Dave sez:
Just heard an interview on NPR with Todd Rundgren about music on the Internet, the value of a song, albums, and how the users are now in control. Todd says that iTunes is the wrong model because it commoditizes music, with every tune priced at 99 cents. He’s the guy to look to for the killer app in online music, he’s always been first. I played a Rundgren song at last week’s webcast and people groaned “Oh that’s 80s music.” What I didn’t say is that’s music from the guy who could figure out how music on the Internet works as an art. (And besides that, it was 70s not 80s music.) This week I played a Rundgren-produced song, and the kids liked it. He was one of my heroes in the 70s and 80s, and then later when personal computers took off I got to hang out with him in San Francisco.
Would it have killed him to link to the story instead of just NPR’s website?
Find the Real format audio track here
Worth a listen . . .
The whole day’s programming can be found here
and, of course, the answer depends on the artist . . .
I just listened to this again (can’t say enough about time-shifting broadcast media), and the story isn’t actually an interview with Todd Rundgren. It’s an overview of the shift from singles to albums and back to singles.
Perry Farrell gets as much attention, and explains more about why we’re where we are. Farrell explains his dissatisfaction with the record companies and why he would rather release singles than albums. While commoditization is almost always seen as bad by the person making the commodity, is it worse that generating no revenue at all, ie having the popular tracks uploaded to the filesharing networks for lack of a coherent business model?
As for the audience now being in control, that’s been the case since the cassette recorder became ubiquitous and the mix tape became a meaningful alternative to radio as a way to disseminating new music. That particular horse is well out of the barn . . . . .
As an avid fan of rock music in my younger days, I can recall some artists wondering why albums were so important (one quote I can’t find from the Undertones was something like “it’s not about bloody albums” in response to their label’s expectations that they translate the abbreviated but just right majesty of “Teenage Kicks” into 40 minutes of “product.”
And it’s not like artists can’t make albums if they want to: it just breaks the grip of the recording cartel, one trembling finger at a time.