Just had a band recommended to me by a friend. Went to Hype Machine to check them out, but no luck—all tracks unplayable. Found some on YouTube, but I can’t let the whole page of search results play consecutively like on HM. Guess that means I’m going to have to find and pirate their whole goddamn discography and not feel bad about it because they backed me into this corner.
Guess we’ve still got a ways to go before people figure shit out.
There’s so many things in this slimy paragraph that break my heart, I barely know where to start.
#1: What the fuck is Hype Machine and is that cynical-as-fuck name some pithy gallow’s humor or is it actually totally reasonable to find out about new bands from something called HYPE MACHINE?
#2: The sanctity of convenience
When I was twelve and beginning the part of my life where I would obsessively collect music, a huge part of what made the music important was the effort I had undertaken to get to it. Technically, it was “mine” because I had mailed Sonic Enemy the carefully-concealed cash, or because I skipped dinner and gave that money to Soundgarden instead, or because I had dumped the trade-in equivalent of Columbia House bricks on the counter of Record & Tape. But there was another kind of “mine” happening here, too— the music I was collecting was “mine” because I knew nobody else in my class had cared enough to learn of the existence of Golden Feelings, because nobody else in my school was picking up and examining LPs with hand-stitched covers, because —aside from my closest allies— nobody in my area code was eurphoric over a subscription 7” series from the man that had created the most powerful and personal document of a underground rock scene that I had ever encountered. This wasn’t music that I chose off the rack at Sam Goody, like some doofus who would soak their subconcsious in the symbols and signifiers of any false prophet with the right-looking outfit —- no, this was music I searched for, using the clues I could find in liner notes, in interviews, in zines, and with the help of other music fans I admired and trusted. I knew there were people out there, like me, who felt that music could express certain aspects of existence much better than words alone could, and I knew there were people who felt that power could be wielded much more powerfully than the stripped and strategic offerings on sale at the mall. I didn’t expect them to knock on my door, though—- they were busy making amazing music, recording it, preparing it for the press, dubbing it to tape, drawing record covers… the important things. The fact that I had to go find it didn’t make them stupid, it made me great. It made me different. In this country you can’t help but be different when you care about something a great deal. All these paradigm-busting technological advances and breakthroughs in convenience only seem to amplify that fact.
You, if you’re one of these bourgee goons whose music collection didn’t exist before iPods and mp3s, might not think that what I did when I was twelve has anything to do with the brave new world of today, but you’re dead wrong. My people— the pre-convenience cult of music fans— we brought you this tradition. Apple didn’t bring it to you, Tom didn’t bring it to you, no business trying to revolutionize the industry so that they don’t go bankrupt brought it to you— we did, the music lovers. You saw us and you envied us— but I don’t think you realize that it wasn’t just the constant exposure to and pursuit of music that made us enviable, it was a larger attitude about value and meaning. Powerful, original music made by people who put the art above the business made me confident in my own identity and the things that made me different from my peers.
Obviously, things are different now. But I don’t see why so many Johnny-come-latelys to the “new bands” party think that my people’s tradition isn’t worth learning from. The difference is that the barriers have all been lowered: There’s more bands now, more people recording themselves or their friends, releasing their own (or their friends’) albums, more people doing their own interpretation of the ritual of using song to sort out their path through this fucking confounding place we live. If anything, there’s MORE of a reason to be discriminating about what music you put into your self.
Why does immediate-access-for-all have to be as important as writing songs to a band? Isn’t that the exact way to get your band eaten by the monoculture, co-opted and adopted by the laziest of listeners? Do you not deliver yourselves to those who would have the least in common with you by listening to jackoffs like syntheticpubes when they whine about how anachronistic a band without a Myspace or a Youtube or a Hype Machine or an FM— without an entry in a clearinghouse database of current creators, basically! Without a page on a site that makes money from your presence but won’t speak to you directly. Is Cex less of a band because I refuse to fill out the same form that every other band you’ve heard of is filling out? Is Cex behind-the-times because I’m not interested in scaling infinitely, in reaching out to someone who is unwilling to meet me even part of the way?
#3: Manifest destiny
Returning to the original heinous missive, I am to understand that because syntheticpubes cannot find this bands songs (oh wait, because he cant find them on a page that will allow him to do other things while he listens to the music?) he is going to go download their WHOLE DISCOGRAPHY?
Can I ask why? Why on earth you would download the whole discography of a band you don’t know if you like or not?
I think this is a wider issue with the new breed of music collector. Why does every iPod need to be full? What does the amount of gigs you can afford have to do with the music you need to listen to? Does it make you a better or worse listener to carry around as much music as you are able? From where I’m sitting, this whole culture acts like it has something to do with musicians when it really has to do with Pokemon. You collect mp3s because they are trendy and convenient and help you meet people you might make out with— and because most of the bands who are dying for attention, who are convinced that only large mobs & P********media can confer value onto an artistic creation, who are willing to collude with whatever businessmen and advertisers will have them, because these are the people who have made what you’ve stuffed in your personal mp3-playing device, one iPod-full is not even close to enough. You need to dump it out and fill it up over and over and over… you need to crawl the blogs and read the webzines and hunt down the next thing. Weekly. Daily.
If you’ve ever eaten at a fast food restaraunt or drank a can of soda or blown your nose on a pile of Kleenex you know that where “convenient” is found, “disposable” is never far behind. My question to you, syntheticpubes, and all the little monsters like you, is this: where is this going? When every band your friend can tell you about is instantly accessible in their entirety on the web, how will this world be a better place? And what will come next? How will technology enhance our music experiences and make them even MORE convenient after that great hurdle is behind us? “Wanna go out to eat?” “Sure, let me just get a few new ringtone releases to listen to on our way there!”
Does it do a band any good to be famous as soon as conceivably possible? Is it good for a musician to have the whole country commenting on his first attempt at an album? Even if they’re saying nice things, is there not some danger in having to consider the rest of the country and what they’ll think when you’re still figuring out what it is you have to say, and how you will say it? Does filling out a form— like the one on Tom’s site— really help people get to know what a band is about? Does it help the band get to know what the band is about? Could there be 12-year olds right now starting their first band who do not think about the band’s identity except in terms of the fields that Tom’s programmers have provided?
What is it that you really want, syntheticpubes, and at what point are you unwilling to sacrifice quality for covenience? And when that point becomes clear on the horizon, are you going to start caring, or just admit you never really gave a fuck?