The 100-year-old man in a pale, young man’s body known as Jack White recently stated his beef with MySpace and the internet in general in a cantankerous interview with The Ampersand about his new supergroup the Dead Weather:
“Do I really need a MySpace page for this f–king music? Do I really need to do that? There’s a part of me, that just out of spite, says I don’t want to do it because it’s so antithetical to what I do,” Mr. White said.
“I just question what it all means. If a million people see your webpage, how many people actually buy something, buy a record or a song? Feels to me, if you give them a chance to fast forward, rewind, or click off to the next web page, they will do it. But if you take away that opportunity, you will frustrate a percentage of people, but others will get off the couch and go buy the vinyl at the store.”
We question it too, Jack. Oh wait, no we don’t because we just read that quote on the internet. The internet also told us that the Dead Weather is playing on old-timey television on Conan O’Brien’s program The Tonight Show tomorrow night. The internet also puts millions of pictures of adorable kittens at our fingertips. And it allows us to talk to grammy through live video. So does the Dead Weather need a MySpace page? Maybe not. But the internet is definitely neat.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I think his point is that the internet, and myspace, are making music a disposable commodity.
With free singles and streaming content on blogs and pages like these, you’re giving a fair amount of people a reason NOT to buy the music. And with kids as impatient as they are today, it’s becoming a real problem keeping their attention.
I invite you to go to a Passion Pit show and ask to look at people’s iPods. I am almost certain that the majority of the people there will only have the one free song they found online. Granted, they’re at the show, and that’s cool. But what does it say about the regard kids have for recorded music today? We are seening the gradual extinction of the record. What reason do bands have to record complete records anymore if they only end up getting ripped to pieces through the internet? If this keeps up, expect bands to record singles and give up on making records.
My opinions regarding the internet and music have been cemented after having gone on tour countless times in ‘The #$%@#$#@’ (a popular independent band), and always having someone come up to the merch table asking us to sign their BURNED CD of our pirated music. Seriously…seriously?
June 18th, 2009 at 2:36 am
I feel like this argument is kind of flawed. Before there was myspace, there were artists constantly putting out singles, which would lead to people to wanting to buy the CD. I mean, you have the option of not making any of the songs available for download on myspace, and they act the same as putting out a single in the record store. I think it gives kids the opportunity to check out what they’re getting into before they go drop 20 bucks on a record that could be a piece of shit. I know I have been a victim of that and I’m sure many others have. If it wasn’t or myspace, you may have never heard of bands like yours, since apparently you are in a popular independent band.