George Howard: The Leveling Has Arrived
"The first moment of leveling occurred with the advent of ProTools. No longer did one need to collateralize their creativity in exchange for funds from a record label to create a competitive recording.
The second moment of leveling arose via firms like TuneCore. No longer did one have to be signed to a label to have distribution."
"The third moment of leveling revolved around the emergence of social media. While not completely obviating the need for traditional promotion, the rise of social media certainly shifted the power away from people like publicists and into the hands of the creator.
We now arrive at a place where musicians/artists are comparable to chefs. All chefs, within reason, have access to the same ingredients. Certainly, geography plays a role for access to ingredients, in a similar manner as geography plays a role for musicians/artists – if you don’t like your geography/feel it’s a competitive disadvantage, move."
– George Howard, 9 Giant Steps
Thanks for the re-blog, Bruce.
I do want to point out that in the excerpt above a point I was trying to make gets lost.
After I described why I believe we’ve reached this moment of “Leveling,” I suggested this:
Being an “artist” today means coming to terms with this leveling. How will you put your ingredients together in a manner that creates attraction and retention. These ingredients go beyond the musical notes, obviously, and relate to all facets of your work: your relationship with your market, your “brand,” etc.
This post generate a lot of comments/discussion (which I love). I do think, however, that I didn’t adequately articulate the spirit behind this post. I find this leveling to be a very positive thing for true artists. It allows us to take more control over our own destiny. I can’t understand how anyone would see that as a bad thing.
I ended the post this way:
The future belongs to those like Thomas Keller, David Chang, Ferran Adrià, Chris Bianco. Artists who use the ingredients that are available to everyone else, but combine them – in an alchemical manner – to create something truly remarkable and unique.
So…no excuses, right?
Again, thanks for the reblog, I just wanted to try and express what I was hoping to articulate.
Thanks,
George
I totally agree with the pro tools reference, next i would have said photoshop and then CD Baby…yeah its not a media darling like tunecore but it was here first 🙂
don’t agree with either. most musicians can not use photoshop (sadly). cd packaging is still very much something where those with the most resources have an advantage. not to say that there aren’t some creative indies/artists making unique and beautiful packaging, but, for the most part, this is a “service” not available to most.
with all respect to cdbaby (and I have a TON of respect), I believe its impact had more to do with changing artists’ ideology than actually leveling anything. Don’t get me wrong, that change – feeling of empowerment, etc. – is the most important thing, but in terms of putting indie artists on a level playing field with non-indie artists, I don’t think they did/do much. Essentially, they just create a mass of similarly positioned artists who really should be selling from their own site and the other online retailers (I know that you can get on to these other online retailers via cdbaby, but I took your comment to not be about that particular function – perhaps incorrectly).
best,
George
For me it was The Orchard.