The Internet versus the "Suits"

What I am reading is someone missing their record store.

But maybe this music shouldn’t be heard. The Internet has enabled anyone with a computer, a kazoo and an untuned guitar to flood the market, no matter how horrible or simply unready the music is. This devalues the great music that is truly worthy of being heard, promoted and sold. And it is much more than just an endless supply of choices. The Internet has become a forum for all, regardless of talent. Anyone can be a writer. Anyone with GarageBand can make a record.

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Wow, how horrible that the hoi polloi can now put their own music online and anyone can listen to it!

He's saying he prefers gatekeepers. Well, so do I - in the form of publishers and reviewers I trust. His complaint is identical to what's being said about self-publishing. And he's right in that respect - most of the unprofessional stuff being uploaded by "everyone with a computer and a kazoo" (or word processor) is horrible.

But as long as there are ways to filter it, so what? It's not like when I go to Amazon, I can't find Le Carre or Heinlein or Dickens for all the self-published novels. People who want Beatles, Beethoven, or Lady Gaga can find them easily enough.

Reading the article while streaming a great album I wouldn't ever have heard about otherwise from Bandcamp somehow takes the drive out of it.

So 99% of today's music is crap, he says? Well, so was 99% of the music I grew up with in the eighties. The difference is, back then it was crap produced for mainstream attention, carefully chosen by the gatekeepers for being not too offensive. You could live in your indie rock bubble where only 90% was crap as that record dealer did, apparently, but that was as good as it got. Now? If stuff is crap, it is so on its own terms. Much better.

Amadan said:

Wow, how horrible that the hoi polloi can now put their own music online and anyone can listen to it!

He's saying he prefers gatekeepers. Well, so do I - in the form of publishers and reviewers I trust. His complaint is identical to what's being said about self-publishing. And he's right in that respect - most of the unprofessional stuff being uploaded by "everyone with a computer and a kazoo" (or word processor) is horrible.

But as long as there are ways to filter it, so what? It's not like when I go to Amazon, I can't find Le Carre or Heinlein or Dickens for all the self-published novels. People who want Beatles, Beethoven, or Lady Gaga can find them easily enough.

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I largely agree - but not entirely. Unlike writing, it's relatively easy to produce music these days using pre-recorded loops and "construction kits". These have been around since the 90s, but at that time, you generally needed a decent PC or Mac to be able to run all the software - i.e. not cheap.

As processing power has become cheaper, and the loops and kits are more widespread, the barriers to entry are pretty much non-existent. In some ways that's great; but when you can quite easily put together a track using the default samples in Garageband (which comes free with your iPad) and stick it up on Soundcloud (for free) then it contributes to the piles of dross clogging up the internet.

So in a lot of ways, yes, the argument is much the same as that against SP. But with the important distinction - no-one has, as yet, developed software that can stick together chunks of text to create "novels".


Context: I've been a songwriter for around 20 years, and wrote my first compositions on computers before I learned to play any instruments. I now use computers to write music I would never be able to create otherwise. I do use sample libraries to provide me with sounds and instruments. But I don't write with loops.

Loops themselves are not bad per se. There are countless examples of great songs written around loops or presets. But those were written by musicians who understand how to take a simple loop and turn it into something greater than the sum of its parts.

onesecondglance said:

So in a lot of ways, yes, the argument is much the same as that against SP. But with the important distinction - no-one has, as yet, developed software that can stick together chunks of text to create "novels".

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You haven't seen all those Wikipedia article compilations pretending to be actual books clogging up Goodreads, I take it.

Didn't realise they'd spread to Goodreads, no...