Yeeezzz Master

Goddamn, the music industry really makes it hard on a fan.

Soon to be reviewed by either the Federal Trade Commission or the Justice Department, the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster is well underway. I am now making the gagging finger-in-mouth motion. Anyone who has bought a ticket or been to a concert in what David Balto, fellow at the Center for American Progress, calls "a competitively unhealthy market", knows this is bad news.

More here: Ticketmaster and Live Nation Move to Merge

To me this just looks like the music industry hammering another nail in its own coffin.

For the longest time we have had to hear about the Recording Industry Association of America trying its damnedest to slip a subpoena under the door of every college kid with an internet connection. It's been astonishing to watch the utterly future shocked RIAA refuse to believe that the land(net)scape of popular music (essentially still brand new) and it's consumer could actually change!

"We need to keep them darn kids from download'n their Mah'tallicker songs for free! Why would they wanna get this stuff free when we done just re-released / remastered a 5 year old record for this here 5-year anniversary $200 box set. I mean shit, it comes with a poster!?!"

A few examples from wired.com, which covers this stuff pretty well:

With Landmark Trial Half Over, Pirate Bay Crew Celebrates Early Victories
"The prosecutor became visibly frustrated when he tried to get Neij to identify the kingpin who is ultimately responsible for Pirate Bay and the text and graphics on the site. Neij explained that an extended group of people have privileges on the server, and contribute haphazardly as they see fit. The prosecutor seemed not to grasp the concept."

RIAA Courtroom Webcast in Jeopardy
"Harvard University professor Charles Nesson, is challenging the lawsuit and the constitutionality of the Copyright Act, which allows penalties of up to $150,000 per infringed music track." $150,000 is a lot to pay for "Enter Sandman".

Now let me just say here (hope you are listening RIAA lawyers), I am not the biggest fan of downloading mp3's because a.) I am not in love with the mp3 format and b.) It keeps money out of an artist's pocket, BUT I do "illegally" download music from time to time. I also carry my ass down to the record store and buy 10 times more music than I ever thought about downloading. Many times I am shelling out the ol' hard earned for something I discovered on the dark pirate-riddled seas of the intARRnets. You know, sometimes people just don't feel like forking over $18.99 for something they have never heard and may or may not like...though I have discovered many great albums this way, but still, I'm making a point here. Now I completely realize a majority of kids these days probably have their iTunes filled primarily with pirated music and the very occasional store bought chart-topping album from Wal-mart but I must say, if I was as an executive in the music industry, I have to believe that at some point I would stop asking myself why these kids are stealing music and start asking why I haven't done a better job of convincing these millions and millions of kids how exciting and important music can be to the human adventure and how it is totally worth a little bit of cash from that low paying job. Or, you know, you can continue to irrationally nickle and dime your remaining customer base and try to convince them that 5th row seats at the Leonard Cohen concert at the Long Center Dell Hall in Austin, TX are worth $1,499.00.

Here's a news flash: The RIAA and it's lawyers will never, NEver, NEVER keep people from downloading music. Sorry. This bit of reality is brought to you by the painfully obvious department. Here's an idea - adjust. your. business. model. Music has rapidly changed the way in which it is listened to, produced, conceptualized, and distributed. The people concerned with little more than filling their bank accounts have not.

I truly believe the next big movement in music, the epiphany, the reversing trajectory of the pendulum's swing (which, for the first time, may be put into action more by the culture and the consumer/audience than from the music itself) will hing totally upon this matter. In Rainbows may have cracked the seal.

Or as Simon Reynolds puts it in his argument against the economy having impact on the pendulum...

"The way people surf its shockwaves, or react violently against it, might well lead to the next convulsion in music. Indeed, in the same way that punk rock was prefigured in various forms (the Stooges, pub rock) for a good six years before it happened, we've probably already seen some of the anti-reactions taking early shape: the revived, ever-growing importance of live music and the festival, a resurgence of interest in analogue forms like vinyl, cassette and fanzines. All suggest a craving for unmediated experience, for presence, for the "event". It seems unimaginable, but it's possible the next underground will exist entirely off-line. Equally, the next big thing could be that there's no next big thing…. just further entropy (the "not with a bang…" scenario)."

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'

(more on the pendulum later)