the future of music |

There was a time, not so very long ago, when you had to listen to the radio to hear new music (new music that met the radio station/music industry management’s ideals) or have a cool friend (usually with an older hip sibling) to teach you about the latest underground music. If you were really lucky, you’d have access to an indie zine (on actual, real paper) or have an indie local radio station that could play whatever they wanted (ever so rare, even now). It was nearly impossible for a band to make it without a label to promote them and in order to get on said label, that band would have to be at least reasonably commercially viable leading to the myriad of mass produced manufactured pop musicians. Those days are long gone thanks be to the internets and I don’t think the music industry is all that pleased.

Now that music is within the reach of anyone with a halfway decent computer and internet connection, the traditional music industry needs to rethink both its purpose and marketing techniques. Berklee College of Music just had a conference on this quandary called “Rethink Music” during which Amanda Palmer, Ben Folds, Damian Kulash, and Neil Gaiman ran an experiment. They got together with the goal of writing, recording, and releasing 8 songs in 8 hours. Neil Gaiman explains the project here. They asked their twitter followers to throw out ideas for inspiration and streamed the collaboration online for fans to watch. They ended up with 6 songs in 12 hours, released as “Nighty Night” by 8in8 and available to listen to for free or to download for $1 or more as you, the consumer, see fit.

Then, they asked fans to show off their creative skills and put together videos for the songs: