As Terence McKenna pointed out at least 30 years ago, the Universe generates complexity in order to have increasing novelty. Moreover, human beings are a necessary and perhaps the primary component of this process. So while I agree with Ted's observations on the degrading of artist appreciation on the part of the "listener," this is a temporary situation.
Listeners are now consumers, artists are now content creators, and real music now floats in a sea of shit. We know this. But there's a backlash, and it's slowly building momentum.
As an artist myself, I would like for the situation to change...while I'm young...ahem...but that's not the point.
Creativity is supposed to be our coin of the realm. It may actually be the only currency that survives the Great Reset! I therefore prevail upon all artists to expand their creativity, deepen their metaphysics, eat healthy and breathe. Our calling is the reason we're here, so let's steer the ship toward the eschaton and tack as needed.
Terence McKenna said and thought a great many interesting things. Sometimes he was even right. He certainly generated complexity himself.
I’ll add a quote from Brian Eno, another very interesting thinker and perhaps more grounded than McKenna:
“ [ . . . ] politics sits downstream of culture. The stories we tell ourselves and each other are how we develop and share our feelings about this world – and other possible worlds. This gives our storytellers – writers, musicians, artists, actors – incredible power to shape the space in which politicians are able to operate.”
Hopefully, Eno would not object if I were to suggest that one might substitute either the words “business” or “technology” for “politics” as a matter of general concept.
Seems like the Overton Window is closing. If I were a politician, businessperson or technocrat, I would ponder long and hard about which side of the window I'm on.
"But social media platforms are driving these behavior patterns—and are the real root cause of our threatened culture.
These platforms aim to control behavior with their algorithms. They encourage passivity. This is all by design."
Respectfully i want to say yeah no shit, has nobody been paying attention? No they havent, theyve been scrolling.
"But I have a hunch that those endangered humans will fight back. They tend to do that, those pesky flesh-and-blood folk"
Really? Thats not what ive been seeing(except a very rare few). Ive been seeing people happily trade their very lives for some content feed bullshit. These people dont know how to fight, they know how to fold. Theyre so used to it theyre creased!
This isnt the first time our world has been turned up on end. What comes next will not resemble what came before. Holding on is nice for those that remember, but its simply delaying the inevitable. Music will have to find a new path(which im sure it will.. music is like love or hate, we're born with it and engage with it our whole lives, our entire history. So fret not for music, fret for us..)
It’s always been the “a very rare few” that are worth hanging out with. Simple ugly fact is that most people make sheep look individualistic, once you get past the “I’m so special” accoutrements purchased from some mass merchandizer.
As a musician in a band who literally is our social media guy, this is true. You need authenticity to break through the shitty attention spans. Assuming you have that, I think the key is doing it the old fashioned way. Getting in front of people, in person, playing shows. The more genuine form of social media growth - real people who connected to your music - can follow if you can stick to that.
Ted, you’ve adroitly expressed exactly the challenge that I, as an independent musical artist, am facing. I am trying to make new pathways to the people who genuinely want to connect through my music. I am ditching streaming and exploring new ways to create physical/embodied experiences that cannot be possessed by ‘platforms’. Thanks for your work
IMO, there has been a steady trend downward regarding the importance of music from one generation to the next. My generation (I’m GenX, so I’m old now) and my parents’ generation had an almost feverish relationship with music. We talked about it, shared it, got together and *actually listened as a group*! Many people defined themselves by what style of music they liked best. We saw there was a tremendous back catalog of music that came before us, and we dove into it seeking out songs and artists that spoke to us. (Heck, I still do this! Streaming platforms are great for old dudes like me who want to keep exploring.)
That said, I have a group of friends that is about 12-15 years younger than me. While they like music, they never really went back and dug into the music of the past the way we did (and yes, of course, I’m generalizing). When I asked them one night if they go back and find older music that’s new to them, they looked at me like I was talking crazy.
The group of folks just behind them in age didn’t seem to have much taste for music that wasn’t both front and center, and also disposable.
And now it seems that, for to the youngest generation, music is just kinda there. It’s nothing to be particularly passionate about, and those that do show some passion are mostly wrapped up in the Swift craze. I love that she gets younger people interested in music, though it seems their excitement doesn’t really extend outside of the Swift craze to other artists.
So, is the environment driving new listening habits? Or, are these declining listening habits, which have roots going back several decades now, driving how music is created and presented these days.
Essentially, do we have cause and effect backwards?
I see little value in social media, and vote accordingly with my time and wallet.
Other people are more than welcome to lose themselves in that soulless time suck. Unlike your command to me, I’ll never insist that someone else should do or like something.
When all you are doing is consuming, you get stuck on the platform nursing you. If you have to “play” physical media, there is ownership and a product in hand to tell you more about the artist. So passive listening is as bad as 50s television. Discovering a new library of music at your friend’s house, for instance, is just like a deep dive into library book stacks. It is beyond sad to think no one gets that chance, being raised by bots instead of parents.
I’ll also say that the zeitgeist has changed in so many ways that anything you might say about the music industry of today compared to the music industry of decades past is pretty much like howling into a hurricane. Not that the industry was particularly admirable, exactly the opposite all too frequently, but it was flesh and blood - we had real crooks running some of the best known labels of their times!
Today, my sense of it is that real musicians, you know people who play their own instruments and abhor Autotune, are not grabbing at the brass ring of mass success so much but recognize that their job is to play their local and regional markets in much the same way as in the 1940s and ‘50s. Of course, hardly anyone turns down in big time success if it happens, although there are those who find it not to their taste. And there are those who whine incessantly about not getting a fair break - as there have always been.
And, hey! It’s not like I who am pretty obsessive about music can remember the names of many artists and songs even when I'm playing the CD! If I’ve gone to the trouble of putting on some vinyl, I’m more likely to remember what I’m doing. Such is the nature of our changing times - or age, if you prefer.
Anna, my cofounder, sat in on the Music Tectonics session where MIDIA presented this. She was giving us the play-by-play. The findings were pretty disturbing, but not surprising. We see it every day: great music turning invisible, even to the people who love it.
That’s why we’re building Sleeve.
It's not a new social network. It's not another monetization widget.
It's a place where artists are actually remembered.
Where fans can go deeper... and not just scroll past.
Sleeve is the fan management stack artists should have had all along. Email list, link in bio, membership, livestreams, updates... all in one place, all under the artist’s control.
It’s not retro, though people tell us it has MySpace vibes. It’s not reactionary... well... it is a little. Something's just not right. It is a logical response to a system that no longer rewards memory, context, continuity, or art.
You wrote: “The platforms don’t care if it’s music or a goofy joke or a violent crime.”
We do. That’s the difference.
We’re still in the early days, but you can see where we’re heading: sleeve.fm
The one new artist I know who's cutting through is Jesse Welles. He uses TikTok and Youtube to get attention, but he's also got something to say that resonates with a lot of people. If you read the comments to his songs you'll see how emotional people are about his songs and the fact that he's got the courage to say what other's are afraid to.
Ted's written a few times about a new scene or movement coming and I think when it does it will be on Jesse's model: someone who authentically says what's buried in peoples' heart.
As Ted's written so convincingly, music in the end, is subversive. Listening to the conformist commercial music the industry puts out today is like eating candy. Listening to subversive music like Jesse's is like eating something substantial. Ultimately, you can't live on candy.
This is a terrifying but also important post. The clash between creativity and vulture commerce has always been brutal. I believe that in the end creativity will win out! But only if musicians and other artists carve out those sacred spaces and guard them with devotion.
For my part, I've purchased a cassette player and got my dad's vinyl out of storage. I'm only going to listen to physical media from here on out. Better for me, better for the bands I buy it from.
As Terence McKenna pointed out at least 30 years ago, the Universe generates complexity in order to have increasing novelty. Moreover, human beings are a necessary and perhaps the primary component of this process. So while I agree with Ted's observations on the degrading of artist appreciation on the part of the "listener," this is a temporary situation.
Listeners are now consumers, artists are now content creators, and real music now floats in a sea of shit. We know this. But there's a backlash, and it's slowly building momentum.
As an artist myself, I would like for the situation to change...while I'm young...ahem...but that's not the point.
Creativity is supposed to be our coin of the realm. It may actually be the only currency that survives the Great Reset! I therefore prevail upon all artists to expand their creativity, deepen their metaphysics, eat healthy and breathe. Our calling is the reason we're here, so let's steer the ship toward the eschaton and tack as needed.
Terence McKenna said and thought a great many interesting things. Sometimes he was even right. He certainly generated complexity himself.
I’ll add a quote from Brian Eno, another very interesting thinker and perhaps more grounded than McKenna:
“ [ . . . ] politics sits downstream of culture. The stories we tell ourselves and each other are how we develop and share our feelings about this world – and other possible worlds. This gives our storytellers – writers, musicians, artists, actors – incredible power to shape the space in which politicians are able to operate.”
Hopefully, Eno would not object if I were to suggest that one might substitute either the words “business” or “technology” for “politics” as a matter of general concept.
Seems like the Overton Window is closing. If I were a politician, businessperson or technocrat, I would ponder long and hard about which side of the window I'm on.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. It’s Sword of Damocles time.
"But social media platforms are driving these behavior patterns—and are the real root cause of our threatened culture.
These platforms aim to control behavior with their algorithms. They encourage passivity. This is all by design."
Respectfully i want to say yeah no shit, has nobody been paying attention? No they havent, theyve been scrolling.
"But I have a hunch that those endangered humans will fight back. They tend to do that, those pesky flesh-and-blood folk"
Really? Thats not what ive been seeing(except a very rare few). Ive been seeing people happily trade their very lives for some content feed bullshit. These people dont know how to fight, they know how to fold. Theyre so used to it theyre creased!
This isnt the first time our world has been turned up on end. What comes next will not resemble what came before. Holding on is nice for those that remember, but its simply delaying the inevitable. Music will have to find a new path(which im sure it will.. music is like love or hate, we're born with it and engage with it our whole lives, our entire history. So fret not for music, fret for us..)
It’s always been the “a very rare few” that are worth hanging out with. Simple ugly fact is that most people make sheep look individualistic, once you get past the “I’m so special” accoutrements purchased from some mass merchandizer.
As a musician in a band who literally is our social media guy, this is true. You need authenticity to break through the shitty attention spans. Assuming you have that, I think the key is doing it the old fashioned way. Getting in front of people, in person, playing shows. The more genuine form of social media growth - real people who connected to your music - can follow if you can stick to that.
The mantra used to be "location, location, location". It seems to have changed to "attention, attention, attention".
Twas ever thus. Distinguish 'tween "location X3" & "attention X3".... Madison Avenue wants deeper access to US & All Others....
Tio Mitchito in a Pynchonesque Paranoia Palimpsest
Ted, you’ve adroitly expressed exactly the challenge that I, as an independent musical artist, am facing. I am trying to make new pathways to the people who genuinely want to connect through my music. I am ditching streaming and exploring new ways to create physical/embodied experiences that cannot be possessed by ‘platforms’. Thanks for your work
“In confirmation of this, MIDIA reports that 55% young social media users want to have deeper engagement with new music. They just don’t know how.”
So much for digital natives and their supposed tech smarts.
IMO, there has been a steady trend downward regarding the importance of music from one generation to the next. My generation (I’m GenX, so I’m old now) and my parents’ generation had an almost feverish relationship with music. We talked about it, shared it, got together and *actually listened as a group*! Many people defined themselves by what style of music they liked best. We saw there was a tremendous back catalog of music that came before us, and we dove into it seeking out songs and artists that spoke to us. (Heck, I still do this! Streaming platforms are great for old dudes like me who want to keep exploring.)
That said, I have a group of friends that is about 12-15 years younger than me. While they like music, they never really went back and dug into the music of the past the way we did (and yes, of course, I’m generalizing). When I asked them one night if they go back and find older music that’s new to them, they looked at me like I was talking crazy.
The group of folks just behind them in age didn’t seem to have much taste for music that wasn’t both front and center, and also disposable.
And now it seems that, for to the youngest generation, music is just kinda there. It’s nothing to be particularly passionate about, and those that do show some passion are mostly wrapped up in the Swift craze. I love that she gets younger people interested in music, though it seems their excitement doesn’t really extend outside of the Swift craze to other artists.
So, is the environment driving new listening habits? Or, are these declining listening habits, which have roots going back several decades now, driving how music is created and presented these days.
Essentially, do we have cause and effect backwards?
Good questions. Beware of the answers!
Basically, computer games and social media have taken the place once occupied by music.
Start liking it.
Start liking it? No thanks.
I see little value in social media, and vote accordingly with my time and wallet.
Other people are more than welcome to lose themselves in that soulless time suck. Unlike your command to me, I’ll never insist that someone else should do or like something.
I said what I said, because it doesn't matter what we like.
You may prefer horses to cars. You can vote accordingly with your time and wallet. It doesn't matter. The buggy industry is never coming back.
And where did I ask for the buggy industry to come back? I was simply commenting on a trend I’ve noticed for some time.
It's an analogy, unless you are intentionally being dense. You don't have to like social media or algo music. Nor do I.
However, it doesn't matter, both are here to stay and only growing.
Yeah, I got the brilliant analogy and responded in kind. Nowhere did I state a preference for anything to “come back”.
Perhaps move on to fight with someone else?
Seems like you should have more of an issue with what Ted wrote than what I wrote.
When all you are doing is consuming, you get stuck on the platform nursing you. If you have to “play” physical media, there is ownership and a product in hand to tell you more about the artist. So passive listening is as bad as 50s television. Discovering a new library of music at your friend’s house, for instance, is just like a deep dive into library book stacks. It is beyond sad to think no one gets that chance, being raised by bots instead of parents.
I’ll also say that the zeitgeist has changed in so many ways that anything you might say about the music industry of today compared to the music industry of decades past is pretty much like howling into a hurricane. Not that the industry was particularly admirable, exactly the opposite all too frequently, but it was flesh and blood - we had real crooks running some of the best known labels of their times!
Today, my sense of it is that real musicians, you know people who play their own instruments and abhor Autotune, are not grabbing at the brass ring of mass success so much but recognize that their job is to play their local and regional markets in much the same way as in the 1940s and ‘50s. Of course, hardly anyone turns down in big time success if it happens, although there are those who find it not to their taste. And there are those who whine incessantly about not getting a fair break - as there have always been.
And, hey! It’s not like I who am pretty obsessive about music can remember the names of many artists and songs even when I'm playing the CD! If I’ve gone to the trouble of putting on some vinyl, I’m more likely to remember what I’m doing. Such is the nature of our changing times - or age, if you prefer.
They did this in the 1960s and the business survived- remember the Archies?
Anna, my cofounder, sat in on the Music Tectonics session where MIDIA presented this. She was giving us the play-by-play. The findings were pretty disturbing, but not surprising. We see it every day: great music turning invisible, even to the people who love it.
That’s why we’re building Sleeve.
It's not a new social network. It's not another monetization widget.
It's a place where artists are actually remembered.
Where fans can go deeper... and not just scroll past.
Sleeve is the fan management stack artists should have had all along. Email list, link in bio, membership, livestreams, updates... all in one place, all under the artist’s control.
It’s not retro, though people tell us it has MySpace vibes. It’s not reactionary... well... it is a little. Something's just not right. It is a logical response to a system that no longer rewards memory, context, continuity, or art.
You wrote: “The platforms don’t care if it’s music or a goofy joke or a violent crime.”
We do. That’s the difference.
We’re still in the early days, but you can see where we’re heading: sleeve.fm
Some artists are already leaning in:
→ Wally Badarou’s reflection on “Echoes of Echoes”: https://sleeve.fm/artists/wallybadarou/p/echoes-of-echoes
→ Girls in Airports’ link in bio:
https://girlsinairports.sleeve.fm/
The one new artist I know who's cutting through is Jesse Welles. He uses TikTok and Youtube to get attention, but he's also got something to say that resonates with a lot of people. If you read the comments to his songs you'll see how emotional people are about his songs and the fact that he's got the courage to say what other's are afraid to.
Ted's written a few times about a new scene or movement coming and I think when it does it will be on Jesse's model: someone who authentically says what's buried in peoples' heart.
As Ted's written so convincingly, music in the end, is subversive. Listening to the conformist commercial music the industry puts out today is like eating candy. Listening to subversive music like Jesse's is like eating something substantial. Ultimately, you can't live on candy.
Music is and has been my daily sacred ritual. Forever
This is a terrifying but also important post. The clash between creativity and vulture commerce has always been brutal. I believe that in the end creativity will win out! But only if musicians and other artists carve out those sacred spaces and guard them with devotion.
Here! 🙋♂️
For my part, I've purchased a cassette player and got my dad's vinyl out of storage. I'm only going to listen to physical media from here on out. Better for me, better for the bands I buy it from.