Fully Exposed

"I'll know I'm old when I stop caring about new music."

My friend John said this to me years ago, at some point during our senior year of high school.

New music can be something you've just never heard. When I was in 7th grade I "discovered" Pink Floyd and The Who because of a 9th grade boy on my bus who made me tapes any time I asked what he was listening to.

New music can be a new style you've never cared to check out. When I was in 9th grade a guy named Brandon handed me a CD that was making rounds within his circle of friends. Their enthusiasm alone made me eager to listen to Nirvana's Nevermind for myself. Several TV shows use interesting music, and sometimes fans of those shows share that music, and now thanks to a random fan of House somewhere on the internet, I adore Goldfrapp.

New music can be just that - brand new music. As much as I don't want to, I always get sucked into watching American Idol. Even though he isn't the best singer, I think Blake is wonderful (Charlotte disagrees) - he's fresh, he mixes it up, he's not afraid to turn music sideways. Carlos and I keep talking about how much we wish everyone would stop comparing him to Justin Timberlake - because Blake is so much more musically interesting to us.

Being exposed to new music can be challenging; being exposed to new music that you want to listen to takes some serious effort.

As I was finishing up my college years, I started listening to Dave Matthews Band. Soon I found myself in the wonderful world of live music trading. I started out with some B+P offers here and there, and soon had my own (rather small) list of live shows available to listen to and trade. And as people sent me shows, they would occasionally throw in an extra disc or two of a different band they though the world deserved to hear, and I was exposed to even more music.

I started frequenting a handful of message boards centered around certain bands and/or the live trading scene. I read about new bands daily. A few years ago I took a suggestion to show up to a Dave Matthews Band show early enough to catch the side stage act called Carbon Leaf. I discovered one of my favorite bands.

As we were enjoying post-practice wine after our quintet rehearsal last night, the subject of listening to music came up. We discussed the fact that whatever you're into in your early 20s becomes your identity and what you continue to listen to. Holly revealed she doesn't listen to any new music - and she doesn't know how to find it. The question was asked, "Do you know how to steal albums off the internet?" Of course Holly didn't, and a few minutes later she had a burned CD in her hand of something newish to listen to and report back on, because she's become someone's "music project".

Most of the people I've mentioned in this post are musicians. They create and play music. They deserve to be paid for their time, and effort, and talent. So why do we freely give away other artists work?

Because it's good and we think other people should know that.
Because we have an emotional connection with it and we want to share that.
Because we're that excited about a song or a band that we want our friends to get into them as much as we are.
Because exposing people to something new might just create more people to invest in that artist's work. Those people then decide they want to hear more of that band, and go buy a CD or download some singles off of itunes.

I've generally found that people who share music are the ones most passionate about music. Sure, there are those people who just don't want to pay for anything because they're cheap, or just because they grew up with (old) Napster and that's all they know. Those people tend to be the ones who listen to highly marketed music for awhile, and then move on to the next big thing - music is disposable to them, so why would they want to invest a lot of money into it? I'm not saying it's right to not pay for your music - I'm just saying I can understand that mentality.

There is an interesting article on jambands and copyright. Jambands are often financially successful, even when they are just 4 or 5 guys touring around in a beat up van. Jambands discovered that if you play good music, people will love it. They'll want to listen to it all the time. They will respect you as people and artists, and as such they want to throw money in your direction so you can keep making more great music. (Here's another article about live music trading if you're interested in it's impact on artist revenue, record sales, etc.). I also discovered as I listened to more and more jambands that the fans are seriously into music, and they are into a lot of different kinds of music. My music appreciation grew much more from these people than from my music literature class in college.

Stealing music off of the internet (or anywhere else) is not okay. Downloading music to see if you like it, trading live music shows (from bands who allow taping), giving your friends a mix tape - all better than okay. As long as the result is more people hearing good music, and more people supporting good music through album sales, concert tickets, merchandise, whatever they like, everyone can be happy and enjoy good music.

Now I have to go listen to the U2 show from 1987 that I just downloaded.