Thursday, April 12, 2012

How The Internet Has Changed Music - Week 2

The Internet is a vast, somewhat new world. Has it benefited music in a positive or negative way?

On the internet we have Youtube, Facebook, The Pirate Bay, Limewire, Itunes, Myspace, (it's still alive) Pandora, Playlist, Rhapsody, Ultimate-Guitar, Amazon and Twitter. What do all of these websites and applications have in common? They all have influenced modern music in a unique way. 

The internet changed how we find and acquire music

It's 2012, the way we acquire music has changed and is always changing. Most music listeners do not go to a CD store or Walmart to purchase music anymore. The internet has changed how we are exposed to music. I personally love Pandora and everything about it. Sure, it gets repetitive and sometimes the artists are not the correct genre but Pandora can expose you to some phenomenal music. Social networking brings the artist straight to our doorstep. It lets us connect with an artist at any given moment and music can be distributed to fans in an instant. This has given countless musicians more chances to give themselves exposure. This is a very good thing!

The internet changed how we learn about music

This is the generation of self taught musicians! More beginners are learning music online. I myself learned a good portion of my own knowledge from the internet because professional instruction that one would pay hundreds of dollars for is now free and accessible twenty-four seven! For guitarists, a very good site is (has nothing to do with me) For bassists, Sites like these are of professional grade. Sure, there are the bad ones but aside from those the internet has become an encyclopedia for musical knowledge and has been helping people like you and I for years!

The internet changed how we organize live music

When is the last time you saw a physical show flyer? Social networking has become the king of bringing musicians and concert goers together and letting them organize shows and network. Through my own personal experience with local music, I would say 60% of a local bands exposure comes from the internet.  With that in mind, inviting people to come to your concert via networking can be much more beneficial than in-person marketing. Let's do an example. Lets say a band has a Facebook page that has 3,000 likes on that page. This band has a big concert coming up in a month, makes an event page for it and invites all 3,000 people to it. Those 3,000 people will see that as soon as they log into their Facebook. Compare that to posting a flyer in a music store that people usually just ignore if they even see it in the first place. With more people being interested in concerts, more people attend. More attendance results in better live music.

The internet has most definitely changed how we look at, create and promote music. In my personal yet humble opinion, the internet has BENEFITED music. The industry nuts will argue with me saying, "The internet has killed music! Everyone gets it for free! Labels are dying! Lower quality music is getting popular! The industry is dead! The internet is NOT A GOOD THING!" I respond with this explanation...

The music industry is not dead, it has just changed and has been leveled. Instead of greedy corporate labels controlling the industry, the industry is being controlled by the musicians. Anyone can make a name for themselves at any given time and that my friend is a VERY GOOD THING.

Until next week, stay loud and proud.

Music recommendations for this week.

Kraftwerk - Radioactivity
Streetlight Manifesto - The Receiving End Of It All
Unwed Sailor - Firecracker


  1. I totally agree. The internet has completely changed almost the entire music world for the better. There is now so many different ways to share your music and music you enjoy just by choosing a few buttons on facebook. With different sites like facebook, youtube, pandora, twitter, and so on having options to share through each other, you and your friends can be shown so many different genres of music on a daily basis. Record companies and artists make huge profits just by having their artist's music on sites like iTunes and Pandora. The pros of having music on the internet far out-way the cons.

    By the way your blog is awesome. The posts have been very enjoyable to read. The variety of music that you recommend is very cool too.

    1. It truly has changed the entire game, and has given more people more chances to create the music they want to create.

      Thank you for the response! Be looking out for week 3 and 4, they are going to have a twist!