The Democratization of Music [GUEST POST]
This post was written by Jesse Langley, who lives near Chicago. He divides his time among work, writing and family life. He has a keen interest in blogging and social media and also advocates for online education. Mr. Langley writes for Professional Intern.
The way college students discover and experience music has evolved incredibly since my dorm room days as a young English Literature major. But even back then I found it interesting how music functioned as a social equalizer. My university was diverse. We had the sons and daughters of wealthy northeastern WASPS and kids who came from inner city projects. In classes we had students from 26 different countries scattered among farm kids from the Corn Belt.
Even though we came from wildly disparate backgrounds, music was the great unifier. All the kids I hung out with had Bob Marley posters draping the cinderblock walls and Pink Floyd albums littering the area around the turntable. You liked the music that your friends liked because that was pretty much all that was available. You may have gotten lucky and found some Bob Dylan bootlegs and that represented a significant discovery.
But back then you tended to be limited to discovering music from peers and word-of-mouth. You liked what the record company had already decided you were going to like. The current movement away from the record company-ruled music industry toward indie artists through platforms like Pandora has revolutionized how college students are discovering music. The sheer quantity of music that college kids can access today is mind-boggling.
Music has become democratized.
The decentralization of record company power represents a huge win for music lovers/discoverers. And in case you’re tempted to feel sorry for the record companies — don’t. When record companies ruled the music scene like gilded-age robber barons they operated from a position of sheer arrogance.
Record companies’ addiction to profit and promotion of stale cliché-ridden music helped create the backlash that technologies such as Pandora would later exploit. College students today are discovering and sharing music and the resulting publicity for previously unknown artists is an example of music’s democratization working in both directions.
Artists used to be dead in the water without a record deal. They could play gigs at any place that would have them and try to create some buzz and word-of-mouth publicity. But without the money and muscle of a record company to actively promote them, achieving financial success or fame was a shot in the dark.
One of the beautiful things about Pandora and similar services is that it’s not just a way to discover and listen to a wide array of new music. It’s a more democratic way for artists and bands to profit from their music, both in terms of financial remuneration and fame. Artists who would have been relegated to singing in smoky bars for peanuts in the past now get paid every time a person listens to them on Pandora.
The really cool thing about my personal experience with Pandora is the ability to discover artists that I otherwise wouldn’t have; and then go buy their album. People still express skepticism about the ability of a free music service to generate album sales. I can’t speak for Pandora listeners in general, but I’m still old-school about wanting the genuine album experience. Pandora can expose me to artists I’d never heard of, like The Weepies for example, and let me sample a few of their musical wares. When I genuinely love the music, I go buy the album. It may be the fact that I’m an old fogy, but I still like to listen to the whole album all the way through.
