Notes for Week 44, 2024

Song of the week:

Notes

This week I found myself on a Bandcamp page for an Icelandic artist I really like, Kiasmos. It's the tenth anniversary of an LP of theirs, which was marked with the release of some vinyl pressings (which I've bought) and, funnily, a candle (which I did not buy). The reason I landed on the page was an email from Bandcamp to let me know that a listening party was happening.

I've not attended a 'listening party' on Bandcamp before. But it's fairly straightforward. The album plays in sync across all folks on the page (I joined at song two on the tracklist). There's a chatroom, and you can pop out to a new window to buy the merch (which I obligingly did).

None of this is remarkable. It's a fairly basic experience. It works really well because the miracle of broadband means streaming music is a piece of piss in 2024. And the chatroom is not big enough to get bombarded by racists or fools. It was a good vibe all-round from what I could see.

But what was remarkable was that this was close-enough to the experience I had in my youth with music. I've written here before that of all artforms, music is my most coveted. My wife loves film and has dedicated her career to it. God knows what my kids will be into. But for me, it's all about music. Vinyl is not that coveted by me, I'm all for digital lockers with losses streaming capabilities onto my digital-first sound system(s) at home. Vinyl is as much a way for me to throw some shekels to an artist as it is a way to listen to music.

As a teenager discovering music, mostly electronic and metal (no difference to today!) I would use IRC music channels for discovery and warez channels for downloading. Napster got big enough eventually to cater to most tastes, but the chat experience was atrocious so it wasn't that good at the discussion around music. Ironically, it never built the community of music fans that probably would have sustained it as a legitimate company.

And that's what I thought of in this little virtual listening party this week. The joy of discovering and chatting about music with other semi-like-minded folks. I don't think this is lost at all, it's very much there. But the main vein of the internet isn't about discovery and community, it's about ads and influence. Which is a shame. I hope the next generation (alpha are in the 6-16 age range today) really dismiss the archetype of commerce-first and lean into community-first, local internet.

(via my flickr)

Tabs

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Published on: 2nd November, 2024

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