Curatorialist

I’ve been listening to mostly all independent music for the last few years. Not to say I don’t have a go at more established bands, and not to say I don’t like a lot of established bands. I do. But if I’m counting my time spent on deep music-listening, it’s mostly with independent music stations, blogs and unknowns, recommended by friends. I still sit down with a CD and have a real audiophile-type listen on my real stereo every once in a while, but if I’m thinking about music the way I did when I was a kid – a form of expression that enhances my mood and soundtracks my life (my preferred listening) – it’s my go-to classics and independents. Why?

Because music-making has changed. And so has the music industry. But I have not.

The notion of an “album” is a relic from a day when music came from music stores. The ones you walked into and around, discovering. With that all but gone, most of that construct dies, including hard packaging. There’s very little reason, today, to group songs together, other than for some artistic purpose and habit. A purpose that very few young musicians grew up experiencing and so have little connection with. The album was born of necessity and became a flat round box within which an artist “had” to work. Artists thrived in that construct. As those limits vanished, nothing took its place and the industry meandered without purpose, divvying up selections of songs based mostly on time between tours, not the evolution of the artist.

“Making it,” in this day and age, means joining forces with a marketing team, of sorts, that has a formula, of sorts. However, it’s not a creative structure, it’s a selling structure. So, it doesn’t promote innovation or new kinds of personal expression. It doesn’t not want that, it just isn’t what drives the industry, so it cares about it about as much as oil companies care about car design. Artistry isn’t disliked, it just dies from neglect. It reminds me of the concept that our school system isn’t in the education business, but rather the graduate business. Or that movie theaters aren’t in the movie business, they’re in the popcorn business. This is the nature of capitalism and it has its advantages, too. One must only be aware that giant success in business is based on some kind of populism, homogeny or ubiquity and, by nature, forces out that which is odd and, often that which is deeply personal. So, I am at odds with what the industry produces, which is, for the most part, singles, not full albums. Styles played until they become played out. Vocal qualities with little regard for the words conveyed. It is music unbundled. Parts which equal no whole. At least not for me.

We are in a world of mid-fidelity. MP3s are, really, the high end of quality now. Studies have shown that Teens actually prefer the sound of MP3s to most other music types, simply because they are used to it. The way kids in Beverly Hills prefer the look of silicone-enhanced breasts. You like what you know. MP3s have unlocked a type of convenience in music-listening that trumps the subtle differences in quality. Having it on my phone, on the bus and in an airport is too good of an opportunity to say no to. And, so, knowing that high-end audio experiences have gone the way of the two-martini lunch, musicians too have relieved themselves of the pressure of the subtle nuance of music-making, trading instead in the business of hooks, vocal gymnastics and, often, just simple loudness. Imgagine if all art was only seen from moving cars; it would change the way the artist thought about how to reach people. Some distant version of that is happening to music-making.

I, on the other hand, have not changed. Popular music from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s resonate with me more than popular music from the 90’s and 2000’s. Or, for that matter, the ’40’s or 50’s. My music collection reflects that. I have a taste for the singer/songwriter sound and music with certain amount of raw humanity to it. And I’m fairly unwavering on that. That’s what resonates with me. That is said without any judgment at all on the music that doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t regard it as “worse,” simply as not as resonant to my ears. I am, after all, born to a specific era and I am shaped by my surroundings, like anyone. So, when I seek out music to listen to that’s not part of my permanent collection, I look for something that moves me in similar ways, not necessarily something current.

What does this all leave for me? Independent music. On the whole, people are making music more to my specific preferences when they have an unbridled passion for it, sans the influence of mainstream media’s tastes and realities of today’s music industry. Fortunately, there is now an industry that surrounds being outside the industry. The best live music events of the year predminantly feature independent bands: SXSW, Coachella, Pitchfork, etc. Also, the Web is a major listening post for independent bands, who freely offer their music up, in the forms of streams, videos and promotional videos. Even satellite radio has a station for independent music, brought to you by bloggers. And that’s what I listen to.

But that comes with a certain sacrifice, too: I miss familiarity. It is said that tennis is one of the few sports where people don’t root for the underdog. We want our long-standing champions: our McEnroes, Samrpases and Federers. These people drive the sport. Music is a little like that for me, too. I want so badly for a sustained music career from an artist that I deeply enjoy. I loved runs from bands like The Police, The Clash, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, KISS, Queen, Tom Petty, Van Morisson and The Who. These kinds of bands had both commecial success and the latitude to experiment and evolve over time. I miss that. But what has replaced it is the aggregate of all independent music. It all moves together now in a group sway kind of way. Watching themes rise and fall within the walls of this entity called Independent Music is a little like watching David Bowie go from Psychadelic to Glam to Soul to German(?) and on and on. Independent Music is like a single band that I’m really into made up of thousands of musicians who take turns at the mic.

Independent music can go places that nobody else can. Talk about things that nobody else can talk about. They can try different notes. They can afford to fail because no one’s paying them to stay the same. That to me is the heart and soul of music and nobody could have drawn it up this way which speaks to the power of music, and art. Whatever  forces push in against it, the true essence of it will continue to pop up, somewhere… like squeezing silly putty.