Once upon a time the English Invasion kicked the world’s ass taking no prisoners - While many artists fell to the wayside under the avalanche of all that was British. I once pointed out that Japanese artists were leading the forefront of a new invasion, much quieter and under the radar of the less hip and adventurous but none the less a true invasion. A lot of time has passed since that report and times change. Not the music, it has expanded to include the world.

What I have discovered is those bands that took my imagination and sent it souring are aging as I am. With new artists up and coming - The enemy, no longer 13 to 24 year old Visual Kei fans monopolizing the music conversation to scream “SO’KAWAI!!” But those sites that take p2p share to a complete new level.

Without information - how do you spread the word about an artist? Where p2p limited the share of an artist’s music by the bandwidth of two individuals, you now have blogs and forums built just for that purpose. No information - just the music in convenient unlimited downloads. Tagged right or wrong, shared pop and rock idols, good or bad, the artist lost in a sea of; “how big is your music folder?”

Music bloggers will tell you, they can make or break a band. Sure they can, if they actually cover the band and write about the music. But in most cases, legit isn’t what we are looking at. We are looking at the new mp3-blogs and in your zeal to find your chosen genre, or next big thing you have wandered into the world of pay per click, google adsense, and file share premium accounts.

It isn’t about the music or the artist anymore. It isn’t about a community sharing and learning together. P2p was pretty much one on one, social and a lot of information passed between fans. What it’s about is money and not for the artist, but revenue for the blog and the poster behind it. Because, we can’t say they are a writer, when all you do is cut and paste the album cover and a link to their premium download (not even an anon link to the band’s homepage).

I prefer not to be dumbed down, or regulated to everybody-does-it apathy.

Please, sir, I want some more.

You should demand it too.
~D


I neither condone, nor condemn sharing music - It is the life blood of a musician on the internet and to many fans music is life.