Duran Duran bassist John Taylor railed against Twitter and YouTube in an article for the BBC recently that’s actually an extract from a speech for the 40th anniversary of the first message sent over the internet.

There’s some oblivious banter about how we’re in a creative recession (”… the speed and growth of new technology, which has been so heralded and so much fuss has been made of, has actually served to disguise how little real growth is taking place at the artistic level”) and how the more musicians Twitter their every thought, the more it dilutes their creative power (not to mention the power over their audience).  He relates this all to a 1972 televised performance from Roxy Music that left him wanting more. But there was no internet, no video tape to capture the moment, so he had to go off and seek out and buy the record out of basic necessity. I’m going to guess it was uphill to and from the record store as well?

And then he goes on to wonder what if he had had the performance at his fingertips to watch as many times as he desired? Would he have cared at all to go out and buy the album? Basically, Taylor says that all the access in the world would’ve neutered his obsession with the band and he’d have ceased being a fan at all.

I mean, number one, that’s not really a valid point since he’s merely assuming that’s what would’ve happened.

Also, at the time of the performance, television was the latest medium for delivering music to a fan. What about old folks in that time? Were they miffed that kids like him got to sit on their ass at home and take in the performance, when back in their day the only way to go see a band was to pay for the ticket and go to the club where you could get the sweat on ya? It’s all relative.

I’m not saying that a little modesty and discretion wouldn’t help matters, but every day it’s being proven that regardless of technology, people will still pay for music, and that the internet is nothing if not a music fan-engagement machine. Through various platforms of social media, fans get to feel more connected than ever before to their favorite musicians. I’d actually argue that fans are more aggressively obsessed than ever before.

The problem with Taylor’s statement is that, as with Duran Duran’s career in the pop mainstream, popular music depends on legions of casual fans, willing to let the radio and other high-powered marketing mediums tell them exactly what to buy without having to give much of a crap. And in that way, with the mainstream, yeah, culturally not a lot is happening on that front. So, uh, case closed on that one. There’s more bands than ever these days, and so plenty is happening both creatively and culturally in the “underground.” And these bands need the free mediums to even get their music heard in the first place. Maybe, just maybe one of their songs will score an advertising spot on TV. But they won’t actually get to play on TV. So, the reality is that to get to the good stuff going on in music, the environment of the music industry still requires of music fans a rather deep level of obsession, just like he experienced with Roxy Music.

If up-and-coming bands of this generation hold back too much, they won’t be heard. There’s far too much noise and far too many bands willing to exhaust the mediums available to co-conspire with their fans.

Discuss.

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