When John Lennon and Paul McCartney met in 1957 and started making music the answer was simple: get noticed, get a manager, get a record deal, and become rich and famous. After a shaky start, The Beatles rose quickly to fame with proper support from their label.
When Alex Turner and his school friends started messing around with musical instruments in 2001, success was so rapid that they barely had time to consider how they were going to get there before they arrived. The Arctic Monkeys are widely regarded as the first Internet music sensation.
Before the Internet musicians were heavily dependent on the backing of record companies to record, promote and tour their music. Platforms from which to broadcast were also limited, and they were reliant on media giants such as the BBC to positively support their music. Large corporations ruled the music world; dictating rules, handpicking artists, writing contracts and fixing prices. Without this backing, artists were unable to reach their potential audience and wallowed in obscurity.
The music industry is renowned for its desire to make vast quantities of money and control the choices available to consumers. Numair Faraz, advisor to the late Geoffrey Frost, former Chief Marketing Officer for Motorola said that "Record companies like to make money, and that is their only goal. They do not care about the content that they sell - they care about maximizing their profits. ... It is more profitable for the record company to sell a few decent records in bulk than to have a vast array of cult hits that sell decently. ".
In the case of The Beatles this was very true. The band toured relentlessly and were even rejected by Decca Records before they were finally picked up by EMI Parlophone. They were then shaped and moulded to meet the requirements of the record label. They were advised on how to behave, how to dress, and even their line up was changed. When their music was released for the US market, it was repackaged to suit the label with no concern given to the artist’s original intentions. The Beatles were swallowed up into the corporate music industry make-money mentality and throughout their long career The Beatles ‘brand’ has often been seen to put profitability before artistic merit.
The Internet was always intended to act as a medium for sharing files and information, but when Napster launched in 1999 the world realised they could access music in a new way. The Internet has gone on to provide artists the means to bypass the traditional gatekeepers and get their music into the public domain quickly, easily and cheaply. It takes a lot less time and money to let fans hear a new track by providing it on a website than it does to play a live gig.
The rise of the Arctic Monkeys demonstrates the rapid shift in music distribution. When they recorded and gave away copies of a demo CD during their gigs, they couldn’t have known that their music would be shared online via BitTorrent and MySpace. More importantly, they couldn’t have known that the positive reaction to their music, shared online without financial reward, would result in an overwhelming popularity that ensured their rapid commercial success. In an early interview Arctic Monkeys said they hadn’t known about the Internet’s involvement in their popularity. They never opposed it, stating that it “made the gigs better, because people knew the words and came and sang along.”
Illegal filesharing has been a topic of debate since Napster was closed due to numerous claims of copyright infringement. David Lammy, minister for intellectual property, said: "Illegal downloading robs our economy of millions of pounds every year and seriously damages business and innovation throughout the UK. It is something that needs tackling, and we are serious about doing so."
Some believe that, rather than hindering sales of music, filesharing is an opportunity to try before you buy, and that it does not necessarily mean the loss of a sale. Web services such as Spotify have sprung up to support this common use of music distribution, offering users the ability to listen to whole albums for free and without restriction before going out and purchasing the CD or downloading the MP3s. Alternatively, users can pay a subscription to stream as much music as they desire. This “music rental”model is picking up steam, with over half a million users already paying for the service.
Since 2005 there has been an ever increasing influx of ‘Internet sensations’. Justin Bieber was discovered on You Tube, and Lily Allen was picked up on the strength of samples she posted to MySpace. Any artist worth their salt has a MySpace page, a Facebook profile or twitter feed to communicate directly with their fans.
Some artists, after failing to spark interest from record labels, are releasing their material as free downloads online. Finnish metal band Crystalic recently released an entire album as a free download after a year of fruitless negotiation with record labels. Websites such as CDBaby are enabling artists to distribute their music without the need of record labels using digital distribution partners such as iTunes and Amazon, or more traditionally in the form of CDs and vinyl.
Music journalism has also seen a meteoric rise in the number of independent blogs. Consumers can now write about the music they like and champion artists and their music without any bias towards a specific record label and without the restrictions placed upon the more traditional journalistic outlets.
As the Internet continues to showcase new music freely to the general public, the traditional gatekeepers appear to be in decline. Music journalist no longer have the monopoly on opinion about music and traditional print media publications such as NME are seeing a rapid decline in their readership. The major music labels, or the “big six”, (Warner, EMI, Sony Music, BMG Music, Universal Music and Polygram) have reduced to the “big four” (Sony Music, EMI, Warner Music and Universal Music) over the last 20 years. The number of smaller, niche record labels catering for specific markets such as Nuclear Blast and Season of Mist are increasing. Record labels still have a vital part to play in the financial backing of an artist, but those artists no longer have to wait until they fit into a perceived gap in the mass market or until they take a major record company’s fancy. Instead they can put their music out there on their own terms, and give the public the freedom to listen, share, and ultimately buy.
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