Chapter 3: Mediations

The whole issue of “gatekeepers’ that Negus discusses in his chapter on mediations made me think about how most people (myself and my students included) likely never consider where the music they like comes from or the forces and struggles behind these artists and songs. A question that I might ask my students to get them thinking about this topic is why most of us know next to nothing about Indian pop music, despite the fact that there are 1.13 billion people in India (where this music is quite popular), and there are only 305 million Americans. Why doesn’t this music make it onto the radio in the United States? Do you think people in India know the music of Miley Cyrus and Jay Z? Why is it different? Why do they know our music, but we don’t know theirs?

Thinking back to the film class that I student taught, this whole idea of the "man behind the curtain," could be incorporated into a lesson involving the film Citizen Kane, which initially bombed because media mogul William Randolf Hearst did not like the way “his” character was portrayed. He was able to influence public opinion (as well as the movie studios) through his network of newspapers.

When considering the current state of the internet, I have often likened it to the early days of AM radio (both in terms of the evolution of the technology as well as figuring out how it could/should be used), so I found Negus’ discussion of how radio did not “spontaneously emerge” (75) to be particularly interesting. There were a series of struggles and disputes, much like we’re seeing with the music industry’s relationship to music distribution on the internet. There are clashes between and among Record labels, new digital music distributors (Amazon.com and itunes), artists and listeners/downloaders (who are often "illegal" distributors themselves). The hosts of “Sound Opinions” on NPR recently weighed in on the issue and discussed how Compact Discs had become a “cash cow” for the music industry, and they were so tied to that format (which made them giant piles of money) that they were unable to adjust to online distribution and therefore have resisted it and floundered.

The lawsuits against individual illegal downloaders and distributors places these companies in an extremely unfavorable light as they are not suing the very people that they want as customers. I would argue that this serves to lessen their position in the marketplace because consumers don’t want to willingly give money to these mean “evil” corporations…especially not this lady.

Radiohead: "House of Cards"

In a discussion about 21st century music distribution (which the Negus book was a bit outdated on, since the book was published in 1996), the band Radiohead inevitably comes up. They offered their last album, In Rainbows on their website for whatever fans were willing to pay for it. Many people rejoiced at this innovation, but not everyone agreed. Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon spoke up against the "Radiohead Model," saying that for less successful bands (with smaller fan bases), offering music for free doesn’t make financial sense. So these struggles don't just exist on a corporate level, but also on the level individual artists as well. In the "House of Cards" video, lyrics like "the infrastructure will collapse" and "your ears should be burning/denial, denial" one has to wonder if Thom Yorke isn't singing this song directly to the record companies.

I also wonder what potential role social media (like Facebook) might play in the future of music distribution, since many people learn about new music from their friends. Perhaps people could get a small percentage of a sale if their friend downloads a song or album as a result of their recommendation or link.