But I agree that at the heart of this "experience" is the music itself, and the performance that manifests it. But I still feel music is beyond the products that have defined it as a record industry. Music is a primordial organizing principle of human societies, always has been. In a lot of ways, I think these future direct-to-fan experiential products return music to the primordial function it served for humanity, and all that entails. And sure, selling it seems sort of cheesy now, but that's a zeitgeist sentiment, which can and will change. Remember, 70-100 years ago, it was cheesy to sell recorded music. Lot of world renowned musicians, orchestras and performers refused to be recorded, for some of the same sentiments you share here today about "BS 'experience'" products.
Musicians know that music is not just a business. It is a language. Not necessary one every person can speak but certainly one that everyone can understand. Our lives are short and we may never live in a time without a "music industry". But music has a much longer history and a longer future than our short lives. There is more to music than just a "music industry".
What about the idea of peer-to-peer music? Not "file transfer" or "download" but "playback"? (YouTube, while it may seem instantaneous, is progressive download isn't it? Kids may not realize this.) What about decentralized instead of centralized broadcast. If we are doing peer-to-peer VOIP, we can do music as well.
What do you think?
In his book "A Year with Swollen Appendices" Brian Eno has an essay that makes a good case for the role of music in pop music and pop culture.
Basically (and I wish there was a link this someplace) he argues that in popular music people are in fact selling an experience, a lifestyle, a way for people to self-identify. It isn't a matter of here's the music and then everything around it (i.e. all the packaging) is secondary, but that in many (maybe most) cases the packaging is really what matters; the music is somewhat incidental to the whole product.
I don't want to get into a No True Scotsman debate, but there are plenty of musicians whose art, while ostensibly musical, is not strictly limited to the music. Their art is in the entire packaging, presentation, and communal environment created.
You may know this already, but this is in the essay called "Culture" which starts on page 317 of the book you mention. The preview on Amazon includes this passage, which is on page 318. The other essays there are worthwhile if you're into Eno -- a lot are in the preview.
http://www.amazon.com/Year-With-Swollen-Appendices-Brian/dp/...
For folks who have not read or heard of this book, it starts out like a more-or-less normal diary, but soon becomes a set of observations on working, creating, dealing with people, making art and music, and a bunch of other stuff. The second part of the the book, the appendices, are a set of interesting essays, fleshing out many of the things he touches on in his diary entries.
Even if you're not a fan of his music he has some provocative ideas.
What we're seeing now is similar symbiotic evolution, I hope, where the non-musical parts of the experience and the musical parts (and stage presence -is- arguably a non-musical part) feed back into each other in a positive way.
Or, it means that technology (and preexisting oligopoly) has broken that particular market.
Individual consumers didn't buy and sell software in the 80's in the same way that software was sold in the 70's. (Go to computer store, vs. calls by the sales guy.) Consumers don't buy and sell software today like they did in the 2000's.
Throughout this whole time, people were writing software and getting paid to do so.
Musicians are not there to sell "experiences" in general: they are there to sell musical experiences. That's their art. Now that music does not make that much money, they will have to sell other crap and treat music as a byproduct.
Recordings themselves are an experiential byproduct.
http://foucault.info/documents/foucault.thisIsNotaPipe.en.ht...
Or, it means that technology (and preexisting oligopoly) has broken that particular market.*
So, basically the same thing in a different phrasing?
>Recordings themselves are an experiential byproduct.
Yes. I do think that the record ALSO removed the primary link between audience and musician. But al least it retained some of that.
A record is a byproduct primarily linked with music.
In a way that t-shirt, an autograph box, vinyl dolls etc are not.
No, that would be like relating the facts I mentioned about the software industry, and saying that, "The Software Industry is Doomed, Period."
It's more like, "The X industry of time period Y through Z is doomed." Phrased that way, it seems embarrassingly obvious.
There is no, "The Music Industry," of all time. There is only music industry of a particular technological context.
No, it means the music industry as a whole is doomed, period.
The other BS "experience" selling "direct-to-fan" he describes a few paragraphs later, is not the music industry.
In fact, for the most part it is less artistic than the music industry (which was mostly all about the money), and less about the music. It is mostly musicians reduced to making parlor tricks and selling merchandise, concepts, videos, nice boxes, etc, that is anything that music to their audience, to make up for lost music sales.
Musicians are not there to sell "experiences" in general: they are there to sell musical experiences. That's their art. Now that music does not make that much money, they will have to sell other crap and treat music as a byproduct.
Aside from all the pretty boxsets, concepts, t-shirts, dolls, interactive apps etc, the only "experience product" that retains the direct and primary link to music as art, is live shows.
And for some musicians even those are not to their taste, they'd rather just record and sell songs (remember how Beatles lost interest and stopped doing them? Or how lots of electronic, avant guarde etc genres do not make much sense live anyway, nor their creators want to perform as much as your local pub band / metal geezers want it?)