Don't believe the hype...
Posted: Wednesday 25 January, 2012
George Guildford
Music-sharing platform SoundCloud hit the 10 million user mark this week, a further indication of the incredible continued growth and development of digital music, and something which lead me to an interesting fact. Last year alone saw over 64 billion plays online, be it via YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, Myspace or Facebook... 64 BILLION!! The interesting thing here though is not simply how much the industry is shifting towards the digital age (or in fact, how much it has already shifted), but the fact that this shift is in fact paving an incredibly exciting path for new, emerging and independent artists, as the way music lovers interact and experience music continues to evolve.
A lot of this is down to the fact that the way we discover new music has changed incredibly over the past 10 years. We no longer have to rely on Huw Stephens or Steve Lamacq digging gems out of their postboxes, or indeed the wonderful people over at the New Musical Express for putting the next Pete Doherty or Jack White on their front covers. Or do we?
At the beginning of debut single 'I bet you look good on the dance floor', a fresh-faced Arctic Monkey's frontman Alex Turner once mumbled "Don't believe the hype". A throw-away request, sure. But a loaded one all the same, as hype there certainly had been. Waves and months of hype in fact. Most of which originated online via the group's MySpace page. The buzz and hype was not isolated to just online however. Backed by most of the major UK press and radio, the group soon found themselves with a following bigger than both their native football teams combined, a number one single and the fastest selling debut album in British music history. One thing was for sure; everything happened very, very quickly.
Fast forward six years and the online hype machine has shaped itself into a fine feat of engineering - aerodynamic, well-oiled, poised. From forums, to Facebook and Twitter, to SoundCloud, Last.fm and HypeMachine, to the rise of the blogger, Tumblr and Spotify. Yep, if it's new music you're looking for; online is the place to be. For example, the latest integration of Spotify and Facebook now lets me know everything my friends are listening to, when they're listening to it, in real-time. No need for to wait until the weekend to chew the fat about what new music we're all listening to - we already know - it was posted to our Facebook pages. No problem though, we can talk about which books we're reading instead. Wait, what? That was posted to our Facebook pages too? Of course, the new Facebook Timeline update. I digress. Back to music… New smartphone app, SoundHound even lets you identify the title of a record playing on a commercial or in the background of a store, linking you immediately to the mp3 download.
It's all very… what's the word? Cool, sure, but not the word I'm looking for. It's all very… fast. Everything is fast. Temporary even. Now, I love fast things as much as the next guy / gal, but culture - maybe I draw the line at fast culture. Books, music, films, art; shouldn't that all be a bit… slower? Lasting? Don't get me me wrong, I love being able to discover new music via Twitter, Facebook and Spotify, and with over 50 hours of new music to get through in 2012 already, most of this has come from the "hype" created on those platforms. The problem is, much like the grand return of the Libertines, it all comes and goes very, very quickly. The new thing is the old thing, the old thing is cool again (because, well, it's nostalgic and retro, and retro's cool, right?), but where does that all leave the ones writing the books, writing the songs, creating the art and shooting the films? It gets them exposure, visibility, awareness, followers and fans - and maybe, just maybe, it brings them success. But longevity, timelessness? Can these things still exist around such speeds?
64 billion plays online in 2011. 64 billion?! …rant over.
