The rapidly changing music industry makes it much easier for anyone, especially young aspiring artists, to release their own music, giving them a chance to be recognized and even become a mainstream artist that’s heard on the radio.
SoundCloud is an online audio platform that lets anyone upload their music, while allowing anyone else to listen to it. This has enabled many young artists to get their music out there, including some of AHS’ own students.
Junior Tes Lamin likes to release his own music on SoundCloud, a perfect example of how the music industry has become easy for everyone to get into. Lamin has been making music for the majority of his life. As a child, he witnessed a friend of his brother’s make music, which gave him the inspiration to create his own. After using some background knowledge and combining that with some research he did himself, Lamin got his own DAW, or digital audio workstation, at the age of six.
“I learned it for a bit and moved on up to Fruity Loops and made beats and posted them onto YouTube for a bit and got pretty good feedback. So I kept at it for a while and improved. I stopped posting beats on YouTube when I found out about SoundCloud around 2009 or ’10 or so, and I started using Ableton Live, and I’m still learning a lot of new stuff,” Lamin said.
When asked if he liked the direction that technology that relates the music has taken in the last 20+ years, Lamin said, “Yes, I feel like as time goes on, it becomes easier to share and let other people hear your music, or anyone else’s for that matter. Personally I don’t mind records or cassette tapes, but not a lot of people own tape players or records players nowadays, which makes CDs and mp3s much easier to share.”
Lamin also appreciates how interactive SoundCloud is, and how easy it is for anyone to listen to the music on the app/website. “I also like how the SoundCloud community is just a bunch of underground producers or rappers who post original content. You never hear the same thing on SoundCloud from a different user twice unless it’s a remix, and there’s barely anyone stealing anyone else’s idea and I really like that,” Lamin said.
Some may not know that Justin Bieber had started out on YouTube. His mother started putting up videos of him on YouTube, the first one being when he was just 12 years old. From YouTube, he was recognized by Scooter Braun, who owned a record label with Usher, and from there his career exploded.
The youth of each generation have brought newer and better musical inventions for the rest of the world, and it is a trend that will continue for years to come. As a result of the advancement in technology in as little as 20 years, people no longer have to go to a store to get new music on their phones.
In 1877, the first music player was ever released – the phonograph. In 1887, the gramophone was released, surpassing the sound quality and recording function.
After the inventions of the record and the LP (Long Playing record, also known as ‘album’) in 1906 and 1948, respectively, came the multitrack analog tapes and cassette tapes in 1962 and 1963, respectively. The cassette tapes allowed the first form of portable music listening.
Then, in 1982, came the revolutionary Compact Disc, or CD. And in 2001, came the ground-breaking invention known as the Apple iPod. Ever since the invention of the iPod and its online music store, iTunes, music has become increasingly convenient for its listeners.
It’s possible to buy digital versions of songs from online music stores, such as the previously mentioned iTunes, the Google Play Store and the Amazon Digital Music Store. There are a variety music apps that are available on smartphones that let people listen to music for free, like SoundCloud, Pandora, Songza and Spotify.
While technology brings many benefits to the music industry, it can also bring harm.
The pirating of music, a way to get music for free by using the method of ‘torrenting’ files, has increased greatly, especially with the younger generation, which decreases the amount of revenue earned by artists.
Many artists have discouraged their fans, such as Lady Gaga, Eminem, Christina Aguilera and J. Cole. “It’s kind of a mixed feeling for me when it comes to pirating music because nowadays you could just stream an album online or something. But as for an actual copy, I guess its okay to pirate as long as you plan on actually buying it later to support the artist because pirating doesn’t really benefit an artist you really enjoy, or want to support. So it’s probably just best just to buy things if you want to support someone,” Lamin said.
New technology has greatly changed the music industry, and mostly for the better. It is easier for the younger generation to start making music. Artists can now interact with their fans to a much larger extent.