The Beat

Welcome to The Beat, Decential’s weekly breakdown of the music-web3 byway. (With a few unexpected stops along the way – such is life.)

Like most things in web3, the music space moves at breakneck speeds, issuing regular bouts of hope, cringe and FOMO. That combination of qualities blur the essence of the movement – the enduring solutions to legacy industry problems and the people building them. Let’s focus on the essence; the rest, as Alex Ross wrote, is noise.

Ronroco

This past weekend, I saw Gustavo Santaolalla here in London. You may know him as the guy who scored the Last of Us games (and the tv show), or as a frequent Iñárritu collaborator, or as the film scorer to Babel or Motorcycle Diaries or Brokeback Mountain, but my favorite music from the Argentine musician/composer is the record Ronroco.

The London show was in celebration of the album’s 25th anniversary. It’s so called because it features the ‘ronroco,’ which is essentially a bass charango (like an Andean lute) that was invented in the 80s in Bolivia. The instrument has a transportive quality to it, reflective of Santaolalla himself.

“I invite you to come on a journey with us,” the artist said to the audience, “and leave behind this techno stuff – the phones, the emails – to explore the beautiful landscapes we have inside all of us.”

“I’m from the 50s, a time of hope,” he continued, “when they thought technology was going to bring us closer, and end wars.” 

Somehow, he then corralled quantum mechanics and the multiverse into his appeal for peace (a man after my own heart). “We now know there are other universes,” he said, with conviction. “Some musics and frequencies can help us get to that other universe – ‘back to the future,’ where we can live in the future we were supposed to have.” 

Just before playing the song featured in this Beat (see below), he asserted that sharing space with those “musics and frequencies” can help us build that future in this universe. And if there’s anything the Beat’s about, it’s that. 

Gratefully, there are folks amongst us dealing in those more hopeful frequencies.

Knock Them Off Their Thrones

In his newsletter The Honest Broker, Ted Gioia generally offers a pragmatic perspective on cultural industries (especially music). Naturally, his takeaways aren’t exactly rosy. But in a recent edition, he changed his tune. “I offer a forecast for 10 years in the future – and it's filled with good news (surprise!),” he writes in “Nine Predictions for the Future of the Music Business.”

He continued:

What follows are nine predictions that detail basically everything we focus on here at The Beat. I’m going to highlight four:

• “Major record labels will gradually turn into sterile IP management companies –it’s already happening – and this will cut them off from the creative currents in society.”

• “Artists will have many options to connect directly with fans – so they won’t need huge music companies.”

• “The best strategy for corporate success in this freewheeling future is to nurture, support, and empower the next generation of artists.”

• “Disruption will come from outside the current paradigm – that’s how innovation happens.”

“Look to the live music scene, the dance clubs and underground venues. Look to the alternative digital platforms,” he writes beneath that last heading. “Those gatekeepers have a little time left to collect their gate fees. But not as much as they think. I hold no resentment against them. But we will all be better off when the next wave comes, and knocks them off their throne.”

Let’s ride on these coattails to that “future we were supposed to have.” 

One such “alternative digital platform” is Factory, a contextual and connective music app that’s been mentioned several times here recently. Built by Oscillator, the platform just released its version two. Included features are full desktop mode and redesign for the ‘log’ – the platform’s ‘post’ or ‘share’ functionality. 

Also teased are improvements to the homepage and onboarding flow – and most intriguingly, a “forever music profile.”

Oscillator is not alone in thinking long term. Today, Austin Robey launched his "Plan for the Artist-Owned Internet," a 140-page zine that’s both manifesto and business plan for Subvert – the new platform he’s positioning as the “collectively owned Bandcamp successor.”

Within is a 50-year roadmap. Where most tech platforms deal in months, Robey is reckoning in decades. And the precedent he draws from is not tech, but cooperative ownership models. 

The former Ampled and Metalabel co-founder envisages that Subvert, in time, can become “The Mondragon of Music.” Founded in Spain’s Basque region in 1956, Mondragon evolved from a worker-owned manufacturing cooperative into the world’s largest worker co-op. Today they’re 80,000 strong, and have expanded their portfolio of community-owned enterprises to include a bank, a grocery store chain, a university and a construction company.

What if, Robey wonders, years down the line, Subvert’s digital platform expanded into an assortment of ventures – where worker-owners found and operate a vinyl pressing plant and a credit union, or even a housing cooperative?

It’s grandiose and tantalizing – more fodder for our dreams of that future we were supposed to have. (For those that want to join that ride, the limited edition zine is “your ticket to becoming a founding member of the Subvert Co-op.” Artists and labels can join for free.)

Independent music is the only industry worth saving

In a recent edition of Music X, Maarten Walraven, too, writes about the rise of a different kind of music infrastructure. “Tokens, what are they good for? Absolutely indie,” the title reads. 

Walraven highlights innovators like KOR Protocol (founded by distinguished DJs, deadmau5 and Plastikman), a decentralized protocol in which artists track their IP via the blockchain. And he references Revelator Labs, “the first Real-world Asset tokenization platform for the music industry.”

“Tokens could always be infused with meaning, but by connecting them with real-world assets like royalties they can also become currencies between different groups of players,” he writes.

“Indie artists and labels are best positioned to take advantage of this developing ecosystem,” Walraven continues. “They retain ownership of their rights and can freely experiment with their communities across transmedia. At the same time, they can tap into more traditional distribution routes and bring those revenues into the game.”

As if heeding Gioia’s advice, these are corporations choosing that “freewheeling future” – to nurture, support and empower the next generation of artists. 

“What I see developing here, is the infrastructure to support the independent artist and label,” Walraven says. “They will create the early examples, or small-scale models, of the digitally integrated and empowered music ecosystems of the future.”

In the appendix of each Music X, Walraven highlights several pieces that have inspired him that week. Included in this edition is a piece called “Independent music is the only industry worth saving," by United Masters’ Dan Dewar.

Dewar focuses on the rot of the major label model, as evidenced by the protracted impunity of its darlings, where the Sean Combs and Marilyn Mansons are enabled by their status to do anything they want. “The actions of Sean Combs is not an aberration,” he writes. “They are the outcome of an industry operating as it was designed.

“It cannot be understated enough,” he continues, “that the bargaining abilities and artist control that lie as core tenets of the independent distribution space directly refute the rotten systems that allows the major label industry to sustain its system of abuse.

“[Independent music] is the industry where you will find the early traces of the next great leap in consumption models,” he continues. “It’s where you will find repeated innovations on artist business models and operating structures.

“Independent music is the industry that’s worth saving.”

Coda

Back in January, I wrote an ode to Pitchfork, after “the most trusted voice in music” laid off much of its staff and was folded into GQ. It seemed like a harbinger of doom. Was music journalism fated to die in the broader heat-death of cultural context and care?

Now, five former Pitchfork journos have ventured forth on their own, starting an online publication called Hearing Things. The site launched on Tuesday, joining a recent boom of publications – e.g. Defector, started by former Deadspin folk, and 404 Media (Vice’s Motherboard) – owned and operated by the writers themselves.

Half of Hearing Things is owned by Vaughn Millette, a former music promoter who’s backed the venture, but the other half is split equally amidst the five founders. And the sense – at least the expectation – is that Millette is not going to function as the typical venture capitalist, with outsized focus on financial returns.

The assumption is he’s fully bought into the vision, which is outlined on the site’s About page. It concludes:

These are the musics and frequencies of a better place. Now go outside and listen to them – it’s a beautiful day.

My name is MacEagon Voyce. For more music and less noise, consider subscribing to The Beat. And if you already do, consider sharing with a friend. Thanks for being here.