Pitchfork did an interview with Mac McCaughin recently, which provided an interesting exchange about downloading music. Mac, if you don't know, is the lead singer of my #6 favorite band of all time, lead singer of a great band Portastatic, and founder and co-owner of Merge Records, one of the great indie labels in the United States. So his opinion on the state of music and the future of music is definitely something to be listened to.
Pitchfork: This is a huge conversation, but I know it's one you're interested in given your work with Future of Music Coalition: Merge was slow to chase the Internet, but you've responded pretty well now with free remix albums, your own Web store, an expanded discography. What's the label's changing approach to music on the Internet?
Mac: You're right, it is a huge conversation, but I think major labels are freaking out and their numbers are going down. But independent labels are doing well. We've had our best years ever, and I don't think it has to do with downloading. I think downloading affects sales to some extent, but I think it has to do with the relationship that music buyers have to the music that they're buying and the labels that are putting it out.
Starting from the late 80s on, major labels have done a lot of damage to erasing any relationship people had with music, as something that they cared about or thought was valuable. People that we sell records to are music fans, and they want to support the artists and they want to support the labels. When you're selling 400,000 copies of the Arcade Fire record, certainly people are out there downloading it for free and not buying it because you've gone into a realm of...any band that's playing on "Saturday Night Live" and selling that amount of records is exposed to a huge number of people, some of whom are casual music people. For the most part, the people that are buying Merge stuff are not casual music fans. They're fans. They care about music. They want it. They go to record stores. They go online to look for it. They listen to stuff. They want to learn about it. They want to have the art. It's important to them. I think independent labels have been strengthening that relationship over the years, and major labels have totally discarded those people.
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Major labels have totally made their own bed in that situation, and now they don't want to lie in it. They want to blame people for downloading stuff, as if that's the reason people don't give a shit about what they're doing. They just don't give a shit because they're putting out shitty records. It's like terrible record after terrible record and people realize, "I can get the one song that I heard on the radio for free and not spend $18.99 in the mall store to buy that? Why would I buy that?" I think that we've gotten this far by not trying to predict what's going to happen in the future and laying back behind the curve.
But in general I think it's important to... We started the label as fans of labels and bands. For us, it's important to keep running the label like that because then you're like, "What would I want if I was buying this record?" "I'd want to be able to listen to it first." Or, "If I bought the vinyl, I don't want to have to buy it again digitally in order to have it on my iPod." In some ways, it's kind of an old-fashioned way of doing things-- customer service and just making decisions based on what the music is, not what we think is going to sell. I think that's served us well, so I don't think that we're going to change what we're doing anytime soon.
I've always supported independent labels. The majors -- they can suck it, but independents absolutely. And I've done my best to support the bands. I've posted a ton of free music here over the years, but my hope has always been that my readers would download a song that they like or that they might be interested in hearing, fall in love, and eventually become a fan of the band, spending money on a physical CD or concert tickets or an iTunes download or something. That's what I do. Two of my top 10 favorite bands of all-time are Sunset Rubdown and Okkervil River, both of whom I've seen in concert multiple times and have spent tons of money on their CDs. I discovered each of them through free Internet downloads of their music. These are not bands that have any major label promotional push and no radio play to speak of (besides the occasional, infrequent, satellite radio appearance). Yet they have been beloved by blogs (like my own) and hopefully, Spencer Krug and Will Sheff and their bandmates have made enough money to live on and maybe even have a little success. So in that vein, I think the downloads I offer here have, as Mac says, helped grow the independent music community -- especially of the "type" of music played here. I've been quite happy with the state of music in recent years and I think we can attribute the growth and well-deserved success of such disparate acts as Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, Wolf Parade, Modest Mouse, Feist, The National, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, and TV on the Radio to the Internet. I hope that I've been able to be a part of that with Vague Space, and I hope that can continue.
In recent months, though, I've had some trouble finding new music worth downloading/posting and enjoying. It's probably just a lull; it's probably no big deal, but at the same time, I've found several sites that have downloads of entire albums available, usually a few weeks or months before the actual CD is released. There's one in particular that focuses primarily on indie music and offers just about any indie rock album ever released (and many yet to be released or unreleased). It's a great site, don't get me wrong, but there's something especially unsettling about the fact that entire albums are now so readily available, for free, on the Internet. I'm sure these sites have been available before, but I've never found one so easy to use and download, and this, unfortunately might be changing everything. It's one thing to go to a blog and download a song from a band you don't really know, read up on the band, and if you end up liking it, buy the album or at least become a fan of the artist. Now, with full albums available, why waste my very valuable time reading all the mp3 blogs (like my own)? I've just been downloading these albums and listening to them on my own. Of course, that defeats the whole purpose of the music blog "community," particularly since I'm only downloading new albums from bands I know. The point of the community is to introduce others with similar interests in music to bands they might not have heard. That doesn't happen with full album downloads. In addition -- and I guess more seriously -- I'm "stealing" an entire album of music from bands; I really don't have to buy the CD anymore. So far I have bought the CDs as well, at least for albums I've downloaded and enjoyed. But that kind of feels stupid (although it assuages my guilt). For albums I don't like, well the band loses out on the sale, but I don't mind that so much. I wouldn't have bought most of those albums anyway. But economic times are tough, and how many listeners are actually paying for music that they already have downloaded when the physical CD offers very little (or nothing) over the downloaded experience.
The future of music is clearly at a crossroads. Independent labels have taken off in recent years with a combination of their embrace of the Internet and the horrible failure of major labels to produce quality music for anyone over the age of sixteen. But - no offense to Merge - I kind of wish I hadn't shelled out the $12 for the solo Conor Oberst record, especially after downloading it for free and not enjoying it. And there's the rub. I want Conor to keep recording. I want him to make lots of money. And I hope that subsequent Bright Eyes albums for Saddle Creek are better (along with solo efforts for Merge). But how can he keep making records if his albums are so easily downloaded for free and people stop buying his records? Some have said that CD releases might die -- everything will be digital, but digital pricing is way too expensive today to be truly viable -- I'm not paying $10 on iTunes for something I can download for free; I'd rather shell out a couple more bucks and at least have something physical to hold onto (even if it's just taking up space in my house and never actually played). The Emusic model might be best -- I pay $12 a month for 50 song downloads, and I can sample the songs ahead of time, but there's a couple problems with it. I don't get a discount for a full album download vs. singles, and more importantly, although Emusic often has advance copies released (which is great!) most albums appear for download on free servers earlier. To me, the best solution is probably if each independent label opens up an Emusic-type store on their websites (or perhaps had a home page on a combined site like Emusic), and put up digital downloads of every release as soon as the recording was complete. As part of a monthly subscription, listeners could download these albums immediately and maybe for a small additional fee to cover production and shipping costs, get a hard-copy CD as well. Something like that might work well to curb the advance release advantage of free sites while also offering a steady stream of revenue (in the case of monthly subscriptions) to the labels. Obviously, each of Merge and Saddle Creek and Jagjaguwar and Matador and Kill Rock Stars, etc., wouldn't be able to charge $10 a month but maybe under the umbrella of a single site like Emusic, or as some other groupings of like-minded musicians, this could work. Something like $10/month + $2 for each album download from 5 indie rock labels. I don't know. But these are things to consider.
Unlike Mac, I'm not as optimistic about bands getting paid for their efforts as I was in the past. I'll still keep posting mp3s here and talk up the bands that I like (mostly because much of my traffic comes via links on Elbo.ws and other sites from visitors searching for songs from these bands), but I'm not sure of the future of that form of blogging and of the future of paying for music and supporting the bands that we love. I've never made any money off this site (and I shouldn't for the music -- I didn't record the stuff), so I'm not as worried about my readership dropping if demand for single mp3s drop. I am worried about the bands, though. And I hope that the future is not as bleak as I fear.
Buy Portastatic - Some Small History
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