Blog Post // 2023-03-14

The New Age Of Music

I recently read an article featuring Don from Agalloch. In the interview, he referred to the changes that have taken place over the years in the music industry and his thoughts about it all. The conversation was one of the inspirations for me to think about the new age of music.

The reality is that music is super easy to get, in 2023. For some bands that have been around for a while, this change is intimidating, or at least career-altering. In the interview with Don there was talk of simpler days, days when fans/media weren't talking about bands all over the internet. Sometimes info that gets passed around is incorrect. There is truth to this. We have all seen the fan that tries to be the walking band encyclopedia and the arguments about details. The only place you could find info about bands in the past was by buying a magazine featuring them. 

So much music is available with a click. No handwritten song lists or hours put into making them. No large cases for tapes or heavy Discmans. So many bands that are visible and available. It really helps point out the similarities in bands because there are so many you can hear. Not like the days when people riffled through tapes/CDs in a store and chose based on the look of the cover, band name, or word of mouth telling them to seek out a specific album. If you were in a big store you could ask to sample some music you were thinking of buying at a station setup for that. 

These days, part of the work for bands is to stand out and get noticed because there is so much competition (though I don't think many bands see it as a competition. There seems to be a comradery and appreciation for others making good music. Though some fans seem to make it into a competition...).

Then there is the vast amount of people that can be reached. The internet has no boundaries. There are people all over the world listening to music. I think it creates a different scenery for music because it doesn't just stay in a small town or one part of a country. It moves around and is shared all over. Someone in a tiny village, in a country that doesn't have much of a music scene, can still become a big name.

The use of technology to add effects, instrumentation, sounds, and copy and paste have made many songs possible to put together, but maybe some that are much harder to reproduce in a live setting. The idea of actually plucking a string may be seen as undesirable for some people because they would rather have a programmable piece of electronic equipment, or adapt the original sound so much that it isn't what was actually played. 

Many bands now use talent from all over the planet. They may have band members from different parts of the world, or use someone for an aspect of their recording, production, promotion, etc. without ever meeting them in person. They share clips and chats from different cities and work on their part in their own home. Some bands barely connect in person, to rehearse, mostly meeting up when they go on tour.

Physical merch is only bought by a smaller amount of people now. Things like buying one song or a program to access a bunch of music is common ground. Appreciation for the art and presentation isn't always there. I love purchasing merch from the band themselves, especially if I can meet them in person.

The ways that bands can connect with their fans are vast. But if it isn't their personality to want to do this, there may be some pressure. They may stand out in a world of online connection. As a fan, it feels exciting to take a glimpse behind the scenes of your favorite artist, or maybe learn something about them as a person. Some have made a conscious effort to avoid even being known, not revealing their identity, or choosing not to have social media attached to their accounts, but that isn't the easy road.

So, is a more complex and connected world of music better than a more simple, straightforward one? Like most things, I think, there are both pluses and negatives.