NPR's All Songs Considered broadcast their Best Music of 2006 list last Wednesday. You can listen to it at All Songs Considered's website (subscribe to their podcast while you're there).
In Wednesday's program, ASC host, Bob Boilen, made the observation that his listeners voted for an unprecedented variety of artists and genres when choosing this year's best album. He wondered aloud if the increase in variety of music embraced by his listeners had any relation to this year's demise of Tower Records.
None of his guests were willing to say one way or another, but I'll take a stab at it. My answer is "yes."
I'd guess that today's broader music tastes and Tower's demise both have to do with the way the internet has allowed musicians to overcome the barriers presented by "traditional" music distribution channels.
It's like this: CDs take up music stores' shelf space. CDs that fail to sell essentially fail to justify their placement in the store. It's as if they weren't paying the rent for their shelf space, so they get evicted. This demands that music retailers focus on stuff that's guaranteed to sell. It makes things hard for retailers serving customers with a widening variety of tastes.
Now, an internet full of blogs and mp3s and online music stores has allowed people to discover artists that they'd rarely encounter on the shelves of their local record shop. (I could further explain how this has happened, but its best explained in Chris Anderson's The Long Tail) Looking for something new to feed your ears no longer requires leaving your house. It's awesome, but bitterawesome.
When I was a wee lad intent on collecting every single Chemical Brothers single I could get my hands on, I knew exactly where to get them: Tower's shelves of imports. When I studied at the University of Utah, I had to force myself to steer clear of Salt City CDs (R.I.P.) because it was one of those magical music joints that you couldn't enter without leaving with a handful of life-changing CDs.
I'm sad that those places don't exist anymore. Going to them was special. Discovering music back then was an (*ahem*) event.
And here's my point. My name's Jed, and I'm new here at Eventful. I came here because I love music. I love discovering music, and I love finding places to discover new music. I'm here because I want to make sure that Eventful makes it easier to discover what music's playing outside, away from the internet.
I'm here because technology has brought a greater variety of music into our lives, and it should bring a greater variety of events too. Watch this blog for tips and news about how Eventful can make this a reality.
