Napster, iPods and Rock and Roll: 5 Ways the Internet Changed the Music Business
We can all remember putting on a record. Or popping in a cassette tape. Or inserting a CD. But, for most people, these things aren’t second nature anymore. More likely, you go to your computer when you’re in the mood for music. But how did this happen? And when exactly?
It all really took off in the early 1990s. That was back when “you’ve got mail” may have been the sweetest words you heard all day, when logging into a chatroom was still a thrill. This was before Kurt Cobain died or you’d ever heard of an iPod. Now, with the IFPI’s (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry
) reporting that more than a quarter of the world’s music is solid digitally, it’s hard to believe that iTunes hasn’t even been around for 10 years yet.
Here’s how, for better or worse, the Internet changed everything about music – and fast.
1. We meet the MP3.
While the rest of us were still stockpiling CDs during the late ’80s, several groups of engineers were hammering out what would become the most important audio format of the 21st century – the MP3. The MP3 went public during the mid-’90s and over the next few years began to spread like wildfire across the Internet. The magic of the MP3 lay in its ability to compress audio into a smaller format while nearly retaining the sound of the original uncompressed audio. Its popularity was spurred especially by the introduction of Winamp in 1997. This Windows-based media player – designed by then-19-year-old college dropout Justin Frankel – allowed MP3s to be stored in a playlist and played on PCs. That same year, MP3.com launched; it featured thousands of free, legal MP3s provided by independent artists.
2. Napster reminds us that nothing in life is truly free.
Napster.com was founded in 1999 by yet another computer-savvy college dropout – Shawn Fanning – and quickly became an enormously popular peer-to-peer file-sharing service. But it lasted only two years before the record industry succeeded in shutting it down by court order in July 2001, at which time it had more than 25 million users. The most famous lawsuit against Napster was filed by Metallica, which discovered that its song “I Disappear” had leaked to Napster prior to its official release date. Stars like Madonna and Dr. Dre also joined the fight against Napster, while others – Radiohead and Public Enemy’s Chuck D, for instance – actively supported it. Napster’s service was fleeting, and too good to be true, but it whet a global appetite for – and an understanding of – MP3s. Napster declared bankruptcy in 2002, but is today owned by Best Buy and is up and running as a paid site.
3. Apple takes over our personal music collection.
Introduced in 2003, Apple’s iTunes store presented us with copious legal digital downloads and quickly dominated all other online music stores. As of February 2010, more than 10 billion songs had been purchased directly from the iTunes store, helping to bring CD sales down 50 percent from their peak in 2000. Over the past nine years, Apple has continued to build on the success of their iTunes store with a series of high-demand products – most especially the iPod but also the iPhone and the iPad – that depend on the player. This past October, Apple reintroduced its Apple TV; among other feats, the device allows users to access iTunes through their televisions. And just last month the entire Beatles catalog was made available on the store.
4. Audio blogs remind us that there is music beyond the Top 40.
Hand in hand with the MP3 came trailblazing audio blog sites and websites like Buzzgrinder.com and Stereogum.com that introduced large audiences to little-known artists. Many times these sites offered up free MP3 downloads (sometimes legal, sometimes not). In particular, indie musicians got a boost from the trend, with bands like LCD Soundsystem, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Cold War Kids breaking into the mainstream as a result of enthusiastic blogger endorsements. Today, blogs and music sites like Gibson.com’s Lifestyle are the way many of us find new music when our radio stations just aren’t cutting it. It’s a win-win situation for music fans, as many popular artists now give blogs free MP3s because of the enormous increase in attention it can bring. By the way, help yourself to free music on
http://gibson.com/.
5. Radiohead tells you to go right ahead and download their new album for free.
In October 2007, Radiohead urged their fans to just pick a price, any price, when downloading their highly anticipated seventh studio album, In Rainbows. Many people scratched their heads quite hard over this one. Why would one of the most popular rock bands in the world essentially give their album away? For several reasons: They thought they’d beat the Internet to the punch by going ahead and leaking their own album; they wanted to flip off their former record label; and they wanted to rethink the antiquated model for releasing a record. Turns out, it was a smart move. The band reported that most people paid a normal retail price for the album, and upon its retail release in January 2008, In Rainbows went #1 in both the U.K. and the United States. Nine Inch Nails, Ryan Adams and others have since followed suit.
It just goes to show you how the music industry is forever changing and how this is making DJs have to change along with it. (As I've said in so many other post)
So that's it for now but as always............"Stay In The Mix"
I haven't written a post on beat production centers since my post on the Akai XR20. This is Native Instruments latest MPC beat production unit "Maschine" which I believe is the next level to MPC because it combines both hardware and software in one unit. The link below offers some further samples of how this works and there are a few nice demo videos on there too. 
