Free Musak – Carl Dixon

Amidst all this hootenanny about politics and ‘free’ mobile phone plans it is time to reflect on the issues of freedom, and indeed slavery, and how they have impacted upon the most wacky world of popular music.

Much discussion of such themes stems from the argument that music is a commodity – and can therefore be bought and sold in a similar fashion to factory line objects (if you’re into namedropping this is where you might want to note down ‘Adorno’). But as everybody wants to know, where do we – or more specifically the record companies and artists – draw the line between commerce and creativity. And it does take talent to make music, doesn’t it?

Now, whoever came up with the idea that you could figuratively bottle a sound and sell it to the tune of a healthy profit, was a very wise man. I dare say we would all be quite wealthy if it weren’t for that minority of companies who dominate the creation and distribution of popular music. But alas, apparently music should only be heard if it is a chance of at least going platinum. Unfortunate really, the world may never have the chance to feast its collective ears upon my beachwood marimba remix of an apple floating in fine wine accompanied by a man’s bowler hat.

But times they are a changin’.

Now that every man and his, er, monkey/dog/slave has heard about the TRULY AMAZING RISE TO FAME of a once little-known Sheffield, England band called the Arctic Monkeys. The concept of free music and its distribution through the various new, and generally free, media has become a HOT TOPIC.

For those not in the know the ‘Monkeys are a young group of upstarts who started building quite a substantial fanbase on the back of a steady touring schedule and web site on the MySpace online community. The band offered FREE downloads which struck such a chord with today’s disillusioned youth that when they signed to Domino Records in the UK, this mode of promotion remained. The end result? Two number one singles and the fastest selling debut album the UK has ever seen. Not bad for a bunch of lads not long out of diapers, let alone school.

The hype rags would have us believe that this was a victory for the little people, an advocation for the strength of word-of-mouth promotion and that the Arctic Monkeys will herald a new age whereby music consumers are not slaves to the regimented rule of the multinational companies. In other words, WE ARE FREE.

The use of enticing free products is not a particularly new method of inverting popular trends. Bands like the Brian Jonestown Massacre – forever immortalised in the rockumentary Dig! – list their entire back-catalogue online for legal download. What’s more important? Getting heard or getting paid?

But in this age of the Internet, MySpace, Blogs (Web Logs) and what not, borders are being crossed and audiences are being formed the world over, without even having to step outside, so to speak. MySpace allows mascara-faced teens to become ‘friends’ with their favourite bands.

Personal web sites or Blogs are a free and easy outlet for distributing mp3s which are often authorised or supported by artists, and promoting freedom of speech. Recently hyped overseas artists like the Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah initially built their reputation through a loyal online following which lead to a ‘mainstream’ breakthrough.

Texan band Okkervil River views the Internet as a liberating medium. In addition to exploring the obvious promotional advantages band leader Will Sheff has been known to contribute to prominent blogs like Said the Gramophone (www.saidthegramophone.com/). Last year Sheff revealed to me his immense respect for online music communities.

“I love it,” Sheff gushed. “MP3 blog’s are a really interesting format. It just makes the world a much broader place. You can listen to stuff like soul-jazz or Bollywood funk. The problem with the music press is you can go and read all about this music but then you still have to go find it. The cool thing with MP3 blogs is you can read what they’ve got to say but also listen at the same time.”

“We are a band that have definitely benefited from word-of-mouth. We were never really insiders, we could never call up a buddy who works in the industry or anything. We got lucky enough to find that people cared about the music enough to tell their friends about it.”

While the Internet has certainly given a certain freedom to music patrons, it has also contributed to issues of illegal downloading. Again it is the creativity versus commerce dilemma. Free promo singles and podcasts provided by intermediaries, like youth broadcaster Triple J, have the potential to unlock a path to success for many bands in this age of the iPod (although if we’re talking freedom, wasn’t that a great Hottest 100 we all chose?). Bands like Deerhoof, Hilltop Hoods and The Sleepy Jackson have also offered online tracks of theirs for remixing, giving the audience an even more freedom to interact with their favourite music.

The freedom to listen, and the freedom to create and distribute is stronger than ever but the freedom of speech through music a totally different matter. Without going into detail, remember the Dixie Chicks and how one billion yokels threatened to boycott their music over comments criticising a certain US president? Yeah…

(It is the freedom of the press to denounce Ben Lee as a precocious little…)