The only way forward is that of virtual music and a global listening community. Everybody can download what s/he likes without having to go through so many TV, radios or major labels’ marketing filters. The frontiers, between art, music and image will disappear and leave room for the artist to control the media.
Archives
2722
Independent labels that succeed in developing artists with musical skills and a visual identity in the live performance could grow thanks to the internet. It is the entire economic system of music that is set to change, leaving the majors with no choice but to pick up talented new artists and take risks. This change could be the best thing to happen to the sleeping industry – to get us out of this nap that has created artists that nobody wants, with t-shirts and badges o one wants to wear.
Kmart
The diversity of exposure in the new media will open the door to a new generation of artists, not ordained by TV and radio, and open the doors to a rich artistic time, mixing image and sound – pirate radio with no quotas, market research or analysis.
GORiLLaz
We go full speed to a virtual musical connection for all, where the virtual nature of music can enhance the identity of the artist or band – there is a merging of image and sound to find a new balance. We can already notice these changes with bands like the Gorillaz, which pushed the concept even further by not being on stage during its concerts. The audience was prepared to accept this because at the same time Gorrillaz was following a radical artistic direction.
2713
The era of the major labels – like the dinosaurs – is destine to vanish, because they haven’t been able to adapt to change. The last few shakes that allow them to stay alive are a result of their large back catalogues and their distribution processes, rather than their adaptability to a new world based on communication flows.
The quantum leap
What do people want with their music? Do they want splashy timed release full of shock and over styling, a la the recent Gaga/Beyonce video? A terrible song with a pretty standard music video, but unarguably effective. Do they want virtual 3D music festivals where they can jam onstage in real time with their favorite bands? Do they want an abstract emmersive game environment with new tracks hidden within a psychedelic landscape waiting to be discovered?
There is a quantum leap waiting to happen in the way music is consumed. The leap has always been made by designers and musicians collaborating together with passion to create the most exciting and emotional experience they can for a grateful audience who are getting their minds blown in the process.
Race you to it!
We can do better
Visually the aesthetic component of digital music is in the dark ages and shows no sign of embracing the future. Despite all sorts of attempts at fancy innovation, the visual interaction that people are actually having on a daily basis with music on line is pretty terrible. My iTunes is full of badly tagged MP#’s from bands I have no empotional connection with or recollection of once I’ve shuffled off elsewhere. If I’m lucky each track has a postage stamp-sized image of what the CD used to look like in the real world. More often than not this luxury is denied to me. I am stuck with nothing but a line of text. I might have an online visual relationship with a website, blog or music player but rarely with an artist. Except when I watch music videos on YouTube, which is just a twenty-first-century MTV with a horrible window around it full of chatter from people telling me how awesome/lame the track is. Surely we can do better.
The future of consumption…
Our future role as the interpreters and propagators of music and design is to create stimulating interactions; as with so many areas of our contemporary practice, we now need to integrate interaction design with visual design if we are going to move forward. It doesn’t take Steve Jobs to tell you that pretty coon we are all going to have continuous hi-res superfast broadband and will be able to stream anything we want in real time straight to our hardware device of choice. This is the future scenario of consumption.
The future of music
We will always want the great escape and the fantasy that needs money behind music to provide the spectacle, be that in the form of Lady Gaga or Glyndebourne. It’s hard not to love the extravaganza, the light, the show, the sound of a 100-strong orchestra, the polish of the well produced album. Queuing up for a concert by Radiohead or Efterklang. The sound of master craftsman is what we seek. We will continue to enjoy and hold these things dear, but the majority of music heard will be by the many for the few.
So the future of music? Will then be purple.
The future of music is…
Red. No, green. Blue?
If only it was that easy, but in fact aesthetically, rhythmically, structurally, tonally, it’s impossible to say what the future of music will sound like. Music will be whatever composers want it to be. Music will be all sorts. It’s as much informed by the desires of musicians as their cultures , perspectives and experiences. What is and was made in China can be very different to what’s made in London. There was a time when cultural influence was purely geographic, but in this age of web 2.0 or whatever web version we are in, the borders are shifting. But will a border less time come? I suspect the power of “one voice” won’t completely engulf us all. Somewhere out there will be a group of people on this planet oblivious to the character of hip-hop and techno, Beethoven and grime. But wherever these impervious ears may reside, they will more than likely make and play music. We want music. It’s essential to most of us, wherever we are, and we listen to it, within our shiny white headphones, while we’re on our way there. A cursory glance at MySpace, a step into any classroom, and you’ll find musicians, millions of them. Their tools may differ, be it guitar or Garageband, but they’re making it, recording it and they’re getting it online. They’re using computers to share and they’re sharing it with their immediate circle – their friends and family. It’s now and it’s the future, a virtual seat by the campfire, the relatives around the parlour piano having a singsong, it’s folk music.