The Inter(connected) Net(work) of information became my best friend about 2 years ago. I was doing too much real world bullshit before that to be concerned with looking at screens & pressing buttons. I needed flesh & blood & stankin’ ass breath & facial expressions, all the things that summarize the human experience. & suddenly, I was hospitalized (more on that on April 1st), & my world, as I’d come to know it, has crippled & forever changed. So, those screens & buttons became my proverbial window to the world. Literally, I spent more time in 2008 in cyberspace than in the real world. It’s so easy to get caught up & addicted to the virtual world that there should be some sort of disclaimer for those with self esteem problems & addictive behavioral disorders. It’s like cigarettes with wires. But I digress.
Once I disconnected from the alternative universe of the ‘net, I remembered that life is an experience. People, smells, flavors. Even with porn, which is very hands-on (pun intended), there’s only so much interaction that can go on digitally. & this is where the music industry has follied. They’ve forgotten that real people still live on Planet Earth.
Back in the days, magazines had advertisements for new records. Grass roots campaign existed to get the word out. The financially dominant would even buy airtime & radio slots to promote their product(s). All these were attempts to get the living & breathing public to spend their money on something. People generally only tend to invest in something they can touch. Tangible reinforcement, if you will. Or at the least, something they can be made to feel a part of. Music today is not that item.
Wu-Tang Clan has a new project out, on Def Jam Records, & if it wasn’t for the ‘Net, I wouldn’t have even known. This is the same label that pushed Rick Ross into our faces for months. The same label that introduced us to a young James Todd Smith. Surely Ghost, Rae & Method Man are a valuable enough commodity to garner some real world advertising, especially on the heels of the Old Man Rap movement. Plus, Raekwon owned 2009. That has to count for something, right?
Memo to the industry: everybody didn’t swallow the red pill.
Twitter, Facebook & the ilk are good for those who live in the Matrix, but not everyone is tethered to some device that can stream local news & pornography simulataneously. Once record companies get their heads out of their asses, they won’t be scrambling to find a way out of an imaginary sales recession. I realize technology is the way to go, but until it’s the only way, put some signs on a Goddamned bus bench again. If you smell my cologne, that is.
The fundamental issue with the necessary acknowledgment of the internets in total has a lot to do with the fact that they would also have to admit to having been dead-ass wrong for a long time. Sure, they give passing lip service calling it a “litmus test” and such, but not fully accepting the attention that the medium creates, instead choosing to blame the economy and whatever else they can on the fact that people just aren’t buying music anymore.
Anything to avoid admission that the product that they’re actually giving promotion to fucking sucks.
I feel you Tony !! The industry just isn’t the same anymore. Remember, artists would actually be on the radio talking about their new shit, a video would’ve been made and interviews were the norm. Now you’re lucky if you get as much as a advertisement. I notice the Wu-Massacre ad on AHH which made me look for it as I noticed the date. The wrong people are in charge nowadays. The people running things are biased with their own agenda.
I miss the flesh and blood world of rap marketing
I used to work around 23rd street in manhattan…and every thursday night they would put up snipes(large cardboard double sided posters of album ad)….I’d leave work late….just to be able to snatch up some snipes and lift them…..I had free posters for every album that came out that year…. still have them
Music artists have two problems…
The traditional machine is bloated and broken.
The internets is filled with unreliable critique.
Wu-Massacre is a god example. DOOM’s Born Like This is another. Both albums were ignored in the real world and panned in the virtual world. I feel like the Wu-Massacre is a good EP. It’s solid and the production is strong. Born Like This is my album of ’09 pick.
Is it that both of these album lack pop-music directives that the labels(and conversely the internets) can’t see them for what they are?
I’m tired of beating my head against the wall for the machine to wake up. It has to be rebuilt. But I feel likewise for the online community and that process will take even longer.
Tony,
just getting around to checking this, brilliant fam, glad to see I’m not alone.
More and more I think folks overestimate their power on the web(can’t tell some of these egomaniacs running blogs who have never gotten love b4 they had a website lolz) or the kids who consider a music post in a sea of meaningless posts an accomplishment.
The respect from living breathing people is still invaluable. It’s why some folks can have 100,00 fans on facebook or followers on myspace and sell only 7,000 albums.
I joked about it on twitter saying that you may have to pay folks $10 just to buy your cd for $7.