Technology in music series; (part 6) the internet – friend, foe or just a tool? (I)

We’ve already established that the record industry likes to blame new technology for its woes. In the 1930s, the culprit that nearly drove the record business out of business was radio. In the 1970s, it was the compact cassette. And from the late 1990s through to the writing of this series, it’s been the internet. It brings to mind two great quotes from two members of the Who.

One is attributed to the late Who bass player John Entwistle. During the slump of 1979, he was asked whether he thought that the reason for record sales falling nearly 30 percent had anything to do with home taping. He thought about it for a moment and replied, “No. I think it’s because the record business has put out 30 percent less good music.”

The other quote is from the bard of rock, Pete Townshend, the Who’s guitarist and primary songwriter. It came from a series of interviews related to a webcast of his Lifehouse concert from Sadler’s Wells. Townshend is often credited with being one of the predictors of the Internet (the concept of Lifehouse is a concert that everyone can experience live through a communications web, an idea Townshend proposed in 1971), so in 1999 we wondered if he still thought the internet was a good idea. He replied:

The internet is definitely a friend to the music industry in so many ways. The growing new internet companies need established artists like me to focus their activities on. For new artists, it’s a direct line to the general mass of the population so they can get some early response to their finished work.

“The web is a fabulous marketing channel with a built in feedback loop that never existed before,” recording artist-turned-web entrepreneur Thomas “Dolby” Robertson agreed. “Both world-class acts and wannabes alike can reap the benefits.”

Case in point: the meteoric rise of the English band Arctic Monkeys. From Sheffield, England, the band made its London debut not long after New Year’s 2005. By fall 2005, it had the #1 single on the English charts. When the record hit the United States, it debuted at #24, based on nothing but the residual British buzz.

What caused that buzz? The band made over a dozen of its songs available for free on the internet, and the music spread virally. (It helped that the Monkeys make intriguing music, of course.) Using the internet, it built its following on a grassroots level, reaching directly to fans and potential fans. When it finally released its first physical product, via U.K. independent company Domino Records, it sold 360,000 copies in Britain in the first week, the best first week by any album ever sold there.

Faced with the scenario of losing not only their audience to downloading but their artists as well, some record companies, particularly independent ones, discovered that peer-to-peer downloading actually helped them promote their artists, especially as the radio noose tightened. Richard Egan, a principal at Vagrant Records, figured that his label would have gone out of business without peer-to-peer downloading. Peer to peer, after all, is like that most convincing form of marketing, word of mouth. Taking enough ownership of a band or a song to introduce a friend to it is a big risk and responsibility. That’s powerfully persuasive.

“In artist development,” said Chris Blackwell, former head of Island Records and owner of Palm Pictures, “file sharing – it’s not really hurting you. You want people to discover your artists. You’re building for the future.”