Beat-To-Bit

The air began to smell medications...

This is the feeling I get when reading reports about copyright and "legal" music battlefield.

Over the past twenty years far more than one industry gave up its soul under the onslaught of technological innovation.

The most intelligent and successful ones recovered and made the most of this tranformation.

Others died simply, quietly and without fanfare. They will be soon forgotten;some will keep good memories of them, though.

But the most disgusting are those who die, screaming like pigs being slaughtered, and, in their fever attacks, smash the bedside table with the medications that could have probably been a cure to their disease, had they paid their attention to them.

But glass bottles are smashed, and the room is filled with the smell of medications.

And the patient’s behaviour suggests that the scene is laid in a psychiatric hospital. His actions are illogical, absurd and damn clumsy. On the one hand, you want to come closer and help the patient somehow at least with an encouraging word. But on the other hand, you feel some kind of disgust and fear. His abnormal behaviour completely discourages you from involvement in his fate. There is nothing for it but to watch the ugly spectacle, but I simply prefer to simply leave the room. One would rather recall the patient’s better days, which he had plenty, without a doubt...

I have long asked myself "When has the music industry lost all its charm and appeal that it had in the old days?" In the old days, when every record company had its own face and a vivid identity, expressed not only in the design of vinyl record labels, but in everything it did.

What has happened to the music industry on the road from the "Beat" era to the "Bit" era?

There are many articles written on the topic. Most of them are absurd, referring to concepts like "business model", "market share" and other abstractions.

They remind me of a placebo – a dummy pill that was placed on patient’s table. The patient looks at the pill and tells himself that everything will be fine, everything goes as expected, everything will come back to normal...

I would like to talk about abstractions of another level, the ones not directly related to the business itself, but are directly related to its death – Charisma, Illusions and Energy...

Charisma

What is the main difference between record companies of the golden era, "Beat" era, namely the seventies of the last century, and their today’s successors of the "Bit" era?

Indeed, there are many differences, but one catches the eye.

In those days, little record companies were led by great people. Personalities!

Today, huge record companies are headed by little people from the category of "no-body, and no-name".

The majority of them has no relationship to the music whatsoever. They are either accountants or lawyers.

Sometimes at heart, which is particularly awful.

That is, in classic’s words – "office plankton". (for more about the origin of "office plankton" term - read here http://www.transparent.com/russian/phraseology-in-the-news-Колено-the-knee/ or here http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/t-shirts/office-plankton/ )

Even if it is a very well paid and glossy plankton, it is still plankton, and it would be a mistake to think that the quality of music only depends on the musicians themselves.

People like Richard Brenson (Virgin), Stig Anderson (Polar Music), Berry Gordy (Motown) and Daniel Miller (Mute) were carrying a huge charisma just by themselves. And yet it is not clear who had more of it – record companies’ artists or record companies’ leaders. Brenson’s charisma certainly did outweigh the one of all his musicians, and it still hovers over his 200 companies, no matter what they were doing.

Only an idiot would confuse Motown’s vinyl with Virgin’s vinyl. They were carriers of a specific culture. They had both style and drive.

Their product outlived both the record companies themselves and the artists they were recording. Today, thirty to forty years later, their product is still being sold, changing hands several times and, the most important, with price going up.

Sold for real money, despite the fact that the music from these records is available on millions of websites. Despite its free availability, people spend 30 dollars for the same thing on vinyl.

This is not because vinyl records sound in some special way.

The reason is charisma, which is present not only in people, but in inanimate objects too, despite what organized religion would make you think.

But this holds under one condition: only if the inanimate objects were created by people who had that charisma. Only if the creator put his soul into the product.

Charisma creates added value. And in our times, where everything is becoming free, it creates simply value. Not added value, but simply value, which is amazing just by itself.

Charisma is the key to success of computers with the “bitten” apple logo.

Charisma is what sells Beatles vinyl records, this time with the "incised" apple. These two companies – musical Apple and computer Apple – are the most remarkable examples of charisma. No one needs to be persuaded to buy their product. People fight for it, despite millions of seemingly free alternatives.

I would like to know this: when has all of this become mass production of piles of faceless plastic, that you need to persuade someone to buy?

This moment is actually known. It is the moment when absolutely all bright and interesting music labels have been bought out by transnational companies, beginning full depersonalization of music.

A mere acquisition of one company by another has little meaning. It was very rare when it has brought tangible benefits to justify the acquisition cost. Especially when a huge accounting firm acquires a little creative and effective team in the hope to buy its creativity and charisma. However, the only thing they can achieve by this is killing all of the creativity and bringing their former charisma to zero, sinking it in the muddy puddle under the name of "corporate culture".

But one way or another, acquisition cost needs to be recouped. And at the same time they get a new format in the form of questionable-sounding but low-cost and convenient compact discs.

Vinyl records, being also a result of pressing plastics, strictly speaking, still had great individuality despite it. Let’s start with the fact that the same record, released on different labels in different countries, sounded absolutely differently, and had a bunch of other fine details. But greed and desire to re-sell the recording material bought from genuine record labels in a new form has led to mountains of inanimate plastic. This put a first nail in the coffin of the music industry.

Despite the euphoria about huge initial sales of CDs, it may only be compared with an injection of a last dose of a strong narcotic. You will feel very good, but not for long.

In the meantime, charisma of artists was suffering equally dramatic changes. The era of musicians whose life could fill a book was replaced by the era of musicians about whom one could only write an article.

And then, one could only write a paid advertorial, because there was really nothing to write about the artist. And only journalists’ and PR managers’ creative thinking could help to get the public to know the artist, whose disc they had to sell.

We all know how it ended. Music press came to naught almost everywhere in the world because of absolute lack of basis for its activity. Cheap scandals and attempts to "make up" a bright personality do not work for the new generation, who feels it’s all fake. While Amy Winehouse scandals look comical, in the case of some B. Spears they are just abject.

Charisma is named charisma because it attracts people. This attraction works for the benefit of the charismatic personality and those found close to it. Even when things are universally free, charisma will generate money for its holder, one way or another.

There is only one issue with charisma. It cannot be created artificially. It either exists or does not. And those who preach pop psychology, those who claim they will teach you to be charismatic through various NLP methods, they can all go to hell. As everyone knows, the only benefit of an NLP training is NLP instructor's salary.

One last difference of the old music industry from the new one, which is unrelated to charisma but deserves to be mentioned, is functionality.

What were the historical functions of recording companies?

There are five basic functions.

- Find an artist

- Record the artist

- Promote the artist

- Distribute recordings

- Deceive the artist

Until a certain time, all these tasks were performed pretty well, especially the last point, where highest levels of technology have been achieved.

But with the advent of the net, and it is even indecent to say, the label has left only one task it can perform better than the artist, and it is the last one. Artists, though, can also deceive themselves well, especially in their expectations.

Otherwise, artists find themselves, record at their own expense (thanks to technologies, who made the process cheap, and recording quality does not matter, as it was found out). Distribution is now a wonder, and promotion somehow can happen with the help of that same network in all its manifestations.

At some point the situation seemed idyllic.

Full freedom of expression (usefulness of which is to be discussed separately), no filters in the form of record companies’ A&R-managers (these are strange people who believe their musical taste to be close to the one of the masses), immediate distribution of music worldwide. This is just some kind of fairy tale that is coming to us now!

All is well in this new picture, except for one annoying detail.

People don’t buy this music.

And they don't buy it in any form. Neither on CD, nor as music files. Neither expensive nor cheap. Neither from the record label, nor from the artist.

- No, thanks. I don’t need it.

- But why?

But please, do not give me iTunes Music store and Radiohead success examples as proof that it is still possible to sell music and you just need to find a business model.

First, I am sick of these two examples, because only a very lazy publication did not write a story or two about Radiohead.

Second, iTines is not profitable to Apple at all, as reported many times by the company. In fact, this service barely breaks even, but brings a great benefit to the company indirectly, namely through the sale of iPod players. Apple iTunes track sales figures sound very nice in Steve Jobs’ presentations, but they are simply a drop in the ocean when compared with numbers of free music downloads from the Internet. And this is the most successful online music store in the world.

Third, if someone has taken seriously the Radiohead experiment to let the audience choose their own price for downloadable tracks from Radiohead's new album, I would like to have that childish and naive view of the world. I think it would make my life simpler.

In reality, Radiohead’s tactic is still brilliant, but in a totally different way. By leaking their well-done foul story to the net, the group simply owned (in both senses of the word) the world's media, with an advertising campaign of unprecedented size and the same unprecedented arrogance. It is not surprising that, after a while, both Radiohead and its record label got their return, with excellent sales of real CDs and vinyl records, accompanied by great accessories.

The only lesson I take from the Radiohead experience is that when music is really good and the artists are bright individuals, their product will be sold for real money anyway.

As the former president of Russia said:

“Missile defence, no missile defence… Our new missiles don’t care.”

Same for good music. Piracy or no piracy, it does not really matter. Especially if you put aside your idiotic illusions…

Illusions

First and most bizarre illusion is that a publication of each new album should lead to a materialization of at least a huge mansion on a private island.

Even Beatles thought at the scale of "one song - one swimming pool" (and then it was a joke). But they may think that way. Their music brings real happiness to millions of people for more than forty years and millions of copies are being sold even today.

During these forty years, no artist could get even close to their level of genius.

But then, who said that a singer whose album can be listened to only once and on fast-forward deserves the same income? Who cares that a million dollar budget has been invested in “this” and it must be recouped?

Who even came with an idea that a music band or composer should necessarily have excess income?

World history does not confirm this state of affairs. If you exclude these twenty to thirty years of record industry boom (which is a drop in the ocean), the rest of the time creative people had incomes that are just sufficient enough to do the things that they love to do, and not to worry about money too much. Anyway, no need to be distracted from creative activity and no need to be forced to earn money in some other way.

Nobody ever promised a private island for this sort of activity.

Let's have a sober look at things.

It was only a moment, a moment between the past and the future. It was called the music industry. It was very brief. It was at the crossroads between the time when there was no physical media, and the time when there is no more physical media. And what is horrible in that?

We still have a lot of relics from that moment. Maybe that's enough for everyone?

I liked the most a phrase by one of my friends, a sound engineer. One of his job duties is to listen to a lot of new artists for one reason or another.

I do not listen to music for free - he said.

Copyright defenders and all other lawyers, there is no need to start cheering. He didn't mean that he does not listen to free music. He meant that he willfully refuses to listen to modern music, unless he is getting paid for it.

That is the approach worthy of respect and understanding. After all, if you bought a rotten fish, you consider it to be a damage to your health. So why not worry about your mental health as well, or at least your spoiled mood?

And the problem is created by these same advantages I mentioned earlier as a potential fairy tale for the music business.

Those technologies, which were designed to provide previously unprecedented creative freedom, the absence of barriers, free flow, – they worked in the exactly opposite direction.

The illusion of freedom of expression

That sounds tempting, if you put aside a fact that is proven - 99% of people cannot create anything of value in principle.

The best way to prove it is the Internet itself, namely its Web 2.0 reincarnation.

People, who created quality content in the past, continue to create it. Everything else is filled with junk.

Have you ever noticed that really serious people never blog (unless it is their profession)? Chatting is not their specialty, and they have little interest in others’ opinions. Their job is to create something...

Good or bad, but other people's purpose is to consume, not create, and this has always been so.

Today, every other person expresses herself, and it is not a problem in itself. It is even beneficial, if no one sees it.

The problem is that all this is done not for oneself and one's friends, but thrown at the market as a real music product.

Now, try to find something you can like on this market inside a pile of music junk. At the minimum, you must be a really determined music lover in order to spend all your time on filtering.

I have a question for the music industry.

Do you seriously think that I must pay the same same 18 dollars for all this noise and for the Dark Side Of The Moon on a nearby shelf?

Or are you just kidding?

What have we got in the end?