The ruggedly individualist musician

My spotter sent me this link to a NYT article about a musician's use of the Internet to build a fanbase and a community around his music. In the process, it helps us to rethink the myth of the ruggedly indivualist musician, the expressivist whose music bursts forth in a creative blaze and who has to fight the studios for artistic control. In this case, the musician certainly is an individual, but one who draws on blog comments, fan videos, and even fan-performed tracks to build his music and image. It's a different model, one that is enabled by the Internet and communication technologies, and one that helps us to take the lid off of the studio system by contrast. Because it's not like the individual artist performed all of these functions in the first place -- studio musicians, filmmakers, PR flacks, and especially producers have performed unsung duties that have been played down in order to build the myth of the individual artist.

Jonathan Coulton - MySpace - YouTube - Rock Music - New York Times

technorati tags:music, myspace, studio

Blogged with Flock