TRENDSPOTTING: The changing concept of music ownership; or, the bridge from Bob Dylan to PSY

by Richard Trapunski

October 18, 2012

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When punk-rap agitators Death Grips signed to Epic, a subsidiary of Sony Music, it only seemed like a matter of time before shit hit the fan. On October 1, that moment came in a major way. After the relatively seamless release of April’s The Money Store, an album that had more reach and critical acclaim than anyone could reasonably predict from an aggressive, shouty rap album, it seemed that maybe, just maybe, the trio had navigated the major label system to take their uncompromising music to a wide, willing audience. Not so much.

When the band’s second planned album for 2012, No Love Deep Web, was shelved from the originally announced October 23 release date until “sometime in 2013,” Death Grips took matters into their own hands and released the album for free online on October 1, slapping on a rather profane album cover for good measure. Many wondered if it was a publicity stunt, an occasion to solidify their shit-disturber, punk as fuck reputation while promoting their upcoming tour (conveniently announced shortly after), but what many missed in the argument was how Death Grips released the album, not just free but under a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license (easy to overlook when there was such ample opportunity for dick jokes).

Not only could people download, remix, beat-snatch and generally do whatever they want with the music, but even sell or make money off of it. They later changed the file to a non-commercial license, presumably after the label found out, but it was impressive how cavalier the group was towards its own “intellectual property.” It may just have been a big middle finger – or a big something else, actually – to Sony, but it also shows a shrewd understanding of a mindset many listeners and creative musicians are increasingly adopting. As digital music becomes the new norm, the concept of music “ownership” is taking on a whole new meaning. And that extends as much to the listeners as it does the artists.

It’s hard to feel the same sense of pride about a music collection that exists on a hard drive as one that takes up a shelf, and even the carefully-tagged and organized digital music collection is becoming a thing of the past as subscription streaming services like Spotify and Rdio slowly march towards standardization. As the formats change, so do the methods that listeners use to assert their so-called “ownership,” and often those methods transcend physicality. For many, it’s not so much about storing a piece of music, but interacting with it: tweeting it, adding a “listened to” notification on twitter, remixing it, freestyling over it, creating a mash-up. If a hot new single comes out and no one uploads an acoustic cover to YouTube, does it make a sound?

For major labels like Sony, the question is more: does it make any money? For many new artists, the answer seems to be yes. Just take a look at the recent spate of one-hit wonders. Without the internet, how many would be household names? Certainly not PSY, the currently ubiquitous creator of K-Pop hit “Gangam Style.” What started its life as a hilarious viral video curio (and currently enjoys a Guinness World Record as most ‘liked’ YouTube video) is now a legit hit, heard on the radio and at clubs, even without the accompanying video. Or take Gotye. Without Walk Off The Earth’s five-hipsters-one-guitar cover, would “Somebody That I Used To Know” be the hit that it is now? Even Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe,” whose irresistible bubblegum hook seemed destined to explode, didn’t blast off into the stratosphere until Justin Bieber, Selina Gomez and a host of other Disney-friendly stars created a lip-dub.

It’s easy to look at this and think “the internet is changing everything, holy shit” (an easy conclusion to come to these days), but this new model actually resembles something that isn’t very new at all. In fact, it’s similar not only to music pre-internet, but pre-industry, a time when music wasn’t a statement, but a conversation. Before ownership became a term that one would attach to music, songs were passed along from generation to generation as a part of culture that resists “authors.” Even Bob Dylan, the Artist most often held up as a single-minded auteur, drew from the folk tradition, borrowing ideas and arrangements from his cultural forebears while altering them to fit his own purposes and contexts.

One artist who instinctively understands is Beck. Since his last album, Modern Guilt, was met with a relative shrug, the artist has done everything but release a proper album, and has instead mostly found inspiration in other artists’ work: producing Beck and Stephen Malkmus, covering INXS, remixing Phillip Glass. And now that he’s finally decided to release a set of original music, he’s found a format that resists streaming, downloading, wax or CD: paper. His next album, Song Reader (McSweeney’s), will be nothing but sheet music. If fans want to hear the music, they’ll either have to find a cover version online or play it themselves. With Beck refusing to record his own versions, there is no definitive “text,” only interpretations. It’s not only a brilliant understanding of the “conversation” model of modern music consumption, but also, as Forbes Magazine argues, even a way around pirating.

So a word of advice to artists and labels looking for the future of music: put aside your ego and think like Beck.

Tags: Music, News, Beck, bob dylan, Death Grips, gotye, INXS, Justin Bieber, psy, Selina Gomez, Stephen Malkmus, Trendspotting, walk off the earth

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