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The future
In navloging van snuggles zijn topics kwam ik deze column van cass tegen. (van cass& slide)
The Future?
If only there was a Gray’s Sports Almanac for dance music. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about what the future would hold. All the trends, all the ebbs and flows would be laid out clearly in the tome brought back from 2035 by Marty McFly. But it would appear that the lack of a flux capacitor means that all that’s left to us is conjecture and speculation.
And most speculation about the future right now is seemingly of a negative nature. Vinyl sales down, the fallout from September 11th still being felt by club owners and clubbers alike, previously imperious clubs shutting rooms that are so famous they have names of their own, cd burning, over commercialisation, too much product, the death of this kind of music, and the end of that kind. It simply appears as though the doomsayers, who predicted the end of the world in 2000, have narrowed their sights a little…
Indeed there is no doubt that record sales have taken a beating recently, although vinyl sales still remain respectable. In fact major labels have started to release major artist albums on vinyl again as a reaction to the ever increasingly ubiquitous act of cd burning. Napster, then Audio Galaxy and a myriad of other sites contain basically every piece of music that’s ever been written, often before it’s even released. Linkin Park’s ‘Hybrid Theory’ was for example downloaded 4.3 million times despite selling 4.8 million copies. I’m not too sure what 4.3 million is multiplied by £6-8 per album, but I’m pretty sure it’s lots.
That kind of lost revenue has of course resulted in the inevitable attempt to, quite impossibly, stuff the technological genie back in its bottle. From Sony’s wasted $20 million investment in anti-piracy ‘uncopyable’ cdr’s (defeated by the hi tech method of running around the outside of the cd with a black marker pen – thus hiding the encryption software) to the big boys battering audio file hosting sights with high profile law suits, then cutting pointless deals, because a new site with all the same features is available instantly the next day.
Eminem’s recent album launch was pulled forward a month to counteract the fact that it was already up on the net in its entirety. This tactic seemed to do the trick as it recorded the highest ever grossing sales figures for its first week of release. But the point still remains that a major record company had to pro-actively react to avoid a disaster because of the very acceptable face of institutionalised ‘social piracy’. And is anyone blameless about the whole messy business? Sony complains about piracy on 1 hand, and do all they can to stop it, but are also the first to sell you cd burners in their computers.
Of course if you scale all these issues down, and distil them into what’s relevant for the dance scene the picture can seem pretty bleak. Especially as, inevitably, the audience we sell to is very technologically aware and therefore are the early adopters for all forms of modern technology, like Ritchie Hawtin's preferred method of performance, Final Scratch for example. Together with the 2 ‘records’ that have all of the Time Code information on them instead of an actual physical groove, this is linked up with the Scratch Amp and the relevant software and then you have the physicality of playing vinyl and the unlimited (and cheap) possibilities of playing any music you can find on the web.
This is of course the major problem, as it is with all issues of this nature. It’s not the 500 white labels or cheeky bootlegs of the past, and is any of us truly blameless? Who hasn’t played a bootleg record, got a piece of pirated software on their computer or watched a dodgy tape of a film that isn’t even out in the cinema yet… It is however the enormity of the scale that is the real problem, as access to everything in the digital domain has reached an instantly global proportion. As soon as anything is promo’d it is inevitably up on the net and then in people’s hands before it even hits the store. And things will get much worse as more, and more people take up new technology like Final Scratch and in general become more computer literate. Instead of struggling to find the music that they want in shops, dj’s (especially those, understandably, in areas not well sourced with dance music retails outlets) will simply go on-line and get the tracks they couldn’t any other way – for free! The natural end product of this is unknown, but one question must surely be answered at some point? If no-ones getting paid anymore, who will be able to afford to make the music in the first place?
But can it really be all bad?
Unfortunately I have very little answers (as is the usual state of affairs as concerns anything). But what is clear is that there is still a lot of great music being made (in amongst the mountain of strangely derivative tracks that seem to arrive with constant alarming regularity), and electronica’s glitterati and nu breeders are doing things that seem as relevant now as ever before. All of the gigs I played recently in Australia and Asia to support my Spundae cd release were excellent. Some small clubs that only held 300 people (Auckland raise your hand) had a quite unparalleled atmosphere. The majority of the people were very knowledgeable about music and events (again through the internet) and just simply interested to see what I was playing and how.
So who really know what’s going to happen, or how, or when? What is for sure though, is people will continue to want to dance, listen to music and create it, so one has to assume that things will sort themselves out for the better (who said ‘What about the death of disco at the back?’). So for all our little brothers and sisters, (oh yes sir I can feel an AAAA-men coming on – are you with me people) let’s just raise out hands together and say ‘House music for ever baby’… Amen, good God, can I get a witness… Take it to the bridge, step back… I’m gonna hurt myself (etc, etc, etc)
Finally, I must give a special thank-you to all those at Centro in Singapore (especially Tony, Michel and Godwin) who came out and made sure that we had such a good night. Who would have thought it would be possible to dj when they serve jd and coke by the jug!
cass
http://www.residentadvisor.com.au/c...ID=71&userID=44
voor meer cass
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Tiësto is Walt Disney Dance. Thematische Pretparkhouse voor avondvullend amusement.
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mischien ook eens moeten doen? 
maar nee, DIE gaan mekkeren en proberen bv napster/ag aan te klagen.
