Band kibbutz
Bruce Warila is a futurist music blogger and his advice for bands on the internet is to form a consortium that pools resources and works towards a kibbutz-style cooperative online socialism whereby the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Essentially this would be a new type of record label but more where every band is some kind of equal shareholder.
One key hypothesis of this theory is the following from Bruce:
Standalone Artist Websites And Profile Pages Are Not Entertaining
By default, and by the nature of what it is, a website or profile built around ONE artist/band cannot easily compete (but it is possible) with other sources of entertainment like video games, Internet games, Internet radio, 500 television channels, movie downloads, or even with the activity of surfing the Internet, YouTube or MySpace for entertainment.
As a consequence of this hypothesis, he advises:
A gang, a consortium, a syndicate, or an alliance of many artists working together can competitively deliver the WE ENTERTAIN YOU value proposition on the Internet, and more effectively in the physical world. Where a single artist struggles with just being informative on the Internet, numerous artists on a single site are instantly entertaining.
This feels like an interesting premise but strikes me at the gut level as a misreading of how the internet actually works. The concept strikes me as a 2001 Yahoo! business strategy namely – that artificial or manipulated branding and aggregation will trump natural and individual aggregation.
Why? Because, I believe the power of the internet lies not in groups forming together to impose a “group voice” but rather individuals creating a single authentic voice and systems and platforms serving to unite those voices through natural relationships. Meaning, why do I need to ‘form a consortium’ when the same mechanism is accomplished through the simple concept of the hyperlink or through feed aggregators like Bloglines or Google Reader? I know that I don’t really like ‘group blogs’ and drift away from content that looks to aggregate too explicitly. I know that the most powerful voices for me on the internet are single individuals.
It’s might be true that many people working together in some kind of cooperative may be able to further each other’s careers and awareness than just one group working on their own. In the political world, The Atlantic pursues this strategy uniting Andrew Sullivan under an umbrella brand with other bloggers like Megan Mcardle and Ross Douthat. Maybe I’m just too much of an individualist, however, because the idea of having to manage that infrastructure, having to merge those brands and do the marketing to expose those brands, feels like just more work taking me away from what I think should be the primary focus which is songwriting and song creation.
Bruce also strongly advises that for the band kibbutz to be effective, the bands should focus on creating music within the same genre – to give the brand better definition and awareness and to create more momentum within a sub-category.
Again, an idea that is contrary to the reason I’m in the practice of self-expression in the first place. I’m only interested in continuing to make music to the extent that I’m able to try on different genres and different styles without the need to conform to a specific musical identity. Given that I (probably) won’t be making money at this anyway, having to compromise on that front seems so deflating. I’d rather focus on that which makes me really fulfilled and happy, even if it doesn’t fit within the same genre that I previously trafficked in.
There are definitely examples of this idea working. John told me about this collective of experimental musicians including one of his professors from Cal Arts who have formed exactly this type of relationship. And I think it’s working.
So I don’t feel as strongly against this idea as I did when I first read the article. Because there are people that are using this approach and it’s working for them. And I’m slightly undecided right now.
But, for me, while I am interested in structured collaboration to a certain extent, I’m primarily interested in individualism in art. I find individual voices more compelling. I find group constructs useful only if they’re able to reveal a powerful individual voice that I identify with.
September 21st, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Here is the link to that composer collective: http://www.timescraper.de/
Based in Germany, which makes it easier for them to get funding and the like. Perhaps an idea for future bands could be to link together in non-profit status? Not sure what the implications of that could be. But I do understand your reluctance to become ‘generic’. You would lose some freedom. But a consortium of friends and other musicians can make things stronger. Support for each other for one, just going to each others shows for one. I see that already with the musicians you are playing with.