Listen while you read: “The Compromise” – The Format

Remember when The Force let Anakin Skywalker down? He was totally all into learning The Force and being a good guy, and then Natalie Portman died anyway? He trusted in The Force and believed it would help him out, but it didn’t so … well you know what happened. Vader happened!

Well, I just found out that The Format broke up! Never mind that they broke up in February (oops). So yeah, I only went to their Myspace like once every six months. Did Stereogum even cover this? Trust me they were one of my favorite jangle pop bands ever! Really, they were! The melodies on the 2006 album Dog Problems were some of my all time favorite. Now they’re gone. Sam and Nate have gone their separate ways.
And, I blame The Force!

In this story, The Force is Web 2.0 or New Media or whatever you want to call it. Myspace and iTunes and muxtape and imeem and Pandora and the Long Tail were supposed to guarantee that hardworking indie bands with limited audiences would be taken care of! Hundreds of thousands of fans were supposed to hear them and say “Oh I’m totally going to spend money on this instead of Call of Duty 4 or Sin City on blu-ray.” They were supposed to make a million dollars! Because they’re totally way better than Fall Out Boy and stupid rappers and if only everybody had a chance to hear them, then tons of people would totally pay lots of money for their music! The Format even gave away an album for free! How 2.0 of them! And, The New Long Social Force 2.0 let me down, and now The Format is dead.

Yeah right.

Truth is, bands like The Format are (were) exactly as popular as they’re supposed to be and no amount of technical ingenuity is going to help them. At one point, I believed in building these cool tools that made technology irrelevant to the distribution of music to the people who consumed and paid for it. It’s where I guided my career. But, I think those problems are pretty much solved now. A band like The Format can produce a single, they can get it on iTunes and distribute their music to a worldwide audience and they can build connections with fans around the globe on Myspace. Then, they go out and play live and build a base. That’s really the end of the story. No amount of recommending it to someone who likes Linkin Park is going to change the bottom line. People like what they like. A lot of people like “popular crap” for a variety of completely valid reasons that have nothing to do with injecting marketing into the social graph.

But, there are acres of pixels devoted to that contentious issue. I’ll never convince the True Believers that people don’t actually want more music choices. So no, I’m not going all Darth Vader on anyone – that’s Andrew Keen’s gig now. I really just wanted to write a blog post about demise of The Format.

Oh, but also the new band Fun (http://www.myspace.com/fun) featuring Nate from The Format – a guy whose talent and writing I really connect with. They just posted a demo on their Myspace page, one that really makes me happy. I’ll add them as a friend and keep an eye out for when they’ll release more. I’ll probably really love it, but I won’t expect technology –- despite the billions of dollars changing hands on social media startups — to make the band any real money.

Addendum – more of my favorite tracks:

“Time Bomb”

“I’m Ready, I Am”

“I’m Actual”

What’s the old saw about insanity, doing the same thing and expecting a different result? Heck, I don’t remember

Breaking News!! Dell designs own music player… again

Really? Seriously? April Fools??

Ok, fine. It’s real. I just hope Mitch Ferrence comes back. Do the right thing, Dell!

Total classic from back in the day. Whatever happened to MC 900 Ft Jesus? He was sharp, had a great flow, and some of the cleverest lyrics around.

Sez Wikipedia:

Griffin eventually became disillisioned with the music industry, and following unproductive sessions for his fourth album felt he has taken his style of music as far as he wanted to go. Record label interest waned. Needing a new direction, he gained his commercial pilot’s license, hoping to become a trainer, but eventually took a job at a large bookstore

I wonder how much different his career would have been in the new media world? I bet as an indie artist, he wouldn’t have gotten a Spike Jonez video. Maybe he would. Seems like he had a good run, and now works for a living like everybody else. All is OK with the world.

Ian Curtis’ Gravestone Stolen | Pitchfork

Has anyone thought to ask Microsoft marketing? They may be borrowing it for a promotional Zune event.

Would you put it past them? It’s another creepy chapter in the creepiest digital music merchandising ploy ever.

Hulu is kicking Youtube’s Ass – Blog Maverick

Read one of Mark Cuban’s better posts.  I was dreaming of using Youtube similarly to promote video content on Yahoo! Music (before I left) But, here’s the idea — embed pre-roll and post-roll in the clips you give to Youtube — why has this been so hard for people to get their head around? Use it as a commercial, use it as direct-response ad! Youtube is a free marketing platform — but you’ve gotta use your marketing skills — and not just your production skills — when you dive in.  Why Yahoo! Music doesn’t do this with their programs like Live Sets and Who’s Next, I have no idea. Well I do have an idea — no resources for edgy ideas, and jittery advertiser shackles.