The next big thing for music isn’t white rappers or multi-million dollar pop-princess machines. No. The next big thing is the way Americans – and the rest of humanity – will produce, obtain and listen to music for years to come, all of which will fundamentally change the type of music everybody listens to.

A lot has happened since that 19-year-old college student who created Napster changed the way people think about obtaining music. Seven years ago, music scholar Steve Jones wrote “Music and the Internet,” which prodded the ever-growing world of digital consumption – specifically among music consumers. In hindsight, he was essentially right: “…consumption of music via digital computer networks is of greatest concern to the music industry…purchasing and listen practices are being reshaped by new technologies,” (Jones 218). He writes that Internet commerce (like today’s most popular music downloading medium, Apple’s iTunes) will greatly affect the traditional relationship between artists, record labels and record stores, such as the now-defunct Tower Records. Fast-forward to 2007, the music industry is in a tailspin, frantically trying to find to new ways of reaching consumers. Jeff Leeds of The New York Times reported on March 26 that record companies are beginning to shy away from releasing full-length albums, and instead, contracting artists to produce just two or three songs. Why? Blame iTunes. “Last year, digital singles outsold plastic CD’s for the first time. So far this year, sales of digital songs have risen 54 percent…buyers of digital music are purchasing singles over albums by a margin of 19 to 1,” (Leeds C1). Consumers are creating their own playlists online now, cherry picking what they like and discarding the rest. ITunes, for example, sells single songs for $.99 and most albums for $9.99. So instead of buying albums, usually costing about $15 at record store, consumers are going online to find better deals (Leeds C1). The move to the digital realm has severely damaged musical institutions that once seemed indestructible. Tower Records for example, which went bankrupt last fall and will close its 89 stores by the end of this year, once stood as a symbol of the traditional music industry’s might (Tommasini E1). But now, Vallejo Times-Herald columnist Dan Judge quotes Tower Records founder Russ Solomon’s seemingly last words for his doomed store: “The fat lady has sung. She was off key,” (2006).

While the mainstream music industry is in disarray, the Web is home to some of music’s most exciting new acts. In 2004, Brian Burton, an aspiring DJ who mixed songs in his London apartment, produced “The Grey Album” – and shortly thereafter became the poster boy for underground hip-hop overnight after his album leaked to the Internet. His album electronically combined Jay-Z’s raps from “The Black Album” and The Beatles instrumentals from “The White Album,” making one of the cleverest hybrid albums in recent memory. The only problem was Burton, better known by his pseudonym DJ Danger Mouse, didn’t seek permission from the artists he borrowed from, earning him a cease and desist letter from Beatles representative EMI Records because of the album’s obvious copyright infringements. “But the noteworthy part wasn’t EMI’s move against Burton,” writes Leslie Walker for the Washington Post. “It was how quickly the Web rallied to his defense. More than 100 Web sites offered ‘The Grey Album’ for unauthorized, free downloading as part of an ad-hoc ‘Grey Tuesday’ protest…” (Walker E1). Burton’s album succeeded without traditional marketing – radio appearances, a major record label, or performances – because of the burgeoning number of bloggers who protested “The Grey Album’s” attempted censorship by EMI, writes New York Times reporter Rob Walker in 2004. “ ‘The Grey Album’ is something new: unauthorized and almost instantly available on a large scare – call it mass underground,” (Walker 32). Since then, Burton has been recruited by some of music’s biggest names, and was nominated for five Grammies, including one in 2005 for his production work on the Gorillaz’ “Demon Days,” and four for his work on Gnarls Barkley’s 2006 hit, “St. Elsewhere.” Rags to riches, indeed.

Like Burton’s “Grey Album,” other musicians are flocking to the Internet as a means to market themselves on the cheap. Take indie rock outfit OK Go, for example. The quartet made two homemade music videos for their songs “A Million Ways” and “Here It Goes Again” from their 2005 effort “Oh No.” For the “Here It Goes Again” video, the band scampers about eight treadmills in a choreographed dance that is shot with a consumer-grade video camera. Since it was posted on YouTube last summer, it has garnered more than 13 million views. Even the savviest of record labels couldn’t buy that type of exposure. “Here It Goes Again” climbed the charts, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard charts in early 2007. The Internet has also been a medium for no-name bands to market themselves to larger labels in hopes of cutting a deal. That’s exactly what Las Vegas-based Panic! At the Disco did in late 2004 when they, “recorded two songs…on a laptop and sent them to Fall Out Boy singer (and Decaydance Records head) Pete Wentz via his blog. Wentz was blown away,” Christian Hoard reported for the Rolling Stone in 2005. Like Burton, who raised from obscurity to stardom nearly instantaneously, the high school seniors of Panic! joined pop-punk powerhouse Fall Out Boy on their Nintendo Fusion Tour the next year.

Even hip-hop, one of America’s newest and most original genres of music, is gaining momentum as world begins to connect via the Internet. In his article “Hip-Hop Planet,” James McBride, writing for the April 2007 issue of National Geographic, observes, “Not since the advent of swing jazz in the 1930s has an American music exploded across the world with such overwhelming force…In Brazil rap rivals samba in popularity…In France it has been blamed, unfairly, for the worst civil unrest that country has seen in decades,” (2007). Hip-hop, arguably today’s youth medium for social outrage and rebellion just as rock music was 40 years ago, has become an outlet of expression for many of the world’s youth, McBride writes. And whether these artists live in rural Ohio or in the slums of an African village in Senegal, youth around the world, saturated by American pop-culture, have adopted hip-hop. And in the spirit of Web 2.0’s democratization of culture, hip-hop is relatively easy to produce – even for the world’s poorest inhabitants – as opposed to a five-piece rock band in a suburban garage. McBride travels to Africa to find the roots of hip-hop, and finds that Senegalese young men have adopted hip-hop as a way to express themselves in spite of their low standard of living. “They write about the humiliation of poverty, watching their town sprout up around them with rich Dakarians and richer French…they write about the relatives who leave in the morning and never return, surrendered to the sea, sharks, and God,” (McBride 2007). Just as hip-hop started in the Bronx 30 years ago as a way for black youth to profess their pain, hip-hop has gone global, allowing the disenfranchised youth of the world to express theirs. It will only be a matter of time until Americans are hearing it on YouTube.

Regardless of its successes, there are still critics of the new “democratized” media who fear that Web 2.0 will purge the elite culture – think Mozart – and replace it with armature culture – think your best friend posting a video on YouTube of himself trying his hand at “Stairway to Heaven.” Andrew Keen, writing for The Weekly Standard, is one of these critics. “The consequences of Web 2.0 are inherently dangerous for the vitality of culture and the arts…Instead of Mozart…all we get with the Web 2.0 revolution is more of ourselves,” (Keen 2006). Without an elite group of people controlling the media – music, movies and news – there will no longer be any standard and all things learned from centuries of humanity’s advancement could be lost at the hands of the uneducated masses, Keen fears. But Web 2.0 is a testament to today’s volatile, post-modern environment where art is subjective and entertainment dispensable. It’s also a result of globalization and better technology, which has made it exponentially easier to connect with people halfway around the world. Web 2.0 won’t destroy the arts, as Keen alarmingly suggests, nor will it dumb down the world. Instead, it represents a new way for people to share ideas – especially music – without a filter of corporate lawyers and the weary eyes of bottom-line-obsessed investors. This is why hip-hop has seeped into nearly every country around the world. This is why obscure bands can lure the eyes of millions. This is why record labels and media corporations are mutating, albeit reluctantly. Call it a “Digital Utopia” or a populist nightmare only Karl Marx could envision, as Keen dubs it. Regardless of his alarm, Web 2.0 is here to stay – and music will never be same.
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Works Cited

Hoard, Christian “Panic! At the Disco Dance: Pop-punk teens blast out of Vegas.”

Rolling Stone. 4 Nov 2005. 23 Mar 2007.

<http://www.rollingstone.com/news/artiststowatch/story/8758074/panic_at_the_disco_dance>.

James, McBride “Hip-Hop Planet.” National Geographic. Apr 2007. 24 Mar 2007.

<http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0704/feature4/>.

Jones, Steve "Music and the Internet." Popular Music 19.2 (2000): 217-229.

Judge, Dan “Tower Records: A Sad Farewell.” Vallejo Times-Herald. 17 Nov 2007. 23

Mar 2007. <http://www.timesheraldonline.com/danjudge/ci_4533217>.

Keen, Andrew "The second generation of the Internet has arrived. It's worse than you

think." Daily Standard 13 Feb 2006. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/714fjczq.asp

Leeds, Jeff "The Album, a Commodity in Disfavor." New York Times 26 Mar 2007: C1.

Tommasini, Anthony "Requiem for a Store's Dying Classical Department." New York

Times 25 Oct 2005: E1. http://www.nexis.com.

Walker, Leslie "Media Giants Need To Learn to Sing A New Tune." Washington Post 25

Mar 2004: E1. http://www.nexis.com.

Walker, Rob "The Grey Album." New York Times 21 Mar 2004: Sec. 6, pg. 32.

http://www.nexis.com.

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