duga

There is no denying that the music industry is changing. That has been a given for many years now. Napster all the way back in the early 2000’s signified the beginning of the end for traditional music creation, distribution, and sharing. But it’s 2012 now. It’s 2012 and I think only now are we beginning to see what this giant mess the digital world has created will leave us with.

Here’s what I have taken from recent years:

The album, though much easier to create due to the affordability of home recording equipment, is dead. While there are purists like me who refuse to devolve into the world of the single, the truth is there is just not the interest in the album experience that there used to be. The reason is because most people are casual music listeners, and streaming music as well as Youtube has made it easy to get your hands on just the song you want.

It will take much more than even a hit single to enter into legendary status. What do I mean by legendary status? I mean an artist that will be remembered for generations after the one they became famous in. There are a few holdouts in the pop world that I feel have made it in the traditional sense…Lady Gaga, for example. I don’t like her, but somehow she has forced herself onto the scene, everyone noticed, and many many people buy her albums. Madonna is sitting in the shadows wondering if she can still pull that off. Everyone else is a throwaway flavor of the month. For this reason, I feel the next few years could be considered what I like to call the “One-Hit-Wonder Era”. I’ve heard so many songs that have become giant hits that everyone has forgotten about now that it makes my head hurt. Owl City’s “Fireflies”? Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks”? Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know”? Yep…one hit wonders all around. I even think Gotye’s album is pretty good…but it won’t last.

While the above paragraph makes me seem a bit cynical, I do appreciate what today’s music scene has done for me. I’ve just been discovering the wonders of Spotify. It’s like a musical playground…most everything I want to listen to, I can. For free. While this has killed a bit of the music hunt that I used to love, it has done away with the annoyance of tracking down a download. Now if I want to listen before I buy, it’s no longer illegal. As an audiophile, I can get lost in a new music hole easier than ever. It’s just sad that I am rare. It has also jaded me to a lot of music. I am so saturated with new stuff that I rarely give albums the time I would have in the past. It’s rare these days when I feel that special click with an album.

Streaming music will also be the end of standalone mp3 players. Throw an app on your phone, and you can listen to whatever you want. Why would you need an mp3 player? I myself am starting to question its utility. I both miss my old physical music collection, which I now hope to start building up again in the form of vinyl with albums I discover off Spotify and I am also tired of dealing with so many devices. Call me a sellout, but I love having one gadget that does everything I need. The only thing that freaks me out about this is the fact it’s not permanent. Let's say hypothetically that something happens to the internet...there goes all the music I want to listen to. I love my massive music library. However, with so much streaming music, what’s the point of even having that besides the fact that its still more tangible than a streaming file?

So where do you guys think all of this is heading? I can already tell I’m going to sound like a old fart once I have kids…”In my day, we had these things called albums….and they were awesome”. I really miss them sometimes.

Anyway, feel free to post any random thoughts you have. Any other theories? Does anyone think I’m full of ****? I’ve been feeling so disillusioned about music lately…and I need to talk about it.

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Confusion will be my epitaph...