Page 99 - Hi-Fi World (January 2020)

OPINION

"Digital is changing the

world but it is a hard task

master"

Noel Keywood

ow digital is changing the digital age seems not to need music, it also changed the economics.
the world. It’s tearing them. Vast amounts of data being Artists could reach a bigger audience
down the old order. sent to every corner of the world and potentially make far more but
Our high streets are instantaneously, meaning much faster now there were intermediaries who
being ground down by than your local postman – so he’s paid them – the music business was
Hthe move to on-line out. Of a job. born, as was the gramophone or
shopping caused by the growth of Digital is so disruptive, but at the latterly the hi-fi business.
digital communication – my son same time so elusive it has become The argument goes that with
casually orders goods on his mobile an invisible force we don’t perceive digital streaming artists now have
and they arrive the next day. A shop? or fully understand in terms of the freedom to reach their audience
Whassat? societal impact. If HMV closes down direct once more: they don’t have to
And it affects – often in brutal thousands of jobs will go – as they rely on recorded discs that are sold
manner – how we live, including are with so many retailers nowadays as physical items, in HMV racks or
listen to music and watch films. Back as the ‘net takes over. Yep, even I at your local market stall. In effect
in 1983, when CD was launched, used Mothercare (!) and they've then, streaming isn’t new at all, it is a
no one foresaw that digital on the now gone, and as for Maplins – I will return to the way things once were,
‘net would send digital on disc to never recover. before the disruptive gramophone
the scrap heap. This sea change in There’s a rout going on with arrived.
our technological future has just digital. Amazon has become a de- This view potentially damns
claimed another victim, HMV's facto source of everything man recorded music – bizarre but
flagship store on London’s Oxford makes on this planet and it relies on worth inspection. It has gut appeal
Street. I wondered how they could digital comms, although there is also but at the same time is simplistic.
survive; lines of CD racks, as always, a large physical aspect to Amazon. Now musicians have to reach their
containing something that’s hard It’s just made to be invisible: audience – you and I – through
to identify in arrays of small plastic warehouses ('fulfilment houses' the internet and that isn’t so easy.
cases. apparently) on anonymous industrial There’s no ready audience waiting to
Of the retailer’s downfall a BBC estates that you spot out of the be entertained and artists have no
journalist writes that people don’t train window. But digital comms physical form – listeners have to find
go into their loft anymore to rake made Amazon possible. I am now them.
through old CDs and play them. having to use them ever more. To enable that marketing skills
Heavens, has it got that bad? Are There is an interesting argument are needed from marketing people.
they now consigned to lofts? Does against the view that the move to It isn’t at all the same as being a
no one listen to CD any more? digital streaming is inherently bad. wandering minstrel – a romantic
The word now is Spotify or Tidal It goes like this. Once upon a time notion but nothing more.
and the like. There’s been a slow but music was played by live musicians There is a disarmingly frank
powerful move to streaming, aided who got paid for their skills and the explanation of the business from
in Spotify’s case by the lure of free pleasure they provided. But what Sina on her website Sina Drums
songs – if you don’t mind the ads. they did was ephemeral, it happened (https://girls-got-groove.com/bio),
Bringing into focus the presence and it was gone. An outstanding on Home and Bio pages. I believe
– or lack of – of just one socket performance was appreciated then she records in a basement home
on music players, the RJ45 Ethernet and there and after was eternally studio set up by her musician father.
socket. If a player does not now lost. Neither performance nor Note the quality of the recording
have one of these, basically allowing musician were recorded because the equipment and the sound quality of
it to request music from external technology didn’t exist. her covers you can hear on YouTube
sources – computers in your home When the gramophone was (try Wipeout by Sina). Fantastic
or around the world – then it is invented by Emile Berliner back in drumming and superb quality – but
steam age. If it plays CD it has cogs 1890 all that changed. Musicians like money is hard to come by she
and wheels inside, so forget that it is to be – and need to be – paid for points out. A wandering minstrel
‘digital’ it is still from our mechanical their work if they are to continue likely made more. Digital is changing
past, like the steam engine. with it to give us pleasure. The the world but it is a hard task
The steam age employed people; gramophone didn’t just capture master.

www.hi-fiworld.co.uk JANUARY 2020 HI-FI WORLD 99