Turn the Internet OFF and save the Music

Hmm. “Turn the Internet OFF and save the Music”, how very perverse posting that on a music industry blog…

Okay, why the bold statement and call to arms to save us mortals? What is the impending doom that this Tosca bloke has seen that we are all missing? Has he had treatment by chaps in white coats and spent a while in a rubber room?  Nope.

This is all a bit nutty but stay with me on this. The internet has promised so much.   We now are a Global community, better able to understand other cultures, differing points of view, share our creativity and make us more educated. An enriching and wholesome, bar the obvious erotic stuff, place.  The library of the Universe, blah.

Okay, in many cases that’s all good stuff. We all know the good and bad, that’s all pretty obvious to the educated people reading my posts, of course.  What are the big downsides?  Well, all of that ‘understanding other cultures’ hasn’t stopped any conflicts has it?  What’s the big negative that is so overwhelmingly huge that means that we must flick the switch, turn off the SkyNet?

Creativity.

We are all becoming so linked in and tied in that it’s just a matter of time – if not already – that we are are monitored 24/7, everything we say and think will be there for various powers to use or exploit. Anyway, all that civil liberties stuff is only a part of my issue.  I don’t vote anyway so I don’t care.

The big issue for me is that we are now in a culture where everything that we craft, spend our time creating is all being stripped from us and taken. Have you noticed what’s happening to the music industry? What good did the internet really have for music? Really? OK, we can share ideas. We can collaberate with others but has the internet replaced the nasty big greedy record companies pittance royalty payment to the starving artist? No, the starving artist is now guaranteed to starve and most likely die out.

On this blog and many others you see people say adapt, change, go with the times. Find new ways to get new income streams. Others say that musicians will have to earn their income from playing gigs, the record is the promo/trailer etc. I think that the people who push these ideas are either greedy and want stuff for nothing or resent musicians and their creative/hedonistic lifestiles etc.

So, has iTunes paid you much for your work? Has Spotify earned you much? Doubt it. Someone I know said he was talking with someone who had had well over 250,000 Spotify plays and had barely made $10. Okay, you can say that it’s just like a broadcast but it’s not, it’s not.  You can go on anytime and listen to that track.  It’s not a broadcast.  Chris Evans playing a record on the BBC is a broadcast.

Look at journalism.  The same is happening there.  Hardly any print is selling as people go online. Newspapers try to run an online version of the print media but no one is willing to pay.  Journalists get sacked.  The quality of the media declines.  People in power are not held to account.  Society goes downhill….  This is the kind of thing that the internet has done for us.

Anyway, that’s my rant. Let’s go back to making great records. Let’s try to make the best records that we can make. Let’s try to create something new, original and moving, something that people want to own.  >> Cue sound effect of needle scratching vinyl…. <<   Err, who exactly is going to pay for us to make great records now?  That guy in the studio who spent 15 years learning how to make the best sounding recordings and mixes isn’t getting paid?  The guy who built that studio and put the best gear in, made the vibe great so that the band could make great records ‘aint going to get paid?

I bet that’s got you foaming at the mouth. Come on, let’s hear your opinions…  Oh, will you flip the off switch on your way out?

Tosca