Plug In, Tune Out

By Bernadette Garcia, The Santa Fe New Mexican

Jun. 12–The Internet has become the greatest thing to happen to music since the Beatles. The barriers to listening to the music that you like are reduced to the cost of accessing a computer and the Internet. Everybody partakes in listening to Internet radio, toting 80 gigabytes of songs on iPods, and for some, illegal downloading. The downside (if you consider it so) is that the traditional ways we get our music news, the MTV’s, record stores and Rolling Stones of generations past, have declined in influence. While MTV struggles to remain relevant among following rich, spoiled kids with video cameras and record stores have become the hangouts of music snobs and vinylphiles, Web sites and artist pages on Myspace suddenly have the leverage and dominant share of listener’s hearts and wallets.

This brings about an interesting question: When was the last time one song gripped the nation? I can remember from my days in middle school when ‘N Sync (which, as a guy from that time period and now, must say they stink to protect my macho status) literally held radio stations hostage for the release of their second album, No Strings Attached. On the eve of the album’s release, every radio station that didn’t play rap music was broadcasting Bye Bye Bye every 10 minutes, with shrieking teenage girls requesting it every minute and a half. The album sold a million copies on the first day. That wasn’t too many years ago, but it certainly hasn’t happened recently and not with that kind of fervor.

It is interesting that for how many people watch and vote on American Idol, none of its winners or runner-ups is a bona fide sensation. Kelly Clarkson came close with Since U Been Gone, but has since faded off into the distance with nary a catchy single since she been gone.

I always think American Idol tries to use nostalgia to recreate the classics sung on stage, but most are from a different era, where musicians benefitted from a more top-down dissemination of their music, sans-Internet.

What I’m building up to here is a technological sensation that has caused all other musical sensations to become little more than niche hits. The Internet has diversified its distribution of music and news about music to the point that no single artist can appeal to all niches and publications. Sure, buzz builds around certain bands with predictions of becoming the second coming of the Beatles. We had that with the Arctic Monkeys, whose recognition rose like a rocket, breaking sales records in the UK that the Beatles previously held. But then they released their second album to cash in on the hysteria only to fade into relative obscurity weeks later. Popularity in music is ephemeral these days.

There are times, even when being a music columnist, I cannot be aware of all that is happening in music. For instance, taking a glance at Billboard’s “Hot 100,” I can recollect hearing or being aware of two of the top 10 on the list.

Instead, I tend to get my music news and leads from influencers online, the Pitchforks and similar Web sites that, although somewhat snobbish and opaque (what causes an album to receive a 7.9 versus a 7.8?), are extremely well versed in new releases. For me and many other people, the Internet has replaced traditional television and radio.

This isn’t a bad thing, as I have said before. I never would have found some of my favorite artists, both current and from the past, if it had not been for the Internet. Instead of choosing who I like and dislike according to the whims of a disc jockey that has a set list, I cannot only pick the bands I like, but discern between the multitudes of music information sites on the Internet. I may not hear of what a few people consider the next coming of the Beatles, and they might not hear the band I bestow the same title on, but as long as everyone finds the music they like without any hindrances, everybody wins.

Brad Revare is a sophomore at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo.

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