The Hunt Is On

There’s an excitement in hunting for music. A primeval evolutionary leftover from our species’ humble hunter/gather stage is activated as I open the door to my town’s dinky used record store. Immediately the scent of delicious bands and scrumptious music hiding in the shelves and among the brush cater to my overwhelmed nose. With predatory speed and instinct I rip through the rows of albums, delighting when my fingers finally reach the plastic foil of my desired music, salivating on the cashier as he rings up my total. An exaggerated account it may be, and entirely a false one. Why? There are no dinky used-record stores in my town.

Like Tower Records’ 89 store closings and the other 1,200 retailers who have gone the way of the dodo across the nation, my music shops are dying. This void of musical discovery needs filling. And by what? I cringe at the thought of relenting myself to MTV and XM Radio, letting their choices of music be force-fed down my stagnantly passive ear-drums. Where can I feel the same exhilaration of a record store hunt? The digital revolution provides the answer: the Internet.

In what has become the most massive record store the world has ever seen, the Internet attracts billions of users to thousands of music sites which feature millions of artists—an overwhelming scope of musical discovery and listener interaction. Over 155 million users have registered with the online community behemoth MySpace, over 3 million of which are unsigned artists. PureVolume claims over 360,000 artists, posting 315,000 songs for the 750,000 registered users to enjoy. Last.fm offers social networking for their 15 million users blended with music from 7 million bands, Bandwagon has attracted nearly 6,000 bands, and Sputnik Music lets its 455,000 users review and discuss any sort of music. But more than that, anyone with an opinion can open their own Web site to the world, creating a vast intricate network of music recommendations and artist samples. From the bloated networks all the way down to the unknown bloggers, all patiently await the arrival of your ears. Its a music hunter’s dream come true.

Imagine a record store filled with millions of customers – all gossiping, discussing, and recommending music to one another – while paroling by music being actively shown off by the bands themselves like a vast sonic bazaar. Listeners stalk and devour a hundred times the number of bands previously available to them in the record stores. This is the Internet, and its no surprise to see so many music hounds glued to their computer screens. Two such bands lured me over to their respective online booths, and shared with me their thoughts of this new field of musical play.

Dickie Haydon – leadman of young Kentucky indie-outfit Petticoat, Petticoat – voiced his opinion of sites like MySpace after his band’s 2006 debut Every Mother’s Child. "40 years ago I’m sure there were tons of bands that could have made it big, but nobody had any idea who they were because the only way you could find them out would be if they had some record deal." Surely he has his band in mind when saying this. Petticoat, Petticoat have MySpace to thank for the majority of their fan-base, and the realization of their 2006 tour. "We booked all through MySpace," he admits, revealing just how heavily Petticoat, Petticoat relies on the community Web site.

"I definitely think there's a change coming in the industry," agrees Sleeping At Last bassist Dan Perdue. After a brief stint on Interscope Records, the Chicago rock group opted to release its latest album Keep No Score independently. "We're going to start hearing a lot more stories of bands…selling like 100,000 [albums] without any label," predicts Perdue. Sleeping At Last chose to go independent because of the freedom provided to them online. With their established fan base behind them, the band felt sure promoting their album online would yield just as much success as through a restrictive label. "The big labels are going to have to change the way they do things. They don't hold all the cards anymore." They certainly don’t: Sleeping At Last’s independently-promoted new tracks were recently featured on popular TV show "Grey’s Anatomy."

Indeed, record labels should take heed. The Internet is the new battleground for the attentions of listeners and consumers like myself, and those who don’t adapt to the new environment will not survive. With traditional offline music businesses sinking in deep water, it is becoming clearer that bands can survive happily without big labels—supported by online fans. Labels now have a choice: attempt to refocus on the Internet and try to recover, or to pass away like so many record stores. Either way, we’ll go on hunting…one Web site at a time.

(Property of Crawdaddy!)