Action-Reaction
2008-06-26
Newton's laws of motion say, “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
A Wired magazine article called “Snacklash” explains that in a world of bite-sized entertainment from YouTube, 50-hour-long dramas like The Sopranos, Lost, or 24 are more popular than ever.
Chris Anderson remembers, “Every abundance creates a new scarcity.”
Every time a curmudgeon complains about how things are changing, remember that change leaves room for its opposite reaction, too.
Let's think of some examples, shall we?
- ACTION:
- More and more and more music to choose from.
- REACTION:
- More need for tastemakers to tell us what's good.
- ACTION:
- Less venues for musicians to play.
- REACTION:
- House concerts.
- ACTION:
- Everybody getting too much email.
- REACTION:
- Increasing effectiveness of using anything-but-email to reach people. (Phone, SMS, snail mail, Facebook message.)
- ACTION:
- The push to make recorded music free.
- REACTION:
- Reaching people who are happy to spend money to show their dedication to an artist. (One of CD Baby's top-sellers costs $150. Many of david m. bailey's fans buy all of his albums at once, at a cost of $233.)
- ACTION:
- Customized entertainment online, where you only see/hear what you want to see/hear. (Pandora, Last.fm, etc.)
- REACTION:
- The luxury of someone else choosing your entertainment, based on what they think you need to see/hear. (It's healthy to hear other points of view.)
- ACTION:
- Social network, where hundreds of people you've never met are called “friends”.
- REACTION:
- Anti-social network, a secret site where you can't see who else is on there unless you've privately communicated a shared password. Then your “friends” can be your real friends, and you can have a better (private) conversation. (No this doesn't exist yet, but that's part of the fun of this action-reaction thing : using it to imagine what should exist.)
Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, said (via the Wikinomics blog), “If you are looking for a career where your services will be in high demand, you should find something where you provide a scarce, complementary service to something that is getting ubiquitous and cheap. So what’s getting ubiquitous and cheap? And what is complementary to that?”
I have the feeling this little brainstorm just barely scratched the surface, so please leave a reply here with some of your thoughts or examples on this action-reaction subject.
It's a pet peeve of mine when people use Newton's Third Law of Physics to talk about things that are not actually what it is about. All it means is that physical forces work in pairs, not that "what goes around comes around" or whatever.
Also, anti-social networks do exist, sort of. Consider how exclusive a lot of social networks are (which of course only makes some people want in even more), and furthermore this has been parodied pretty successfully by Pheltup.com and the like.
Pet peeves notwithstanding... the point is clear. Necessity is the mother of invention. and...Going with the flow only works if you do it early. and... Going against the grain only works if you are patient and persistend. and... most importantly... there are more than 2 ways (selling discs, playing clubs) for independent artists to create value.
Good work, Derek.
--fran
This sort of thinking will be greatly needed in the coming years because so much is changing in the world. The world changed more in the 20th century than it had in the prior Thousands of years. But what is happening now may condense extreme change into an even shorter span. The loss of cheap oil will drastically rearrange everything as we know it today. All of the great oil wells that were discovered in the 50s and 60s are in decline. As these come off line there will be no more of that size to replace them. The clock is ticking and there is not much time.
Oil is the chief reason for the prosperity that has spread across the planet in the last 150 years. Food is grown on great scale because of it. All plastics, paints, heat related conversions and a million more applications are based on cheap oil. The suburbs are a cheap oil creation. In the later stages property far from infrastructure will collapse in price while property in the city centers near mass transit and close food and consumer goods access will be at a premium. I could go on much more but these extreme dislocations and destruction of differing jobs and lifestyles will press everyone to the core except for the very rich. Extreme price inflation will be the rule of the day and it has been for some time, the velocity of price inflation will increase every month.
Think how music will be affected. The cost of touring will not be conducive to the great swirl of acts that cross the continents now. Only the very biggest of groups that are able to bring in huge loads of people will be viable and even that might come into doubt at some point. Computer video networking will replace much of the physical travel that occurs now. Localization will return and musicians in Muncie will not have to compete so much with out of town musicians.
I believe that the internet music system will rule even more greatly than people can imagine. The social structures on line will become more fantastic and maze-like. Within the hellish difficulty of day to day life the creative will bring great joy to society. The blending of cutting edge avant guard video will sync tightly to space age musical concepts that are not encumbered by the demands of the physical systems in place currently. The Creative should be working right now on their grand projects, they will be getting opportunities that they could never imagine.
Action-reaction is a very good way to view it. But key will be outside of the box thinking that takes angles never before thought of. Marketing will be as artistic as the very art that it carries. All musicians should look forward to the big possibilities that are coming. No one can possibly envision the new world that is coming.
I love to live in these times where so much is possible. Whenever I get stuck, I try to understand the whole picture. And then I find ways. Like the tao, everything exists in opposites. Stepping away from one side one can see the beauty of the dual. These are times for us artists to make our dreams come true. And help our audience to feel and grow their dreams.
Action / reaction: For more than 2 decades I have been creating my music in the studio, always refining and reflecting, making things perfect.
But these days I'm also trying something new:
Morning Tune Up, a daily videoclip with uncensored improvised music to greet the new day. Just a photocamera that takes vids, the sound is through the built in mic. Just recording whatever is there. It's here: http://sexyguitar.blogspot
Hi Derek!
I love your chain of thoughts here. One time before, you mentioned about how albums are no longer in fashion -- which may in turn create a demand for long concept albums, similar to what you said here about TV shows.
Even if not a "concept" album, I think smart musicians like Tori Amos and Steve Vai have been trying to make their albums a larger piece of thematic work, instead of collections of random songs.
Here's another trend: music is becoming files, non-physical and portable entity.
Reaction: CDs and physical media will go the way of vinyl. It becomes a status symbol. It's a sign that you care about your artist enough to own the music in physical formats, with elaborate artwork, extended booklets,
and superior sound quality (surround mixes?). You care so much, that you'll spend physical real estate to store the media and take care of it as it were a jewel. Again, smart artists like Nine Inch Nails are already exploring this counter-trend, by offering ravish executive packages at the same time as free mp3 downloads.
ari
Great timing with this post!
I would like to comment specifically on the emerging "Anti-Long-Tail" reactive phenomenon (let's call it ALT) since the belief in Anderson's theory has been a cornerstone of many recent artists' declarations of independence.
I have been thinking and writing all month about how the Long Tail theory is predictably coming under scrutiny and how inevitable it is that every trend is met with an anti-trend. I am psyched to see these concepts being addressed on this blog.
A couple of pieces which led me to decipher the current ALT trend were Paul Resnikoff's "Parting Shot" in the Digital Music Newsletter on May 13th, 2008 entitled "Where's My Long Tail Playbook?" (http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/051308parting) and the July/August 2008 Harvard Business Review article by Anita Elberse (http://drfd.hbs.edu/fit/public/facultyInfo.do?facInfo=res&facEmId=aelberse%40hbs.edu) entitled "Should You Invest In The Long Tail?"
Not surprisingly, both authors have come out against the Long Tail perspective and have drawn upon lots of solid statistical evidence to support the case for the persistence of the blockbuster model of entertainment industry success.
I was so provoked by Resnikoff's post that I immediately responded by drafting a five page essay about how there were so many more choices than the either/or model of "superstardom or starvation" would have us believe and that an artist's success goes well beyond only economic and critical factors...but that is another conversation.
So what is going on?
Taoism? Physics? Curmudgeons? I suspect it is all of them and more.
There will always be large trends and anti-trend trends. A juicy musical example is the resurgence of authentic acoustic American roots traditions on the heels of an overabundance of manufactured-sounding technologically-inspired music.
Everything is in motion, perpetually changing and shifting. The adventure is in discovering what's going on each day, not in pinning it down.
JP
The opposite reaction may not be obvious. It may be several tiny successes that create the star or a decade of disappointment that breaks a dream or a combination of the two to keep someone hoping they can win the nonlinear tug-of-war, pulling on ropes tied to giants playfully budging.
Cheers to all who are making music regardless of the results.
Great post and train of thought.
Here's one worth sharing:
Action: High fuel costs make touring tougher.
Reaction: New site that hooks you up with free lodging
http://betterthanthevan.com/
My mind is buzzing with ideas....
ACTION: The US dollar is diving.
REACTION; More US citizens will get their scuba cert's.
NMW
ACTION: People obsessing all day long with electronic communication devices (texting, e-mailing, cell-phoning,ipoding, video gaming).
REACTION: People turn off devices - begin to study and play their instrument all day long and show up to the gig actually making music.
"What is getting ubiquitous and cheap?"
Cellular phone service? Online video? MP3s?
ACTION: Sedentary, computer- and electronic entertainment-driven lifestyles lead to physical isolation and lack of exercise.
REACTION: Renewed interest in dancing and old-fashioned showmanship/theatrics (High School Musical, Broadway, Las Vegas shows, MTV Dance Crews, Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, Dance War, and many others). Fans come out to shows because they know they'll get an endorphin high not found online.
Conversely, what is becoming expensive?
ACTION: Gas prices are rising in the U.S. and people are driving shorter distances.
REACTION: Urban centers will revive, hosting concerts and hiring artists to attract shoppers.
I lke to just take a guitar everywhere and just play anywhere, to anyone. Mostly it has been received positively.
I like to just take a guitar everywhere and just play anywhere, to anyone. Mostly it has been received positively.
Maybe one aspect of this discussion is that with every technological advance that gets made, you also lose something that falls in the area of taste. Cds came along but now people who are into vinyl say the sound is not as good, album artists say the artwork from the covers from Lps was better. I still think the most exciting thing is hearing a live music performance made by great musicians with the crowd all bunched up elbow to elbow all together transported to another place by what they are hearing. YOU CAN'T BEAT THAT!
John was doing "house concerts" when I met him 1982. He played his original classically based piano works at private homes in the nicer parts of the Bay Area. He played at a Designer Showcase in the Pacific Heights neighborhood where they had a piano but no one was playing. He walked in, saw the piano, sat down and had a gig for several weeks, where he sold his cassette albums and where he met his first major sponsor, Dixie Mahy. She coordinated the House Concerts for him to play, and gave him a studio apartment to live, write music and practice in.
Mr. Sivers, you are kicking ass and taking names, thinking ahead and clearing the jungle for those who follow. How about this;
Problem-Lack of live music venues for musicians to play.
Solution-pay per view electronic house parties, or piped-in club dates so that people who refuse to leave their houses can watch, listen, and feel like they are out and about on a Saturday night. Of course, they could record it and watch it again, but the chances are, they would want something fresh the next week.
" Anti-social network, a secret site where you can’t see who else is on there unless you’ve privately communicated a shared password. Then your “friends” can be your real friends, and you can have a better (private) conversation. (No this doesn’t exist yet, but that’s part of the fun of this action-reaction thing : using it to imagine what should exist.)"
Actually, this DOES exist.
It's called Ning.com and anyone can build a private (or public) social network there, and even make it invite-only if they choose or manually approve new members.
And fitting to the action-reaction cycle, the ability to make private networks is making Ning grow HUGE.
Also, even large public social net sites can create private or invite-only discussion groups/forums, but some may not trust the "privacy" if people may somehow see that you are in that group, etc...
The "anti-social network" actually does exist, I've seen a few examples where the elite of a big, popular forum create their own secret invite-only forum.
Here's an example of one anti-social network: http://www.planetcrap.com/topics/290/