Paying for music

A lot has been made in the last few weeks of David Lowery's response to an NPR intern, Emily White, who noted recently that her music collection consists of about 11,000 songs (she's an avid listener and evidently works at her college radio station), though she's probably only purchased 15 CD's or less.

Lowery, famously remembered by some of us as founder of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, teaches music business at the University of Georgia.

 Sully noted this a day or two ago, and, true to form, threw up a bunch of contrarian responses today to Lowery's rather long (but worth it - do read it) response to White's carelessly gleeful admission that she lives in a world (indeed, it is her primary avocation at this point in her life), where music is just free. Nicked from file sharing sites or copied from friends, and perhaps the most notable aspect to her remarkable admission is that, unlike the panic stricken and slightly Orwellian days post-Napster when the RIAA was suing people for un-purchased music, she mentioned it rather blithely. So what...as she indicated, pretty much no one of her generation actually buys music anymore.

 Without going all "posturing music journalist" on this story, and I know Lowery has some pretty sharp attitudes on this since I've interviewed him myself a couple of times, I do think he has a point. Musicians work at their craft, often (willingly) forego the "real world" to pursue it, and they actually do have to eat.

Personally, I get a fair amount of music for free in my own role as a writer, and what music I want that I don't get promo'ed at me, I do pay for. (I recently pulled down Cosmic Archeology , a very nice ambient work by Andrew Lahiff, from Soundcloud, and while I could have just taken it for free, I paid $10 for it. Hope to get a review of it in these spaces soon.) Musicians have largely substituted the road for album sales in response to file sharing, and to an extent, free helpings of their music can raise their road attendance. But it's a tough life, the margins are brutal, and plenty of musicians really can't play live for any number of reasons. (Lahiff, for example, probably couldn't draw 25 people if he were to stage a Denver show, simply because he works well outside the commercial sphere...but that doesn't mean he should be denied the right to house or feed himself.)

 Lowery's screed may be a bit overheated, but the idea among the younger generation that the RIAA wars are over, that we've won by sheer force of numbers, and that taking music at will is merely a statement against corporatism is likely to produce a world where music will suck, good artists will give up sooner, and the only ones standing will be the telegenic Beiber's of the world, hoisted and sustained by the big money labels and studios. Meaning that file sharing killed the indie artist. Ironic?