The Music Industry -- Hey Pig, Yeah You.

The music industry is dying. I know most of the people I know won't give a fuck about this, but the death of the site OiNk earlier this week is such a huge fucking deal. Remember when Napster got shut down how big of a deal that was? This is a bigger deal, not because this was as popular/famous, because honestly it isn't.

The only way to explain OiNk is as follows; imagine having access to every album, single, EP and everything else music related available to you. Imagine it in high quality, with the option to get lossless FLAC files or 320kbps mp3s, usually with the album artwork included and imagine being able to get it within 5 minutes, tops. That was OiNk. People have been telling me that its not so bad, that SoulSeek still exists, that there are other torrent sites. Well yeah, there are other torrent sites, and there is still the outdated P2P programs. But the fact is, they aren't regulated. If, and rarely if I find something I want on SoulSeek, its going to take at least an hour to get, and most of the time if you try to grab more than one album from a person, they'll be a prick and cancel your downloads. P2P is outdated because you have to interact with a person and hope to holy fuck their connection holds out, or that they don't feel like signing off.

Other torrent sites are alright, but when it comes down to it, it won't have enough seeders and will take a while to download, the quality is going to be a crapshoot, you'll most likely end up with a compressed 128kbps mp3, and you are really going to have to look for it. The other day Candlebox popped into my head. I haven't heard them in ages, and thought 'Fuck, I wanna listen to that album.. Too bad I left it back in RI.' So, logically I think, I'll just grab it really quick on the net. Christ, easier said than done. After about 30 minutes of searching and attempting to download a few torrents, it was just taking too long, why am I waiting 30 minutes for a 50 mb download? If OiNk were still around I'd type in Candlebox, click a few links and I'd fucking HAVE IT.

This was baffling to me, a person who had been using OiNk for a while. Candlebox isn't even an obscure band. Its a band that was popular in the 90's and can still be heard on the radio today once in a while. I'm stuck right now, as I heard a few tracks from this band Byla, and they are just incredible, incredible, and I want to hear more. But I'll be fucking damned if I can find the album I want from them anywhere. Part of the fun was finding new bands that other people that liked bands that I like would link a band to on OiNk. I wouldn't be obsessing over Wolves in the Throne Room if whilst downloading a Cobalt album that I was drooling over, a user didn't link them to WITTR. I don't read music news sites constantly, and I wouldn't have known that Jesu had a new EP and a new album already, I wouldn't be listening to them right now.

The only way I can explain this loss is that I lost an awesome community of music lovers which had its own set of rules that seemed strict, but it was all for the good of everybody else. It seemed like a bitch to have to keep your ratio up in the beginning, and then the more you get, the more you understand that you keep shit open so people can get stuff quickly and easily just like you like to. It seemed like a bitch to want to upload something but the quality wasn't up to par, but then you realize that you wouldn't want to be downloading a low quality version. You wouldn't want to be fucking Radiohead and 'suggesting' people get a really shitty quality version of something and be happy with it. Hell, any of the pay-per-song services fucking suck. The quality is not there, the selection is dull and ITS EXPENSIVE.

CDs don't make sense anymore. Right now I have like 7 CDs in my apartment that aren't blanks/burned copies. I just have no use for them. Most of the music I listen to is on my mp3 player or on my computer. I have a nice set of speakers now for it, which helps, and it serves as my hub for all things music. I stopped buying CDs because all I was doing was buying them just so I could put the CD into my computer and rip it to a 320kbps mp3 to put on my mp3 player and listen to whenever I want. I've bought CDs and merch from smaller labels and directly from bands, but other than that, I've felt such little need to go to Best Buy and pay fucking 19 dollars for a CD that I'm going to end up leaving out, getting scratched, busting the shitty jewel case for and eventually losing.

Labels need to understand that the traditional methods of marketing are completely dead. Music Television had to in a major way repackage itself; MTV started airing reality shows and shows aimed for their usual intended audience anyway who just aren't interested in straight up music videos anymore, MTV2, the 'pure music' station had to do the same. VH1 went the same route as well. Who the fuck listens to the radio anymore? The radio is just decrepit and retarded. Nobody is going to sit by the radio for hours waiting to hear a new song, nobody cares about your DJ and their witty banter or your small corporate playlists. Clearly people want more than this. Radio is what THEY want you to listen to, what THEY think you should like. Pop music sells to kids because kids don't know any fucking better and will have their parents buy them stuff. If I want to hear a new song from a band, I have options. I can go to their myspace page and 98% of the time, their latest track/single/whatever will be up. If I dig that, I'm going to download it. Why should I waste my time being inundated with advertisements and crap I don't want to watch/hear, when I can just go right to the source and get instant gratification?

Music has always been about sharing, and somewhere along the line sharing became a filthy, illegal thing. Somewhere along the line the consumer evolved and the supplier rejected this notion and decided they were right and everybody else was wrong. Now its out of control, and its hilarious.

Radio, the Music Video and CDs are all defunct. Its time for music to move on and mean it. No more of this Radiohead marketing ploy shit, no more of this 99 cent download, DRM shit.

Further reading:

Death of OiNk -- Great Read

The Revolution

Radiohead insults its fans

Trent Reznor, OiNker