Forget for a minute the hundreds of kids sued by the Recording Industry Association of America. Forget the music retailers filing for bankruptcy and the major labels’ slumping sales. Forget Shawn Fanning, Metallica and the $20 record. When the last battle over the digitalization of music is over, there will likely be only one casualty of real concern: the album.
For all the benefits of the online file sharing revolution, it has proven what label execs have hoped since the birth of the pop music industry: that the majority of music consumers — and I use the word with maximum pretension — are in it for the quick fix of a single. Right on, says I — fans of your Timberlakes, Simpsons and Aikens should be able to download their favorite singers’ new Neptunes-produced hit instead of shelling out $17.99 for an otherwise shitty album or waiting for Now That’s What I Call Music 16. But when the music industry tries to apply this brand of consumerism to the cohesive records of actual musicians, everyone loses.
“I think ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ is cute, but I’ll pass on ‘A Day in the Life.’” No. Real musicians deserve better than the 99-cent-per-track downloads offered by industry-sponsored, oh-so-legal endeavors like iTunes and Rhapsody. Such services delegitimize artists’ efforts to make a musical statement and strip them of artistic freedoms, like crafting multi-track medleys, experimenting with concepts, or simply recording 20 minutes of feedback. What’s more, real fans — who I might add are always sure to download the entire album — deserve better than to be treated like the song-of-the-week teenie boppers who bankroll the music industry with Britney purchases. Sure, we all like options — but I would no sooner fuck with London Calling than I would abridge “On the Road” or cut “The Graduate.”
The industry would. In the one-dollar, one-vote world of sales, luring illegal peer-to-peer traders of Usher’s “Burn” above ground is more important than preserving Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. And as underground outlets for file sharing go under and pay-for online stores win a larger share of total sales, more and more artists and fans may be forced to subscribe to this new iPod-ready order — or opt out of the pop music market entirely. Unless …
There is another edge to the digital sword. The Internet fosters infinite opportunities for artists to begin to communicate directly with fans — opportunities to build relationships that ensure a place for challenging, innovative or simply unpopular music. If this scares the industry shitless, it should.
After A Ghost is Born, the forthcoming album by perennial groundbreakers Wilco, leaked online last month, the band responded in a novel and all too uncommon way — it not only posted the album’s track listing, liner notes and album art on its Web site, http://www.wilcoworld.net, but made available the entire record — due out in months — for streaming download. What’s more, fans have responded not by taking the tracks and running, as the industry has long characterized file sharers of doing, but by donating thousands of dollars to Doctors Without Borders, a charity group championed by Wilco, through the fan site http://www.justafan.org. As of April 12, the site has raised $7,322 in what it calls a “symbolic down payment … and a show of thanks to the band for its continuing generosity and trust.”
This is not the first time Wilco and its fans have bucked industry misconceptions. In 2002, the band streamed its unconventionally brilliant Yankee Hotel Foxtrot online following former label Reprise Records’ refusal to release it. When the record was finally released on new label Nonesuch just short of a year later, fans — gasp! — bought the album in support of the artists they respected. It debuted at No. 13 on the Billboard charts, a band high.
The fact that frontman Jeff Tweedy is among the most esteemed living rock musicians — or that A Ghost is Born could quite possibly be Wilco’s best release ever — will certainly play a role in fans’ decision to purchase the album when it comes out on June 22. Nonetheless, the industry can learn a lesson from the band’s connection with its fans. Music cannot be confined by the business conventions of common commodities; the consumer is not always right in this reciprocal relationship. Musicians, by and large, make music because they love doing so. Fans, in turn, listen to music for the same reason and support artists they respect by choosing to pay for what the musicians themselves choose to offer. Building and maintaining these relationships — not marketing the quick-buck song — is the most effective way to guarantee sales in the long run — for Britney Spears and Wilco, alike.
I downloaded A Ghost is Born on Soulseek last week. My “peer” messaged me within seconds: “Be sure to buy the album on June 22.” No pitch could have been more persuasive.
