MU121 Chapter Notes - Chapter 15: Sufjan Stevens, Maroon 5, Limewire
Ch 15 – The s: Rock Traditions and the Business of Change
Introduction
- Technology greatly changed manner in which rock music was distributed after 2000
- First digital downloads
- Cloud-based streaming
- New Forms of Mainstream Rock:
o Pop-oriented music connected closely to R&B
o Pop punk
o Blues
o Metal
o Jazz
o Folk
- Country and hip-hop musicians incorporated rock elements and styles
o Ex. Taylor Swift, Kanye West
- Indie rock labels became very popular after 2000
o Indie oriented artists often popular in mainstream
- Many important institutions now accepted rock as an important element of modern culture
- Historians often need at least 20 years to pass before an era settles enough to
determine what the important elements are
o Difficult to gain historical perspective on development of rock music in 2000s
currently
Technology and Rock
Changing Systems of Production and Consumption
- During the 90s, digital recording made it possible for any artist to record an album
inexpensively
o Sampling and sequencing revolutionized how music was created
o Technological creation of music now commonplace
- One of the first important method of Internet distribution as traditional online sale
o Online retailers sold CDs and shipped them directly to home and office
o At first, consumers questioned the security of this
- Listeners began to experiment with sharing music in form of electronic files
o Encoding music into digital files had been possible for some time
MP3
- Highly compressed format
- Greatly reduces size of music file
- Allowed users to send music online
- Created data files with hundreds of songs on a single CD
- This easy file sharing began to facilitate trading
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Napster
- Napster: peer to peer file sharing program
o Allowed users to download files from other users
- Other file sharing services are Limewire and Gnutella
- Napster caused a massive free-for-all for music trading
o Changed the relationship between the music industry and customers
- Pros:
o Listeners gained access to more music than ever
o Sampled songs they might not consider buying
o Easily suggesting music to friends
o Democratizing force that decentralized power of major labels
o Placed distribution at fingertips of listeners
o More exposure
- Cons:
o Illegal
o Violation of copyright laws
o Musicians, songwriters, and record companies lost lots of revenue
o May have received exposure but were not being paid for services
After Napster Shut Down
- Napster challenged the very fabric of the music industry business model in just 2 years
o Result was a large-scale decline in sales of physical media
- (owever, Napsters end renewed lots of power back to labels
- Illegal trading sites continued to flourish
o Mostly through difficult to monitor, decentralized networking protocols
o Ex. BitTorrent
- Throughout the first decade of the 00s, compact disc sales dropped almost 2/3 from
peal years at the end of the 90s
Changing Conceptions of Media: Rock is Nowhere, But Also Everywhere
- During the emergence of rock in the 50s, listeners heard it in traditional places
o Ex. AM radio, local dances, record stores
- years later, its hard to find rock in any of these places
o Radio changed dramatically since the addition of FM
▪ Moved further into the concept of format radio that created classic
rock radio in the 80s
- Commercial stations follow broad formats
o Ex. classic hits, hot adult contemporary
- Often nationally syndicated and out of touch with local communities
- More listeners turning to the internet and satellite radio as sources for rock music
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
XM and Sirius
- XM and Sirius: more advanced, commercial free system of satellite radio in the US
o Beginning of 00s
- Have since merged into a single company
- Success with fans of rock music
- Steadily increased programming to include sports, talk, and other entertainment
programming
Pandora
- Pandora: provides personalized radio stations/playlists
o New internet only stations
o Manifestation of internet radio community
o Suggestions for new music purchases
- Works from data collected through large-scale encoding initiative
o Music Genome Project
- Works from starting point entered by and taste of user
o Ex. song, genre, artist
Concert Promotion
- Concert Promotion: multibillion dollar business
o Expensive for teenagers
o Target baby boomer generation
o Companies sign artists to lucrative long-term contracts
- Conglomerate corporations have become industry standard
o Ex. Live Nation
- As concert promotion became big, more and more rock shows became less
accessible to average fans
- Social networking sites and YouTube have changed how bands interact with
listeners
o Official music videos are now archived for instant access
o Fans can easily see live performances through video within hours of
performance
- Listeners participate in creative process through things like mashups
Indie Music
- Indie rock circuit became more industry savvy
- Lucrative reunion tours by Pixies, Pavement, etc.
- Matador Records 21st birthday party featured a $400 VIP ticket option
o Shows maturation and financial reach of modern indie community
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Ch 15 the (cid:494)(cid:882)(cid:882)s: rock traditions and the business of change. Technology greatly changed manner in which rock music was distributed after 2000. New forms of mainstream rock: pop-oriented music connected closely to r&b, pop punk, blues, metal. Country and hip-hop musicians incorporated rock elements and styles: ex. Indie rock labels became very popular after 2000: indie oriented artists often popular in mainstream. Many important institutions now accepted rock as an important element of modern culture. Historians often need at least 20 years to pass before an era settles enough to determine what the important elements are: difficult to gain historical perspective on development of rock music in 2000s currently. During the 90s, digital recording made it possible for any artist to record an album inexpensively: sampling and sequencing revolutionized how music was created, technological creation of music now commonplace.
