Be The Media

Smith laments the loss of radio as a “cultural voice,” as it taught her via music about politics, spirituality, and more. She’s laments the creation of music television: it has become sexualized and turned into a money-machine, instead of playing music as a creative act. In fact, Smith thinks music on television has also corrupted music, because it imposes visuals on the medium when music should inspire imagination in every individual that hears it.

Pearlman laments the heyday of the record business, when “insane entrepreneurs” who were passionate about both the music and the business.

Pearlman says the great old days of radio (late 1960s, early 1970s) were cool because stations actually cared about adding material to the collective cultural palate. He says radio is being destroyed by consolidation and the life’s been sucked out of it. He also is unhappy with MTV and its “disciplined and ill-vectored” ethos; aesthetic that believes “Spring Break is actually 52 weeks of the year”; and the “cult of the concave abdomen.”

Pearlman is a visiting scholar at McGill University, and after talking to media executives in Canada he says they have some interesting insights on U.S. media. For example, in Canada making music is “an honorable and important thing,” and this is reflected in federal/provincial culture subsidies. Not so in the U.S. They also believe that the way U.S. media relies on near-constant market surveys is a terrible way to program any media outlet.

Smith: Being without censorship is not being without responsibility. If you want to feel free then it is incumbent upon setting the same scenario with your fellow man.

Smith: we must keep fighting, even if the cause seems desperate and lost. She places this in the context of the anti-war movement and its need to keep resisting the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan: “We will lose and lose and lose and lose until we win.”

Pearlman: “We accept the idea that the world is devolving into a nihilistic chaosium,” with groups fragmenting into single-issues with dogged conviction. We should not become like them, but on the other hand...the left needs to take a stand on issues of fundamental moral importance. “We need to respond to conviction, but not insanity.”

Pearlman: Is working on “recommendation engines” at McGill – these is a conception of personalized search engines related to uncovering the “infinitely deep layers of music” that exist online. (I can agree with this sentiment, and also that some of it can be hard to find unless you really hunt for it). He would like to see a database of all the music in the world put online and mounted on a search engine. Tracks would be priced at five cents per download. He cites the fact that 28 billion downloads last year can be tapped, provided the price point is right. Recommendation engines are key, because they would connect consumers not just with artists, but entire genres of music somewhat “This concept is much, much, much, much, much more closer to the model of what Apple wanted to do (with the iTunes Music Store) before the record labels told them otherwise.” He’s been invited to talk to Microsoft about the concept but hasn’t yet because “he worries about becoming unclean.”

Pearlman: “Give me a million dollars and five people to help me, and within a couple of weeks I can put together a roster (of artists) who can put to shame the entire combined output of the American record industry.” He believes there is an agenda within the music/media businesses to teach the “semi-righteous middle classes” that they are worthless and cannot affect positive change.

Pearlman: You have to be willing to work to find information you need. Do not expect content to be delivered to you on a silver platter: putting in effort to find what you want “beats living in Darfur.” He has faith that alternate mass media distribution systems outside of radio/TV/online portals has made a big difference in the availability of content.

*Audience question: Can you envision a world without record companies?

Pearlman answer: I don’t really give a damn about them. If they get out of the way and don’t cause any problems then I have no problem with their existence. However, in my world-vision I don’t really see a need for them. Once you make the content available along with the means to effectively find it, “self-organizing processes” will take hold (he also admits being addicted to “the cult of self-organizing processes”). If you want to comply with the creative and legal restrictions of working within the record label environment, that’s your choice. But he’s trying to create a world of “ethos-based music communities,” where connections between music artists and fans are not several steps removed from each other. Having said that, here’s something to think about: Net worth of an average major label is between $10-12 billion. But the business is in a freefall – down 40-50% from just four years ago.

Smith doesn’t answer the question, instead rambles thru some anecdote about her hair clip and socks. (If you are confused, join the club).

*Audience question: If you could send to Clear Channel’s CEO a postcard, what would the front look like and what would you write on the back?

Pearlman: “I don’t give a damn about Clear Channel. I think Clear Channel is racing to irrelevance and insolvency.” They’ve gotten big benefits from the Telecom Act of 1996, but they’ve squandered their opportunities, and now they will pay for that. “Reap what you sow.”

*Audience question(s): What can people on the ground do to help change the state of the music business?

Pearlman: Nobody takes seriously the notion that musicians should be paid for their work. Musicians are a sphere of the workforce. Perhaps with my world vision of cheap, ubiquitous music distribution, we can satisfy people’s desire for rich content while helping those produce it

Smith: People need to expect more of their artists, and artists need to seriously consider why they are creating music. Is it for expressive purposes and/or to contribute to the cultural millieu, or is it simply to make big money and become a “rich, rockstar asshole?” She doesn’t feel like artists have an obligation to be publicly transparent, but they do have an obligation to be valuable, in a philosophical sense. And if they hold deep convictions, they should express them, “perform their civic duty just like everybody else,” and not be afraid of what effects that might have on their career.

Pearlman: In the United States we don’t have a state-supported media, we have a media-supported state. FOXnews has “three distinct foreign policies”: one for domestic consumption, one in the UK (leaning slightly more socialist), and one in the People’s Republic of China. They already have a lot of influence on who runs the US and UK and aspire to the same in China.

Session ended at 5:42 (1 hr 42 min).