Over-Blaming the Music Industry
I read an interesting article in the Jan 10, 2005 issue of the New Yorker (unfortunately, no longer online) about "mash-ups" - the not entirely new but growing phenomenon of DJs mixing two unrelated, but slightly connected, songs together to create something new and, often, better. The most famous example of this is, of course, DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album, which laid the vocals from Jay-Z's Black Album over the tracks from the Beatle's White Album. Very famous, many downloads, critically acclaimed, totally illegal. But very cool.
Given the accessibility of new technology, this movement isn't surprising in any way. The article's author, Sasha Frere-Jones, writes an interesting piece including interviews with a lot of the people at the forefront of the movement, and reading the article feels almost like reading an entertaining history book. Mash-ups have been around for at least four years, so the "industry" has evolved. Frere-Jones documents that.
But at the end of the article, Frere-Jones throws in a cheap shot at the music industry, saying that it's not surprising that mash-ups (and the web sites and radio stations that facilitate them) have flourished: it's just a natural consumer response. Music listeners are dissatisfied with what the corporations have to offer, so they're going elsewhere.
Now, I'm no fan of the RIAA and I certainly don't disagree that the corporatization of music has hurt the creative process. But I wish that Frere-Jones had acknowledged the other reason why mash-ups are so successful: because consumers are creative, too.
Kids who aren't traditionally musical, but who are passionate about music, all of a sudden have an outlet for their creativity. So they're going to create. It's pretty simple. It might be exacerbated by a lack of choice put out by the record companies, but even if every record company was as perfect and accommodating as could be, mash-ups would still exist.
It almost reminds me of the middle-class women's obsesssion with scrapbooking. Women don't go to shows an spend hours and thousands of dollars a year on scrapbooking equipment and accessories because they're displeased with the options photo album companies offer them. That might be part of it, but it's not all. For scrapbookers, "scrappin'" is their creative outlet. They might not be good artists, but with a few tools and stickers, they have a creative outlet. And that form of expression is worth much more to them because they created it themselves. They don't want to buy it from a company.
A Midwestern housewife's scrapbook might look miles away from a British teenager's mp3 file, but at it's core, it's about the same values: a desire for creative expression, made possible through the wonders of modernity.
Given the accessibility of new technology, this movement isn't surprising in any way. The article's author, Sasha Frere-Jones, writes an interesting piece including interviews with a lot of the people at the forefront of the movement, and reading the article feels almost like reading an entertaining history book. Mash-ups have been around for at least four years, so the "industry" has evolved. Frere-Jones documents that.
But at the end of the article, Frere-Jones throws in a cheap shot at the music industry, saying that it's not surprising that mash-ups (and the web sites and radio stations that facilitate them) have flourished: it's just a natural consumer response. Music listeners are dissatisfied with what the corporations have to offer, so they're going elsewhere.
Now, I'm no fan of the RIAA and I certainly don't disagree that the corporatization of music has hurt the creative process. But I wish that Frere-Jones had acknowledged the other reason why mash-ups are so successful: because consumers are creative, too.
Kids who aren't traditionally musical, but who are passionate about music, all of a sudden have an outlet for their creativity. So they're going to create. It's pretty simple. It might be exacerbated by a lack of choice put out by the record companies, but even if every record company was as perfect and accommodating as could be, mash-ups would still exist.
It almost reminds me of the middle-class women's obsesssion with scrapbooking. Women don't go to shows an spend hours and thousands of dollars a year on scrapbooking equipment and accessories because they're displeased with the options photo album companies offer them. That might be part of it, but it's not all. For scrapbookers, "scrappin'" is their creative outlet. They might not be good artists, but with a few tools and stickers, they have a creative outlet. And that form of expression is worth much more to them because they created it themselves. They don't want to buy it from a company.
A Midwestern housewife's scrapbook might look miles away from a British teenager's mp3 file, but at it's core, it's about the same values: a desire for creative expression, made possible through the wonders of modernity.
posted by Kit Pollard at
2:15 PM
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