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Ok, I see what you are saying. The centralized, monopolistic corporate impulse is going to kill off all kinds of industries. However, this not the end. I don’t know all the steps in between, but this is leading to a decentralized world of local communities. This world does not resemble a corporate structure with all its administrative overhead. It is rather a network that shares. I realize that what I am saying is not new. The ideas have been out there. The application, the action to implement, has not been there. Why? Because we have been programmed to see the world as having a controlling center with the real enterprises out on the periphery. When the center greedily abandons the periphery, new centers form around the peripheral enterprises. This not just happening to the music industry. It is happening to every place where creativity has a real world connection to people. For the past year on Substack, I’ve been writing. My subscription numbers grew when I started dialoguing with other writers in the comments of their posts. What I am saying is that we have to stop marketing and start interacting with each other. New communities will emerge from that process. I don’t know if this solves the immediate problem that you describe. But it is all that we will have when the system collapses. There is no single, simple answer. There is only shared hardship out of which a new future can be created. And the beauty of this is that it will spark fresh creative output. I am already seeing this happen.

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Thanks - applying my native 90s alt-rock irony, I see this statement of yours: "What I am saying is that we have to stop marketing and start interacting with each other," as complicated by this: "My subscription numbers grew when I started dialoguing with other writers in the comments of their posts." Interaction on a platform *is* marketing - possibly for yourself, most definitely for the platform. That's the bind we're in. Happy new year.

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True. It is the purpose behind it. Is it self promotion or building a community of like-minded people who share a common purpose.

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Perhaps we should just jettison the word and idea of "marketing" altogether. Fuck the market. The market has never done anything positive for artists. Sure, a tiny fraction get rich, but it is a foolish game. In this sense I think Ed below has a point. Think of it as networking, or finding other people who are of a similar frequency.

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I’m guessing in 2023 we’ll be seing a bunch more Major Label owned artists told to exploit their own burnout on social media because it’s great algorithm fuel.

I keep circling back to thinking maybe a new open-source web browser kind of thing could come into play in order to change things. Along the years we’ve been tricked into interacting with the world via these new gatekeepers that extract all of the value in the connections people create with their favourite art. Substack is a good step in the right direction.

I keep expecting a major “great logout” event where everybody globally understand that the way they currently interact online with most things is not designed in their favor.

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Doesn't something like Bandcamp already subvert those gatekeepers (relatively speaking)? A lot of artists are using technology to make their own music and release it digitally. No label, no "getting in the van" to tour, and no (or at least less) middlemen between the producer and end user. That model doesn't address how to scale, but I do think it point us to at least a starting point.

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One of the great travesties of our times is the corporate treatment of musicians and music. To them it is a mere commodity like shoes. I hope that Ed Brenegar is right but the signs ahead are not good.

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a) I didn't know that Pitchfork was a Condé Nast publication, but I don't really pay that close of attention to it usually anyway..

b) I bought the VHS of The Year Punk Broke when it came out, and actually watched it a couple of months ago and realized that I didn't remember any of it - I kind of think I never actually watched it until now, too! It was really strange to see from this late date. Thanks for the commentary about its relevance to today. There's a lot to think about.

c) Happy new year!

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There should be an independent network of record labels, venues, online 'zines, and college radio serving a kind of music that could be "marketed" as "indie rock.".... Uh, oh, wait a minute. Sorry.

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