The end of the party

The party is over? What party? What party! The party! Weren’t you there? You must have been there I saw you! I saw you illegally downloading those Red Hot Chili Peppers albums in ’02; I saw you dancing to that unsigned band at that festival in ‘06; You were there, don’t you remember?

The internet gave birth to the party of the (last) decade. People illegally transferred files with nominal risk. The rise of the independents happened with Rough Trade, Domino and XL holding the contracts to some of the biggest acts on the planet. Festivals put buzz bands on the bill, not just major label failures. There was a window, when their backs were turned for little bands to escape from the backstreets and enter the limelight. The was a sense of anarchy, of mob rule. Even the language indicated as much, it was all about going viral, it was a world where artists would reach the stars as if they were a plague.

With the impending death of BBC 6 Music, the dissolution of myspace (who uses it anymore?) and the blueprint for viral acts being readily employed by the majors our only escape was to absorb enough media to melt our hard drives. We trawled the now farcical “music blog aggregator” ‘The PR Hype Machine’ hoping to catch the elixir that is ‘pre-buzz’.

By the late noughties the revolution had well and truly started, the streets of Paris were rivers of blood; La Seine, a morgue. Major label rule was (whilst EMI still is) under threat. Typically for revolutionary times the modus operandi was to bring out Madame Guillotine – illegal file sharing was deemed the threat, so began La Terreur. We’re in the thick of it now. File sharers have been heavily prosecuted and as long as the Digital Economy Bill goes through, people will lose more than several thousand dollars. They will lose their internet connections, they will become part of a sub-class of citizens having to explain to their child’s teacher why their cherub(ine) can’t go on GCSE Bitesize at home. Additionally the industry’s figures didn’t add up, file sharing against sales weren’t – and aren’t  – comparable, but it was a readily identifiable threat all the same. Now with their blades sharpened, and last year’s turnover indicated the first annual rise in 8 years, the industry can safely carry on, can it not? Well maybe…

Realistically, it would be hyperbolic to announce that there’s been an end to filesharing. Now more than ever it is possible to download an album for free, this time you don’t even need to use torrents! Just type .wav or .mp3 after the album title and a link will appear.

So what has changed, why is the party over? Well, we’ve been educated. We’ve been told by artists for almost a decade now that they’re poorer than ever. From Lars Ulrich to Lady Gaga they are telling us how they’re been kept out of pocket; from Napster to Spotify respectively the internet is deemed the nemesis of many a musician. We’ve been told that if we don’t pay for music, then music, or at least our favourite artists, will cease to exist. If you want to hear the next BB Brunes album, as they recently announced on French music show ‘Ratatat’, then we need to support the artist, we need to buy their records. Although major label artists have reduced the file sharing debate into a guilt riddling marketing ploy, there is some truth to it. Also, they’ve helped sculpt the market into a moral pursuit. Previously, we’ve had the question put to us as, ‘Do you want to pay for music?’ whereby those who do are Good and those who don’t being notably Bad. For those who decide they want to be Good the next question is, ‘Seeming that I am buying music as I believe I am a good person, how can I optimise my Goodness?’ It’s not that we need to shop more, it’s that that we want to shop ethically; so along with our locally sourced veg, our Fairtrade chocolate, our Free Range eggs we find our 180g limited press vinyl, our boutique label cassettes and our silk screen tour posters. Part novelty paraphernalia part quality goods, it is no wonder why this niche pursuit has been taken up by only the most committed, the most conscious.

But beyond the physical there is the new ethical digital. This isn’t snobbery, nor is it cultism it’s the future.  As I see it, there are four sites in particular that represent the future of online music sales and distribution. Free Music Archive (or FMA for short), Bandcamp and Gogoyoko. FMA and Bandcamp are relatively similar, both allow artists to post new music however FMA tends to focus on curatorial whereas Bandcamp is your classic internet era media platform connecting artist to fan directly rather than through an editorial sieve(i.e. myspace but good); The third (Gogoyoko) is a more ethical version of Spotify. the forth, hasn’t yet been developed.

The part may not yet be over for the media pirates, the illegal downloaders and file sharers, but as both their notoriety and their acceptability wanes, their accountability increases, their party is certainly coming to an end. Now it’s the turn for the ethical thinkers to party. We’re the ones with the wealth of music, we’re the ones listening to artists that care, and the greatest thing is that our party is sustainable. We’ve got free music flowing by musicians who want us to hear it. We’ve got little labels run out of bedrooms producing great experimental music. This is the party to be at and it was worth waiting for.