Independent Resurgence and the Demise of the Mainstream

I always look to trends in music as indicators of shifting consumer patterns.  Music is a great bellwether for predicting significant shifts in popular culture.

Rock ‘n’ Roll overthrew swing bands in the early 50s, bringing a whole new wave of fashion and culture.  Then, in 1964, America turned to the Beatles as those pop culture heroes from the 50s became increasingly faded, bloated and over-produced.

In the mid-Seventies, punk and hip hop raised a street-level middle-finger to the faded, increasingly bloated music of the time – disco, prog rock, and stadium rock.

In the early 90s, grunge and “mainstream independent” music was a response to the fading, bloated excess of the mid-80s hair-and-fashion-based music of the time.

Of course, like all trends, each of these revolutions were co-opted and commercialized by the mainstream.  The Beatles begat the Monkees.  The Sex Pistols begat Adam and the Ants.  Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five begat MC Hammer.  Hell, you could say that Nirvana begat Limp Bizkit.

However, Nirvana’s Nevermind (which I will use as a revolutionary benchmark) was released in 1991, and nothing has shook the ground that hard since. Toronto’s “New Music” radio station still rotates Nirvana and early Pearl Jam (to say nothing of early Tragically Hip) more than any other music, in spite of the fact that the latter two have a deep well of great (and more current) ‘new music’.

I think we are overdue for a revolution.

The problem is that consumer consumption habits have changed significantly over the past decade.  According to my prior examples, a “revolution” should come along about every fourteen years or so.  By that math, 2005 should have been the tipping point – but by that time, music downloads were rampant.  The recording industry was reeling.  And more significantly, people weren’t buying actual recordings (in the traditional, physical sense).  If people were buying music, they were downloading MP3s (which are a significant step back in terms of audio quality compared to 24-bit CDs).  MTV and Much Music didn’t play music anymore.  Clubs and bars didn’t host original live music anymore (at least in Canada, compared to the live music explosion of 1990 – 1995).

Since 2005, our mainstream pop culture touchstones increasingly rest with television – and not “music television”.  Canadian/American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, and auto-tuned vocals are the new normal.  If a revolution was ever due, the time is now.

So where are the revolutionaries?

The revolution is already here.  There are songwriters telling better stories that ever.  There are bands with more edge than ever.  There are bands with less edge – though intentionally so, to great emotional effect.  And, there are bands that are finding new and innovative means of reaching a new audience.  The difference is that these musicians aren’t enormous “stars” – they are simply career musicians, period.

My point is that some revolutions are coup d’états, while others happen gradually - slowly, until everything has changed and nobody is the wiser, and everyone is generally better off.  These are the revolutions of the end-user.  In commerce, like in politics, the majority (and end-user demand) usually has a way of ruling things sooner or later.

The “digital revolution” may have thrown off old patterns of creative revolution, but it hasn’t fundamentally damaged the artistic world – it has just necessitated some innovation.  At worst, it has defined niches that are supported by the fact that artists have potential access to a global market, rather than a local market: artists may not need to water-down their vision in order to pay bills.  Great art is, by nature, often polarizing – but if a potential audience is global rather than local, then you can “polarize away”, secure in the knowledge that those who like your work will be equally as large a group as those who don’t like it.  You can comfortably ignore the naysayers, because the fans are potentially greater than you ever could have found through conventional means.

This new revolution is about distribution.  The old musical revolutions were still supported by a major-label economic structure that helped to motivate the masses.  Now, artists can motivate their audience themselves, with a bit of excellent creative work, and some creative self-marketing.

The new revolution is not about mass-consumer choices, but creative freedom, distribution opportunities, and economic reward.  The same goes for any brand marketing – businesses large and small can focus on their target and/or niche better now than they ever could before.  The classic “Four Ps of Marketing” include placement – which means product distribution and availability to the consumer.  Businesses, like musicians and artists, can now also communicate with a closely-targeted market with efficiency and effectiveness, and they can gain the economic benefit that flows from that level of focus.