The old shit doesn't work anymore

Quotes:

“I’m talking to you,” he began, “because the old shit doesn’t work anymore.”

The established patterns for releasing music, going on tour, and putting work into culture, he explained, were no longer relevant. The infrastructure, the audiences, and the money just weren’t there.

“I don’t know where things are going,” he continued, “But I know the

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Behind these conversations is a fundamental change of the digital age that applies to essentially every creative field: in the past, consumers bought and collected physical editions of creative work, creating a direct value exchange between fans, artists, and producers. Today almost all creative work is digitized and essentially rented — lowering

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The old, pre-digital structure of the music business led to a fan relationship funnel with multiple gatekeepers, primarily major record labels.

Because I'm going to have the hottest new songs. The problem is the consumer wants more than that. They want the old stuff to. So all of a sudden the power in that relationship moves from the distributor who can create new content and also has the consumer relationship to who owns the IP that the consumer wants, the IP that consumer wants a lot of ... See more

The music industry is still reeling from the discovery that the reproduction and distribution of music, previously a valuable service, is now something their customers can do for themselves.

Streaming was really revolutionary and wonderful for a lot of people, but it was really devastating for a lot of other people because everything had to have the same economic logic as pop music.

And a lot of experimental music doesn’t follow that per play valuation logic. A lot of experimental music is about the idea, and you just need access to tha... See more

The idea that a song should cost $1 was completely arbitrary — a way to quantify music that felt, to use his word, "digestible." ‍The advent of web3 presents an opportunity for alternatives that exist outside of this imaginary stranglehold but, in order to start thinking about music outside of our current model, we need to start thinking about the ... See more