Corporate America, Calling the Tune of Mass Culture (by Philip Kennicott)

[TankGirl]

This inspiring essay by Philip Kennicott from Washington Post deserves to be reposted on our new forum as well.
Thanks for Ramona-a-Stone for picking it up. - tg


Corporate America, Calling the Tune of Mass Culture

by Philip Kennicott

A century ago, music that was shared by millions of listeners, that seemed an inseparable part of daily life, that could be used to immediately establish a bond of familiarity between strangers, would have been called folk music. Music of the people, its origins dim or forgotten. The very notion of possessing it, of controlling who could hear it and exchange it, of making a profit from it, would have been ridiculous.

The demise of Napster - if that's the effect of Wednesday's preliminary injunction shutting down access to the Internet music-exchange site as of midnight tonight - has arrested the evolution of popular music into a new kind of folk music. Temporarily, that is.

The kind of popular music created by 'N Sync and Britney Spears is an aberration in the history of music. The profits it has generated for artists and their media companies are unprecedented; its power to propel musicians into the highest ranks of celebrity, even to political credibility, is a cultural oddity.

For centuries, making music has been a profession, akin to shaving people for a living or keeping the hedges trimmed. Granted, it was a profession that required a high degree of cultivation, of practice and education; but for generations, musicians have been either shabby free agents or servants - of God, the court or the theater. (The exceptions, the virtuosos who emerged in the 19th century, were such odd beasts that no one knew quite how to identify them: They weren't aristocrats; they weren't businessmen; they weren't athletes. Perhaps they were diabolical, a new category of musician as supernatural entity - the myth that attached to violinists like Paganini or pianists like Liszt.)

Even today, the vast majority of working musicians belong not to the world of celebrity, but to the world of unions, work shifts and the struggle for decent health benefits.

Musicmaking used to be a fundamentally humble profession. Bach may have rankled at the budgetary constraints placed on him; Mozart may have thumbed his nose at the ignorance of his patrons; Beethoven may have committed appalling acts of rudeness to everyone around him. Though they were all vigilant businessmen to different degrees, musicmaking was never solely a means to financial reward; it was also a kind of service, or devotion, even "a calling." Indeed, some of their greatest works were composed without expectation of financial remuneration. Not to make music was impossible for them.

There's no rational basis for the belief that artists are somehow akin to the clergy, that they serve a higher calling and must expect poverty as part of the bargain. They deserve fame and reward like anyone else. But it is a vestigial belief that long predates our assumption that skill with an electric guitar is a fast track to the good life of country estates, fast cars and great drugs. In any case, the belief that musicians serve something beyond themselves is not easily uprooted from the societal consciousness.

And, in fact, most people who create things for a living, whether it's pottery or symphonies, have a sense of extraordinary privilege. Every morning, it's a source of perpetual astonishment that you can put food on the table doing something you love. This is the world that most musicians live in, and for these musicians, the Internet represents nothing but opportunity: the chance to be heard, to market directly to listeners, to explain oneself and promote one's concerts. They stand to gain more from the publicity power of the Internet than they would lose from programs like Napster.

Yet Americans make the mistake of equating a particular kind of popular culture - the big-splash stuff promoted by corporate America - with "American" culture, as if blockbuster movies and million-selling albums presented a whole and coherent account of creative life in America.

In a country as heterogeneous as ours, it's tempting to believe that widely shared entertainment products are, in fact, the cultural glue that holds us all together. But that kind of popular culture is very different from what was once known as folk culture, and the difference is simple. Corporate America owns popular culture; nobody owns folk culture. Napster threatened to erase the distinction.

The courts are now in the odd position of reminding us that our mass popular culture isn't really our "folk" culture - Eminem's "Kill You" is not "John Henry" - despite the fact that many a politician has flogged pop culture for somehow representing the demise of American society. It may be ubiquitous as folks songs once were, it may seem like a spontaneous blast from the cultural id, but we still have to pay for it. It wasn't really culture after all, but merely a product.

We knew this all along. We resented every hike in record prices; we resented the fads and the consumerism; we resented the ephemeral Top 40; we resented the lies, the "I love my fans" and the "I'm just in it for the art" that we knew, blatantly, baldly, weren't true.

We don't, by nature, enjoy ripping off artists. Most of us are happy to pay to see a play or a live performance, and we crave the kind of performance that allows us to further award the artist with the generosity of applause. So why do so many people enjoy the prospect of ripping off Time Warner?

Because on some level the vulgarity of corporate pop culture disgusts us, rather like we say politics disgusts us: We dislike it for its emptiness and because it makes many of us feel disenfranchised. Yet there is this unquenchable appetite for it, and that disturbs us even more.

With Napster there was the possibility of short-circuiting the entire commercial process. We would eat our way through popular culture while putting it out of business at the same time. It was an appealing idea - rather like Olestra - that we could consume the thing we both crave and resent without paying for it in the end.

Napster didn't threaten music, musicmaking or musicians. It merely threatened one very specific kind of cultural production: the mass musical object.

We have, in general, placed far too much emphasis on these objects, reading their messages like tea leaves, allowing them to stand in for culture itself. But the quiet rebelliousness - and mean little larcenous streak - that fueled the Napster phenomenon tell us something essential about mass culture: We are all sophisticated enough to both enjoy it and wish that someone would drive a stake through its heart.

© 2000 The Washington Post Company

[theflaco]

Thanks for the good stuff!

theflaco

[gazdet]

very poignant read ...thanks TankGirl

[TankGirl]

With so many new people stepping onboard, this great piece of writing deserves a bump... so BUMP!

- tg

[lezzbeefriends]

I totally agree Tank Girl!! I really enjoyed this read when you first posted it on the departed novo board. Glad you bumped it- however, I'm sure it was only a minute or two before the "KING OF BUMPS" got ahold of this top quality post!


Love to ALL the Napsterites!!!

[TankGirl]

LOL LBF, you are probably right... I am truly glad to have aaacbada around!

- tg

[Maze]

I personally invited ramona a stone to join us here. Hopefully he'll take me up on it sometime.

[TankGirl]

Hi Maze! So nice to see you!

I also hope that Ramona comes... he has such a brilliant and creative mind that it feels a waste to see his great posts sinking behind the event horizon of Nappy's Slashdot Black Hole...

And like you, I also miss Some1. There's another brilliant mind, always having something inspiring to say. I wish he would also show up here one day!

- tg

[Pacewon]

It seems like Napster it "unsinkable"... I mean Napster as software is, because of all the servers located in different countries (even here in Canada), where it's legal, but even Napster servers are back up and running fine now, and all the times we though that Napster's done for, it just keeps getting back up

[Pacewon]

Originally posted by Maze
I personally invited ramona a stone to join us here. Hopefully he'll take me up on it sometime.

Ramona a stone is a he??? LOL, I always thought it was a girl

[TankGirl]

Originally posted by Pacewon
It seems like Napster it "unsinkable"... I mean Napster as software is, because of all the servers located in different countries (even here in Canada), where it's legal, but even Napster servers are back up and running fine now, and all the times we though that Napster's done for, it just keeps getting back up

LOL Pacewon, I am also very cautious predicting any 'death' to Napster... they seem to be quite survivals and with Bertelsmann financing them they may be around for quite a while. The p2p revolution is a powerful, open-ended process full of surprises so better just keep an open mind and see how things will unfold...

- tg

[Maze]

Are you kiddin? It's always great to see you tanked one!

TankGirl said:

I also hope that Ramona comes... he has such a brilliant and creative mind that it feels a waste to see his great posts sinking behind the event horizon of Nappy's Slashdot Black Hole...

That is so very true... I really didn't stay long enough to analyze the situation in depth, but saw enough. Think I'll return to see if it's really as bad as I think.

And like you, I also miss Some1. There's another brilliant mind, always having something inspiring to say. I wish he would also show up here one day!

A girl after my own heart! I feel a real affinity with this character Some1 for several reasons I won't go into here naturally. He's had two or three occasions to be completely pissed-off at that board! I wonder what he thinks of the latest turn of events and what he's doing. TankGirl, did you read the Napster Help Protocol by ttol? Whew! Almost too much for me, but I really only skimmed it. I plan to take a closer look. Interesting stuff!

Nope. Looks like file sharing & the original Napster idea is here to stay. Call it thievery if you will, and a lot would I guess, but it's here to stay just like the board we wouldn't let die!

[relic]

why'd you guys have to steal my lightning, and bump the one thread I was going to bump! oh well...I will continue my search.

[Maze]

PS: Pace... I did the same thing and said to ramona one time: "Hey dude, I thought you were a girl!" Hahaha! His name is from a track off a music album I think.

aaacbada... In Los Angeles, CA we have an organization that helps stranded motorists off the highway called triple A. From now on with me, I think you'll occasionally be aaa.

[Maze]

Hahaha! Perfect! You help stranded threads off the highway!

[relic]

that fits perfectly...because i am in effect finding 'lost' posts on the 'highway' of the internet...and returning them to where they belong...good choice maze, i like it.

[gazdet]

Hey aaacbada maybe you would like to help out Here too?

[relic]

the thing that really bugs me about this whole p2p sharing system is how the media (at least of what I've seen) never seems to share what napster has to say back to the recording industry about this whole ordeal. the media always seems to cover what the recording industry is charging against napster, but doesn't give any attention to how napster is responding to the pressure. napster and other programs are trying their best to please both customers and the artists but the media doesn't always show this, so I think some people get the wrong picture of napster.
also i think the recording industry means well in protecting their artists but they need to allow more leeway in how the artists can handle their music. i feel the industry should look at how they handle contracts and different things, and really consider giving back to the artists more instead of hoarding a lot of the money.

i don't have anything against the media, i just feel they could do a better job reporting on the issues of file sharing. i don't know if you guys have seen news stations that say that napster shares music via it's website, but that just bugs the poopies out of me each time they say that!

(yes I know the following has nothing to do with the thread, but thought it interesting)

just to prove that I really enjoy the news I was watching the cbs evening news the other night, and they had an eye on america segment concerning cruelty to animals in movies. they showed how the group who monitors how animals are treated in movies, is funded by the movie industry itself. this is leading to animals getting killed or being over worked and nothing being done since if the group who monitors this, says anything bad to the industry about it, they lose their funding. the group says nothing is wrong with being paid by the movie industry, but you just know they are lying.

anyway that's my 2 cents for this thread. this is probably one of the longest replies i have typed .

[relic]

Originally posted by lezzbeefriends
I totally agree Tank Girl!! I really enjoyed this read when you first posted it on the departed novo board. Glad you bumped it- however, I'm sure it was only a minute or two before the "KING OF BUMPS" got ahold of this top quality post!


Love to ALL the Napsterites!!!

....i have to get in the routine again of finding posts to bump

[Moist_Funny_Head]

When hasn't corporate America, or indeed the corporate sector across the world NOT tried to "call the tune of mass culture" or try to manipulate people to the way they want us to think. My opinion is that it will only get worse in the years to come unless we move to a cashless society (which I don't see happening for quite a few decades yet). It all boils down to money and how much profit margin they can make. I blame the share market for most of this mess personally. I would love to see a society one day that rewards people with respect instead of money. The more respect you have the higher in society you can go. Maybe it's just a flight of fancy but I like it. The corporate sector makes me :maad: and I hope we can change our ways soon. I won't hold my breath though.