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The transition game: love and a 45

In the fall of 1989 the major labels announced that they would stop manufacturing and distributing seven-inch singles. At that moment in time the particularly unlovely and uncoveted cassingle outsold 45s by a 10:1 ratio. What followed for the next three or four years was a flood of weird and wonderful seven-inch singles, produced by every single band with an ounce of gumption in the United States (and well beyond, including, for a time, a most curious outpouring from a label based in Helsinki, Finland). It was overwhelming. It was great fun. Many were quite good, a few signaled the arrival of startlingly innovative new talent, and no small number of young and muscular designers, cartoonists, and illustrators, and designers got to display their wares. And, inevitably, much of the output was pure shite.

As it happened, I was fortunate enough to be writing a seven-inch column for the late and lamented Rocket magazine back in Seattle during that era. Toward the end of my run, I ran onto a particularly alluring debut single from a band called Whiskeytown, which is partly the reason that particular band ended up being profiled by David Menconi in the debut issue of No Depression.

Well. During the final stages of producing each issue of No Depression I run out of time to open the mail. One of the first cleansing rituals which follows is a half-day spent tearing envelopes and returning all those tubs to the long-suffering postal employees who lug them to our back door. Weeding through seven tubs of mail brought back the memory of all those singles (which still sit in boxes in the back room) because we are, presumably, once again, at the end of the life cycle of a recording format -- the CD, this time -- and all that excess manufacturing capacity is once again producing inexpensive product for independent artists.

That is sort of a good thing, and sometimes not. Too much of the music I receive these days really isn't ready for a national audience, and it frustrates me that the musicians involved can't hear the difference.

And, tangentially, I'm reminded that the majors promised us as they were phasing out vinyl that, once there were more CD manufacturing plants, the price of the compact disc would drop down to where LPs where. Which, of course...never happened (and they still wonder why it's tough to launch new artists).

Here's a second sign of the changing order: An increasing number of new titles arrive without specific release dates. Because we seek constantly to update our "Please Release Me" schedule of release dates, I pay attention to such things more than I once did. For a time I thought this was simply sloppy marketing, but at some point opening the mail a couple days back I realized it really signified the declining importance of brick and mortar retail. For I don't know how many decades albums were released on Tuesdays. Now they come out...when they come out. In June, say. Whenever the web designer uploads the files.

Now, I realize that no matter what I type here the future isn't going to bend to my whims. But I think the music industry is making a serious, perhaps terminal mistake by so fervently embracing the MP3 and its spawn. Let's start with the notion that this file format was originated by a bunch of kids who didn't want to pay for their music and who don't value the work which goes into making that music. (Must we really allow music to be made only by trust funders?) At the same time, the industry seems never to have understood that the baby boomers -- any mature audience -- really would buy music if somebody tried to market to them or even (gasp) designed a radio format that played new music they might respond to.

And then let's remember that, for the vast majority of the population, CDs and LPs (and even 45s) were impulse buys, were gifts for friends that were easy to pick out and easy to wrap. I am mindful of something a Music Row executive said a decade ago, that they were marketing music to the people who bought only three discs a year. I'm not defending that particular paradigm anymore now than I would have then, but it's a useful reminder. As my wife pointed out yesterday, the majority of books sold in the United States are not sold in bookstores. People bought CDs for any number of reasons, not the least being that the artist changed their perception of reality on the stage just before they walked over to the merch table. But they also bought them because they were right in front of their face and it seemed like a good idea at just that moment. Retail is now worried that the DVD will go the same way, because retail benefited from the foot traffic -- if not the sales -- racking music once brought.

Most people who bought music weren't serious fans. They owned a handful of CDs or LPs or eight-tracks. Every once in a while somebody gave them one, or they bought one, or something really struck their fancy and they actually walked into a record store. Do we REALLY believe those same consumers are going to spend hours trolling MySpace or Amazon or whatever site looking for a song they like? Remember that scene in High Fidelity when John Cusack looks around the store, puts on a CD he doesn't like but knows he can sell to everybody there? I'm quite certain there are very bright people figuring out how to do that online (maybe they have and I've noticed, which is quite likely), but it ain't the same.

Now, maybe being played on "Grey's Anatomy" is the new substitute for functional Top-40 radio. Maybe. But the numbers behind the Billboard charts suggest otherwise, for they suggest that, yes, for the moment indie rock is ascendant, but only because its fans are still buying music when nobody else really is. The general public seems to be voting with its feet, and they don't care about music. And the music industry hasn't given them a reason to care, unless voting for an "American Idol" counts, and I would submit that it does not. I would pray that it does not. If I prayed.

None of which, by the way, should be taken to suggest I wish to defend the standard recording contract major labels once offered, the closest thing to indentured servitude we've seen in this country since share cropping fell out of favor. There are good reasons to dislike the majors (just as there are good reasons minor league experience prepares baseball players to hate the owners).

Anyhow...one of the problems we critics now face is disposing of watermarked advance CDs. Typically we still receive final copies of the album, and more than a few times we choose not to retain any copy of the release. But you can't even give something to a friend with your name printed on it and a warning that if it is somehow uploaded evil will fall on your head with both hooves. Browsing through the gardening catalogues, we found a solution: Tie CDs to the fence to scare off the deer. Now, if the orchard didn't freeze to death this last week, our next challenge will be to keep the deer from eating every single piece of green on the trees. So I've ferried a stack of watermarked CDs out to my father-in-law, but he's reluctant to try it. Says he thinks the deer will be attracted by those shiny things. If we get them up, I'll take a picture and see (finally) about uploading images to this blog.

There's a message in there, somewhere. I think. And, incidentally, people still send the odd 45 my way. Always makes me smile.

But just now I'm thinking that the MP3 is the cassingle of our age.

Posted by grant on April 13, 2007 11:25 AM | Permalink