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May 2017 - p.9
Nick J Townsend is the frontman and
guitarist for British band Weak13
An experienced Underground
musician and music promoter
Supporter of original music
Another successful year for vinyl according to
mainstream music news but don't be suckered
in by exaggerated reports of vinyl overtaking
digital downloads Vinyl arguably makes more
money now because the music industry has
discovered people are willing to pay C to own
an album One hurdle vinyl may face is
convincing the percentage of the population
who mainly listen to music in their cars to get
vinyl players installed but I think they solved
that problem years ago by creating the CD
player One of the disadvantages with vinyl or
CD is that in the past if the Catholic Church
didn't like a particular record then they'd have
to hire a steam roller to flatten a large pile of
them stacked there by protesters hatemongers
and residents of Bewdley but now because
most of our music has gone digital we just press
delete
Internet file sharing networks such as Napster
made headlines in the news during the
noughties and the general public were told by
mainstream media that this method of
consuming music was destroying the music
industry However a movement which we
know of today as social media was coming
into fruition which would connect music fans
and the industry together like never before
to
were strange but interesting
years for independent artists as they adapted to
the digital revolution The MySpace generation
was reaching new heights; it had exposed fans
and musicians to a completely new free way of
accessing music; users basically had their own
personalised colorful website with an
embedded music player which was essentially a
song playlist made public They could pick tunes
from any band accounts on MySpace and this
was a fast effective way of experiencing new
music There were some mainstream bands on
there too such as Crazy Frog but despite the
simplicity of MySpace much of the older music
generation were terrified as at the time few
had the computer skills to understand how it
worked and were clinging to the old ways of the
music business
Music consumption was changing rapidly and a
problem was emerging on MySpace “How can
all these bands make a living via music if
everything is free?” Something had to be done
so businesses began to develop thanks to rising
internet services such as PayPal and eBay; many
Independent bands on MySpace were
accumulating large international fan bases;
they altered their direction and ensured that
their own merchandise and services were
available to order online New incomes for indie
musicians using mail order were becoming a
reality Meanwhile the rest of the music world
felt alienated and fearedd that this technology
could be the future; but if only there was a way
in which they could reset everything again to
get on equal footing? So then along came
Facebook with promises of improved services
leading to a gigantic MySpace culling; users left
in droves and the natives of the digital music
revolution jumped ship leaving independent
bands floating in a cyberspace graveyard
Facebook became the new Missing Persons
Bureau as there was no music player no band
pages containing free music to access and no
way of contacting bands or members unless you
were able to convince Facebook itself that you
were from the same school a work colleague or
related The digital music natives had been
tricked
That's all for this month
THE DIGITALREVOLUTION
DEATHOFACULTURE
NICK
J
TOWNSEND
VINYLREVIVAL 2017
@weak13
@nickjtownsend
