Music connects people. Someone plays guitar by the campfire and people gather around to listen and sing along. Artists make it a career to appeal to groups of listeners with their own style of music. It’s hard for these artists to get their names out there. Most end up failing at this. The ever-changing music industry is difficult to keep up with. As an avid music fan, I have several ways by which I keep up with new and trending artists. However, there’s no way to hear them all. Personally, my main avenues for hearing new music are pitchfork.com, 89.3 The Current (a St. Paul based music station), and my close friends who are also on the never-ending quest to find new and cool music.
As for pirchfork.com, I tend to look at their ratings for the newest albums of the year. Through this part of their website, I come to discover albums that are rated highly that I had not even heard about. Through my hometown radio station, I hear the best local bands to the Twin Cities, and through my friends, I can hear about any new finds they may have had recently. One example of how we do this is through use of social media. We use a Facebook group called “New Tunes” on which we post anything new (or sometimes old) that we may have discovered (or rediscovered) recently. This was a fantastic idea created by one of my best friends back home, and an effective way to use social media to find new artists and also stay connected with my friends. When I log onto Facebook, this is one of the things I look forward to the most. Indeed, it is likely the most relevant and “productive” thing I do on Facebook. As for you, I ask, if you are a music fan, how do you find out about new artists? What are your tactics? Do you use social media? If so, how?
Of course, after discovering these artists, you might want to get ahold of some of their material. To you, I ask, what are your methods? This is where it becomes hard. If you want to have an extensive library of music, how can you do it without spending a hefty sum of that (quite rare now-a-days) cash? It is illegal to, even if you own a copy of a CD, reproduce that CD with intentions to give a copy to friends or family. WHAT!? If I can’t do that it means I have to buy each and every album I want to listen to!? There are also music-pirating sites where you can use “torrents” to obtain almost any album out there. These are some legitimate ethical temptations if I do say so myself. The music industry has taken a hard hit in the last decade, and I have been contemplating what can be done to stop this.
Link to a comic pertaining to illegal file-sharing
Link to another short comic
What if I just want to hear an album once? What if I want to hear an album to decide if I like it enough to want to spend $12.00 on it? I think there should be a system by which you pay per listen. I have been discussing this issue with my dad (a huge music fan) and he has given some great insight. We discussed how maybe there should be a system where each time you listen to a song, you are charged a very small amount, let’s say half a cent. If you listen to an album many times, it means you like it, and when you like something, you are generally willing to pay more for it. What are some of your thoughts on this method? Is it already out there? If not, could it work? And how?
I think you made some good points in this post, no doubt. I don’t necessarily agree with your suggestion at the end, however. I would argue that sites like Youtube allow people to listen to music and get a taste of it before buying it. This is typically what I do after discovering a new artist/song. The main way that I go about finding new artists/songs is by checking the itunes charts to see the top songs in different genres. After I see something that I’m unfamiliar with that provokes my interest, I will often go on Youtube and listen to the song(s). This way, I can get a feel for whether or not I like a song before purchasing it. I find this to be an excellent way to discover new music. Plus, Youtube displays related videos on the side of the webpage when you are watching a video of a song, most of which are similar in genre or artist. This tangent offers another way to find new artists, some of which you may have never heard of. I don’t necessarily think that your idea for the music industry is a bad one, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with the industry as it is. It isn’t the music industry that is corrupt, it is the people who seek to obtain the music that this industry puts out that are the problem.