The corporate behemoths have for too long gouged music fans and screwed over artists.
Thus, the digital revolution is equal parts murder and suicide.
Major labels shot themselves in the face and everyone else dug their grave. Yet behind the scenes of this tragedy, something much worse looms.
Our local ecologies of music culture are vanishing. And the landscape has been tilted against their development. This is the natural, living part.
And unlike the record industry, it can die.
It's important to remember that the fantasy of rock stars and coke-addicted executives isn't the real thing. Our social ecology is the genuine ecosystem.
It exists in real places where people actually live.
It's the local record stores, music shops, radio stations, and venues that took decades to develop and grow; they've embed themselves into our communities.
The record industry cultivates and funds talent, but they aren't nature. Musicians emerge from environments. Local ecologies produce real artists and culture.
Once dismantled, these ecosystems can't simply re-form from the ground up.
The record industry is just one part of a larger mechanism. If destroyed, no amount of money can bring them back. These local ecologies matter.
Save them. Or don't. Whatever.
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Image Credits: (CNN, Box Turtle, The Stranger, Travelpod, GWU)
