MUSIC|MEDIA|DESIGN

How NPR Became the Hippest Way to Discover New Music, by Anya Kamenetz, is a cool piece.  It’s wonderful to hear indie music back on the air via NPR, and they’re proving there’s still a market for music on terrestrial radio.  But the conclusion’s a little distressing.  Let me quote it directly: “I respect and even applaud their integrity, but I still wonder how, under a nonprofit model, artists are gonna get paid. I guess part of the answer comes from celebrating and elevating live music, as a complement to the online experience.”  I can’t help but read this as a white flag/shoulder-shrugging surrender to a terrible, quaint meme.  The notion that live music is (effectively or rightly) the only valid revenue stream for music is offensive.  Offensive or not, the real question is whether this meme has enough traction to carry the debate.

On the surface, one could say it cannot.  The Beatles were forced off the road by their fame; the hassles of touring and weak amplification of the day made the appropriate venues for the crowds impractical.  There are many kinds of music that exist only in recorded formats, and still others best delivered there (chill electronica isn’t dance music).

But younger audiences are comfortable with the meme of live=paid, recorded=free.  And while downloads have continued to grow, file sharing hasn’t gone away and file sharers continue to mouth these words when challenged.  So it’s hard to say how this will all shake out.

I decided to post about the article not just because it’s interesting, but because our readers might have more vested interest in preserving revenue streams for recorded products.  If this view is left unchallenged, even when dropped casually in a quizzical manner, it may metastacize.  Frankly it’s an attractive notion to consumers.  We live in a world where multimillion dollar TV productions are given away on the back of Tivo-skippable ads.  What force is strong enough to oppose free music?

It’s a war the remnants of the music industry are losing.  The RIAA’s ill-conceived war-on-fans had a huge price tag.  Whatever good will the industry ever earned was torched, while disingenuous arguments tarred artists alongside their labels.  Big lies and hysteria bred disgust and antipathy.  Meanwhile big stars keep touring and showing up on TV.  Billy Corgan and Madonna cheerlead for a merger that will kill opportunity for young artists – Like Goodfellas they only know “Fuck you, pay me.”  So even the live end of the business is looking dicey.

If you liked Sgt. Peppers, Dark Side of the Moon, or Moby’s Play, you must acknowledge a market and value for recorded music.  In truth, most live shows are imperfect analogs of recorded compositions.  The recording, not the concert, is the definitive document.  Look: If you caught the Stones in the Sticky Fingers era, or saw Pink Floyd originally tour The Wall, you could make a strong case for the unique value of live performance over recordings.  But if you catch the same bands today, playing the same songs, you’re getting something else.  It may be played better or worse, but time changes everything.  At the Super Bowl a few years ago we learned that Rolling Stones can gather a lot of moss.  Eventually the recording is all we’re left with.  How can we not value that?  Are todays 18 year olds better off with nothing or a recording of The Beatles?

Ask them.  Then the right answer becomes clear: Recorded music matters, and recording artists deserve to be paid for their work whether or not they choose to tour it.