October 6, 2010 T Bone Burnett vs. the Internet
T Bone Burnett shook up the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit at Georgetown University on Monday by boldly declaring at the beginning of his segment: “The future of music is…” wait for it, here it comes…”analog”.
While much of the conference focused on digitization as slayer or savior, and the Internet as love child of the universe and musical cash register, T Bone turned the conversation towards the quality of recorded music. Portions of the audience seemed stunned by some of T Bone’s thoughts, here are a few highlights:
- He finds it shocking that artists allow their music to be distributed in such a degraded form as MP3s.
- MP3s should be free, because they’re not worth anything.
- The Internet is a broadcast medium, not the omega point.
- Any musician who uses the word “monetize” should be ashamed of themselves.
- Musicians should not spend time marketing and analyzing data, they should be focused on making great music.
- To someone starting out at as an artist today, his advice would be “stay completely away from the Internet.”
In the (unabashedly amateur) iPhone clip below, T Bone explains why artists should not put their music on the Internet. (Gasp!) While some attendees speculated that Burnett was just playing the role of an agent provocateur, he seems genuinely concerned about the decline in quality of recorded music. As noted previously, this a concern we share.
However, the market appears to indicate that our concerns are not widespread. There will always be a core group of audiophiles who will invest in more authentic musical experiences, but the convenience, portability, and ubiquity of digital files currently allows iTunes to rule the musical world. When I asked T Bone about these market realities, including the failure of premium audio formats such as DVD Audio and SACD, he said basically that it’s not over yet.
T Bone believes we are in an interregnum, a place where the old hasn’t died, and the new has yet to be born. In this case, the old are the MP3 files, that have been around for about 20 years, and the new will be a strong, future-proof analog storage medium. In the meantime…er, interregnum, music should not be sold or stored in any format below 24 bit/96 kHz. Bring on the new!
Next, we will look at what T Bonebelieves may be the biggest challenge of our times, in T Bone vs. the Machines.
Reader Comments (6)
I totally agree with T-Bone Burnett. While I am not a musician my son is and I have asked him many times why would a good musician accept their music at a lower quality. As just a listener I find it confusing and annoying not to have the quality at least at if not better than it was when I was a younger music consumer. I'm sure it has alot to do with the convenience of ipods and such as well as people's love of new toys. But at home, why are they using them there to listen to their music? And why not a high quality sound system, those should be amazing by now with new technology.
I hate to say this, but T-Bone is an idiot. First, stay away from the net? Sure, what about to find gigs, book gigs, get paid, find new music, etc. etc? Second, the MP3 format does not suck. It can suck if you use low resolution, but iTunes no longer does that, nor does Amazon. Truly, listen to a high rez MP3 then an AIFF file of the same tune; the difference is not that great. Last, as he blathers on about our IP being exported for nothing then bough back for something, well, I just don't know what to say. Tell Apple, Google, IBM, Oracle, P&G, Kraft, GE, Boeing et al that they're all not worth a dime. Unbelievable.
MP3s are not the only digital music file format available, you know.
Lossless FLAC is better than CD quality and an increasing number of independent artists offer their music in this format.
MP3 are the equivalent of fast food. FLAC is a four course meal - it might take longer to download, but those that appreciate quality are willing to pay the price. I'm an audiophile and only ever buy music online in FLAC format.
T Bone Burnett has been a longtime favourite music producer of mine and I've followed his career somewhat closely, which means that process was compromised by living on a different continent and the limited availability of new and archival information in the pre-internet era. That is why I feel that I need to comment on your picks of "highlights" individually.
* He finds it shocking that artists allow their music to be distributed in such a degraded form as MP3s.
I completely agree with him there. Mp3s are a compressed format and with the bandwidths and harddisk space available today, compressed file formats for music are basically a thing of yesteryear. Mp3's ongoing media presence has however helped it become a brand. It's common wisdom that brands are good for marketing. But it's common wisdom as well that you should not always believe the marketeers.
* MP3s should be free, because they’re not worth anything.
Agreed completely here as well. They are better than nothing, well, maybe 78 RPMs. Mp3s should be free as a promotional tool so everybody can be the own A&R person for their music players and collections and don't waste money on music they don't like and will re-sell immediately after the first listen at online re-sellers.
* The Internet is a broadcast medium, not the omega point.
Thanks for the wikipedia link to clarify what he means here. Again, I agree. It's a broadcast medium but it offers 2 way communication whereas previous broadcast media allowed mostly only for 1 way communication with the 2nd direction having been rather minimal like in readers letters in the press. With viral advertising on the rise, however, the internet seems to be heading heading towards reducing the 2nd direction as well by simply re-broadcasting the content from the 1st direction and taking away from the "market share" of information that was contained in the 2nd direction in the blogosphere's and private websites' formative years.
* Any musician who uses the word “monetize” should be ashamed of themselves.
Not wanting to analyse "shame" as a philosophical concept, I agree with him here as well. But I'd prefer it if he unashamedly wrote a revealing song about the subject that included the word "monetize".
* Musicians should not spend time marketing and analyzing data, they should be focused on making great music.
With this, I only partly agree. Musicians' main focus should be an artistical one, their music being center stage. But self-releasing albums has not stood in the way of any independent artist - and marketing is a part of that. It's best not to worry too much with overwhelming amounts of data to keep an open mind for new inspiration. That also counts for labelheads, not just musicians.
* To someone starting out at as an artist today, his advice would be “stay completely away from the Internet.”
This is the only point in your list of which I think he is completely wrong.
* He finds it shocking that artists allow their music to be distributed in such a degraded form as MP3s.
Well, I feel the same with vinyl. A totally degraded copy of the original material, it's heavy, expensive, highly sensitive to any kind of external influences and more than questionable from an environmental point of view.
The point is, MP3 is obviously good enough. As vinyl and type was. People buy MP3s without complains. It's cheap to produce and distribute.
I personally also prefer FLAC, but it's stupid to ignore the technical reality of limited data-transfer-rates. In any way, most serious digital stores already offer FLAC.
* MP3s should be free, because they’re not worth anything.
They can be free, or very cheap. MP3 is just the carrier. The content (the music) is definitely worth something for me, so I cannot really understand how the same experience can be worthless in MP3 and suddenly worth something at a higher resolution. Same goose-bumps, same emotions, same drive. "Pop" producers might have a different perspective on this, but in this case I'm really asking why they are doing their "worthless" music at all.
In addition, this claim kindly insults all the fellow customers who actually buy MP3s instead of using one-click hosters.
* The Internet is a broadcast medium, not the omega point.
Not sure if a strange esoteric term really helps to describe the internet or anything related to reality. I've never observed any kind of omega point, did you?
The fact is, the internet is the centre of the world. Ask your kids.
* Any musician who uses the word “monetize” should be ashamed of themselves.
Why? It's just a word. Others call it "become famous" or "make a career". The fact is, you have to monetize your work as long you don't live in a socialist system or have a rich daddy.
* Musicians should not spend time marketing and analyzing data, they should be focused on making great music.
No, they should improve their workflow to get all this done efficiently. Nobody invests in artists nowadays, traditional labels are dead or near bankruptcy. Who does the essential work PR? Grandma?!
* To someone starting out at as an artist today, his advice would be “stay completely away from the Internet.”
I would say, just stay away from music in general if you can't find one positive point about how your fans consume and discover your music. Just stop and get a regular job.
Just another paranoid and angry protagonist of the old world IMO.
@ Fabien: Musicians don't record MP3s, by and large. Though their intrinsic worth is debatable, they're nearly always compressed/converted from a higher-quality format; that's why I agree with Mr. Burnett and others that they should be free.
@All: Apart from that, I do believe the best music is made by people who put music first, but it's very difficult to, heh, monetize one's talents without spending eighty percent of your working hours on marketing, but that goes as well for live gigs as for recordings, or even teaching music.Still, it's a pretty huge problem for independent musicians, given the large number of skill sets required by each of the many jobs that used to be done by an entire team of people. In football terms, an independent artist must not only play both quarterback and defensive coordinator, but must also hike the ball, sell the tickets and popcorn, mow the grass and move the chains up and down the field.
Given the inexpensive 'net options for promoting and distributing a release, I really don't see how an ambitious artist can avoid the internet.Besides, degraded formats have been with us since the dawn of recorded music and radio. Can you imagine anyone advising artists in the thirties against allowing their music on radio? I can't, but I'm pretty sure someone must have....