Each individual's experience within culture is unique. There is no way to quantitatively explain how the internet has changed how my generation or any individual within that subgroup, has experienced music. We all have distinctive, but interconnected experiences with music. The best I can do is to explain the experience in the context of the ways in which I have been exposed to music in mass media, as I am a part of mass culture.
Most of us go through music evolutions in our lifetimes. We often start off listening to whatever our parents expose us to and then move on to what our older siblings tell us is cool. Eventually we develop a musical taste of our own. Before mass media, music was much more regionalized. There was a distinct sound to each genre based on locale. While that still exists, to some extent, it is not to the same degree due to the increased ability to find influence without geographical barriers (Peterson, 1974). The ways in which we are exposed to music have also progress with time. It was only about 120 years ago that the first sounds were recorded. My generation (born in the mid to late '80s) started leaps and bounds ahead with cassettes and moved to CDs and now we get most of our music from the Internet. The Internet and MP3 players are exceedingly more convenient and portable than any device we have had in the past for listening to music. Not only is the technology revolutionary, so is the way that we gain access to new or previously unknown artists. There is yet to be a better way than the Internet to discover new artists and increase exposure to unfamiliar genres. The Internet is a tool that music lovers, including myself, use to expand our musical knowledge and inflate our music libraries. The Internet has become an integral part of how my generation buys music, decides whom we will listen to, and where we go to see live music.
As a youngster, I had mixed exposure to music. My first concert was Robert Cray when I was four. Unfortunately, I would have rather been at a New Kids on the Block concert. I was a little obsessed, owning way more New Kids on the Block memorabilia than any one child should ever, ever own. Even now I will fess up to having “Hang Tough” on my itunes. It is funny how the Internet has even allowed me to keep up with my guilty pleasures in music. Now I would not even buy a New Kids on the Block CD from the bargain bin, but the dollar seemed worth the laugh that I get every time it shows up on shuffle.
While I still have musical skeletons in my closet (like most people), I cannot quantitatively explain how much the Internet has changed my repertoire of music or even the genres I chose to listen to. I can say that it has enlightened me in many ways and contributed to my love of music. The best example is how I fell in love with the blues. I used to think that blues was for old people and that it was the same ‘done me wrong’ lyrics with a different mix of words. Then I saw my dad watching a video of Johnny Lang online. Johnny Lang was in his mid-teens when his first album came out. It gave me a new perspective on what the blues was. Now I cannot get enough. My love of the blues spread to different artists and even different generation of musicians. I discovered a truth and vulnerability that, for me, is lacking in so many other genres.
While blues might not resonate the same way for everyone else, the capability of musical exploration gives each one of us a chance to find that song, artist, or genre that makes us look at life with a new perspective. The Internet allows us to be our own DJ. There is no one who limits our musical exploration. At the click of a mouse, you can hear music from all over the world. The Internet has made the world seem smaller in a way. This availability has even assumed a new role in the way that my generation experiences music. We experience it together in the form of fan sites, reading blogs from our favorite artists, watching youtube videos, downloading mp3s, and even though the use of places like myspace and facebook. Before the Internet, the limits of musical exposure were the radio, TV, the contents of your pocketbook, and the time to takes to dig through record store bins.
I find most of the new music that I fall in love with by perusing through favorite musicians that my friends list on myspace or facebook. Many of my friends send me links to videos or myspace pages dedicated to different musicians. If the link comes from someone that I mesh with musically, I will always listen to a few songs.
I am frequently added by bands on myspace. Sometimes they are just local bands that are looking for people to come out to their shows; sometimes they are growing national acts. In terms of advertising, it is perfect because the viewer has the chance to decide whether they are the target audience and it allows the band to spread their music. This is a great example of how the Internet allows for mutually beneficial music sharing.
Sometimes people magnetize to certain genres. You don’t have to be eclectic to benefit from the ease of the Internet. We can all culturally identify with the genres we love. In some ways, music is a means to relate or even pretend to be someone were not. My best friend and I grew up on a large horse farm out in the country. Growing up in the situation that we did, with country music on in the barn everyday, it is almost impossible to not love Country even just for nostalgic reasons. We have not gone to a single country concert where we could not pick out a whole mass of people pretending to be “country.” The pristine cowboy boots that have never seen a stirrup or a puddle of mud, the cheap cowboy hat and the mini-skirts gave it away. We always found it amusing that all of these people were there listening to the music that is not about anything that they had ever lived. They were frontin. They did not understand what it meant to be out in the barn at 6:00 am everyday or how much work it was to put up hay or fix fence. So what was the draw? Is it this “increasing cultural homogeneity”? Country, much like other genres (Blues, Rap, etc.) has spread beyond its once regionality and even once present class associations (Peterson, 1974).
So what drives the city kid to a go to a country concert or a suburban kid to a rap show? The answer is simple. The exposure to the culture somehow makes us feel like we want to be part of the subculture. In essence, with each computer with Internet access, the cultural lines get closer and closer. It is exceedingly common to enjoy what may have once seemed like completely opposing types of music. In a way these online communities that have spawned real-life communities, are blending the lines and dissembling the groups core. At one time music spoke about where you came from and what your ideals were. With the addition of members to a community with a different background, diversity is increased within the group, but homogeneity is increase amongst the entire population. Alan Jackson pokes fun at the phenomenon in his song “Gone Country.” The song is about how these “Country” singers decide to become country when they see the prospect of money, not because they relate to the music or the subculture.
She's been playin' in a room on the Strip
For ten years in Vegas
Every night she looks in the mirror
And she only ages
She's been readin' about Nashville and all
The records that everybody's buyin'
Says 'I'm a simple girl myself
Grew up on Long Island'
So she packs her bags to try to her hand
Says this might be my last chance
(Alan Jackson, 1994)
Not only has music allowed us to relate to others, it has given us the chance to experiment with our own identity. The information available on the musical communities and what each genre is rooted in, is endless on the Internet.
This leads me to the next way that the Internet has helped my generation expand our musical outlook. The Internet is a convenient way to track when your favorite artists are going to be in your vicinity. I use online resources to track the Madison and Milwaukee music scenes. Recently I have become dependant on a Facebook application which alerts me when one of my favorite musicians is playing locally. I’m sure there are multiple applications with similar functions, but the one I use is called ilike. This application’s use is two fold. Not only does it tell me when my favorite musicians are coming to town, it will tell me who else on my friends list is interested or planning on going to the show. It is easy to drop a message or a comment to any of my friends and arrange to meet up for the show. Concerts are always more fun with someone to share it with. . The Internet is a convenient way to track when your favorite artists are going to be in your vicinity. I use online resources to track the Madison and Milwaukee music scenes. Recently I have become dependant on a Facebook application, which alerts me when one of my favorite musicians is playing locally. I’m sure there are multiple applications with similar functions, but the one I use is called ilike. This application’s use is two fold. Not only does it tell me when my favorite musicians are coming to town, it will tell me who else on my friends list is interested or planning on going to the show. It is easy to drop a message or a comment to any of my friends and arrange to meet up for the show.
As useful as the ilike application is, myspace still has a place in keeping up to date with musicians as well. Many bands will use myspace bulletins to announce upcoming CD releases, shows, and any other important news. On myspace, unlike the ilike application, the contact between fan and artist is bidirectional. At least once every couple of days I will receive a friend request from a band. I am always on the lookout for new music, so I will give every musician a chance. Most often, they are local bands, which give me a chance to listen to them before I drive somewhere and pay a cover fee to see them. Either the national acts that have added me usually do so by adding people from the friend lists of bands that have a similar sound or from a band they are touring with. In most circumstances, it is mutually beneficial. It is a marketing tool for the band and I usually only get added by bands that are at least within the realm of my musical affinities.
Each of us finds our own way of relating to the music we love. Sometimes it is a means of therapy to which we turn if we have a bad day, been stuck in a bad situation, or even just to cheer ourselves up. Even when life is going well, music can serve as a way to keep it that way (Aigen, 2005). At the touch of a button, we can all go to the song that makes us smile. For me, it is “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison. Sometimes we need to relieve a little stress by singing our favorite angry song on the top of our lungs (or maybe that is just me.)
Whatever the motivation for the music we listen to, there is no doubt that the Internet has changed our social interaction when it comes to music. The limits on musical exploration have been lifted. With this freedom we have developed communities that are becoming increasingly diverse. The Internet allows us to span generations, genres, artists, and even communities. Each expansion and diversification of these communities changes mass culture. There is no question that music changes in much the same manner.
Sources:
Aigen, Kenneth. Music Centered Music Therapy. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers, 2005.
Firth, Simon. "Questions of Cultural Identity." Music and Identity (1997) 108-127.
15Apr2008
Gossburg, Lawrence. Mediamaking: Mass Media in a Popular Culture. 2nd. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publishers, 2005.
Jones, Steve. "Music and the Internet." Popular Music 1911Dec2000 217-230. 15Apr2008
Peterson, Richard A., Paul DiMaggio, and "From Region to Class, the Changing Locus of
Country Music: A Test of the Massification Hypothesis." Social Locus of Country Music (1974): 498-516.
Peterson, Richard A.. "Popular Music Is Plural." Popular Music and Society Vol. 21(1997): 57-85
Wilensky, Harold L.. "• Mass Society and Mass Culture: Interdependence or Independence?." • American Sociological Review Vol. 29, No. 2(1964) 173-197.
13Apr2008
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