focus? Also listening to the radio, reading the blogs and check- ing forums, are the musicians. They are consumers as much as producers, maybe more. Bedrooms the world over, full of bands and solo artists, staring out into a vast pool of music, observing trends and chasing the zeitgeist in a culture where “newness” and originality is prized as the finest tone to an artist’s voice.


Now that musicians can connect, participate and inter- act with music and its cultural relevance with a click, does the freedom of choice afforded to us by internet journalism and self publishing allow the artist to channel this influence into a truly “aware” kind of music? Or does the sheer amount of influence create an attitude within the artist which is too self conscious or fickle? Part of what makes pop music so interesting and con- stantly relevant is the idea that the words and the music convey something about the person making it. That they portray character, a voice, an image or an idea about what it means to exist in the world. With a myriad of social networks to navigate and media intrusion coming from all angles, it is getting hard for artists to pursue an honest or true sense of self, or at least not one which is inherently moulded by their inevitable digital surround- ings. What are your influences? Who do you sound like? To pin down the inner voice of the artist it is important to be able to both accept external influence and block it out much of the time in favour of pursuing one line of personal musical intrigue and that is becoming harder and harder to do. The internet may have lost it’s maverick sub-


versive delivery which made it so appealing, and can at times appear like an oppressive fog in the media land- scape, but it’s power to regulate and inform artistic de- velopment is one which is as exciting as it is daunting. Some musicians and quite a community of vi-


sual artists are embracing internet culture and using it to express things about their everyday lives. Look at the cover for MIA’s new album where her face is obscured by piles of Youtube loaders, the artwork is a depiction of literal media saturation and the search for identity. Video artists like Ryan Trecartin have been creating unfathom- ably fast and frantic pieces embracing not only an early or retro internet graphic aesthetic but also the confu- sion and mangled sense of persona which comes from growing up in the Internet Age. This type of “hysterical realism” as it as been referred to in the art world is a very interesting and timely reaction to all the changes in the way we socialize and interact with each other which are


Web-zines and sites like Chicago based taste-


makers Pitchfork, can not only give bands the “golden touch” necessary to shoot them to real stardom, but also have the ability to create a “space” for an artist on the internet where popularity and sales figures can be replaced with kudos and implied artistic awareness through the over-intellectualisation of features and re- views, which through use of different types of media can very quickly give an artist a distinct brand. For instance when in 2009, Neon Indian first


appeared online- dashing through the blogosphere on a speeding synthesizer and a wave of retro pop chic, he was made to look like a kind of pop svengali in the mould of Darryl Hall or Roger Zapp before he had even played a live show. The features that were run about Alan Palomo, managed to perpetuate many conflicting images- the hipster production nerd chasing the perfect pop song, and simultaneously the lo-fi bedroom weirdo. This kind of hype can only be constructed by a media both popular and multi faceted, with the ability to cre- ate a place for a kind of music rather than merely write about it.


A recent viral music phenomenon has been the


craze of i-dosing. I-dosing tracks are (usually, self) mar- keted as having an effect on the listeners brain similar to that of taking psychedelic drugs, an idea which is being presented as if it’s a new concept.. Of course music has always had the ability to


make you think differently, or take you to new places, and this is the same thing, only sold differently and ex- plicitly for the purpose of getting “high”. And people are actually worried about this. Worried that their children might get hooked on something entirely semantic and harmless. That‘s to say nothing of the painfully contrived appropriation of the “I” prefix in order for the tracks to take on more of a functional generic modernity. This not only questions our uses of music but also the philoso- phies that make us enjoy or appreciate it. Artists can now see clearly where certain mu-


sic finds a home, and can see more easily where lines between genres and scenes fall. The temptation then to try and squeeze your music into the “blog of best fit” will always be a distraction from purely artistic aspirations. These distinctions between style and audience have al- ways accompanied pop music but are much more in- grained and overt in our culture now. One look at MySpace’s updated “genre/style”


list, is enough to get the aspiring culture vulture explor- ing- what is ghetto-tech? Afro-beat? (FYI they have got- ton rid of Ghetto-Tech, GT is OVER everyone.)


Is the internet and music media widening the lens of the user but narrowing the focus?


supposedly meant to make our lives easier. The emergence of what some call “Blog Mu-


niques have appeared and subsequently made internet music culture a precarious and overly designated cloud of tags and signifiers. Sometimes the internet makes the world ap-


pear huge; full of art, people, places and scenes. But by bringing all of these disparate pockets of culture to the user, and by making content so accessible, is it in effect making the world a smaller place and one that holds very few secrets? In this way is the internet and music media widening the lens of the user but narrowing the


sic” was one particularly noticeable trend caused by a small number of websites with a lot of sway, creating not only another meaningless sub genre, but interest- ingly, a league of copy cats and wannabes, not so much copying the music as copying the digital presence and aesthetic.


The template is: 2 Brooklynites (preferably girl


and boy) with keyboards and reverb units, you know the drill, ethereal yet somehow…..vital! In this niche the Polaroid picture accompanying the blog post is almost certainly of more interest than the crunchy mp3 that comes free with it. With the music appearing in a sup- porting role to a very particular internet image.


Andrew Hunt 07 07 49 89 89


This type of pigeonhole media makes it hard to know how much of the culture you feel such a part of is in your head, merely fleshed out from the bones of these tags into something tangible yet completely personal. For the artist certainly, the lens is widened, to view a teeming world of influence, Ethiopian guitar pop to Russian folk song, is there for the taking. But the pressure to fit into one of these categories and exist meaningfully within this digital framework can be stifling and distracting.


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