cut the middlemen
At the end of a Danny Brown concert late last year, the eponymous performer leaned back, released a few cackles, and squawked to us all [paraphrasing], “Ayy, who bought my album?” *audience woo’ed moderately* “Heh heh heh, who uses Spotify?” *fuller-bodied, earthier woo’ing* “Y’all should buy my album because I only get, like, a few pennies for every hundred listens, chyeh heh heh. Now I’m goin’ to the strip club next door; y’all have a goodass night!” [end paraphrasing].
His words touched my soul. In the past year or so, I’ve begun using Bandcamp more (totally unaffiliated). It’s a music streaming app that sports a broader catalogue of music by rookie artists, newsletters by musicians or music critics to which you can subscribe, and the ability to buy albums (digital, CD, or vinyl) or songs for yourself or friends. There’s less curation—no Butter playlist or Discover Weekly—but it feels like an authentic music community.
I had my initial hangups, though. Bandcamp’s not like Spotify or Apple Music. It instead requires paying a single sum per album or track rather than a monthly subscription.
Something in me recoiled when I saw that requirement—the same thing that made me hesitate to buy Before Sunrise on Amazon Prime for $2.99 instead of streaming it illegally or changing movies. While it’s hardly any money, I have this stingy feeling that I shouldn’t need to pay money to watch the movie or listen to an album. Especially when there’s so much more I can watch or listen to for free.
It’s a little bit ridiculous—three dollars to watch a movie for a night is nothing. But since most of what I consume is through streaming services, I feel entitled that I shouldn’t have to pay for it. This apathy happens because there’s just so much stuff online: if we can’t find the movie we want to watch for free, we figure there’s probably another one that can easily replace it.
What worries me is that when we pay some monthly fee for unlimited services, I think we tend to be more careless with its products. We flip aimlessly through Netflix’s broad set of categories, bounce between curated playlists on Spotify, and order something we don’t really need because Amazon Prime will ship it by 4pm today. I’ve definitely been guilty of scrolling though PostMates options for several minutes without actually buying anything.
It all gets justified because we’re not paying for movies, we’re paying for Netflix with all its original content and special categories. We’re not paying for music, we’re paying for Spotify with its Spotify sessions and curated playlists. Digital content companies have become these towering middlemen that take our money and give a fraction of it to their suppliers. Most of them don’t give us options to purchase movies or music directly, which screws over the artists.
The Subscription Age also changes my intentions around consuming art. I remember having a collection of CDs as a kid, of Yanni’s greatest hits and the Celtic Treasure compilation. I’d play them in a huge CD player I kept in my room. I always knew which one I wanted to listen to at any given time.
Nowadays, when I open up any streaming application, I find it hard to remember why I even chose it to begin with. Then, I feel hollow, this “now what?” echoing in me, and I distract myself by scrolling aimlessly through its contents (old playlists, recommended movies, friends’ Twitter accounts, etc.). It’s like when my parents go to the shopping mall. They usually don’t have anything in mind; they usually just shrug their shoulders and tell me that “it’s just a nice way to get out of the house.” There’s no intention behind it, no errands to run or clothes to buy; it’s just a way to get out there and keep boredom at bay.
Maybe the most damning aspect of the Subscription Age is how it’s tinged my view of people with this expectation of immediate gratification. Of entertainment. Even the most benign of subscriptions, like a small-time newsletter (heh) or my friends’ Twitter accounts keep me waiting for something interesting or funny to come to me instead of me creating that feeling. I notice this entitled feeling in me, like whatever I view should entertain me.
How often do we really keep up with and show gratitude to our content creators? It makes me think of how things were before streaming got big. When music used to come out only on vinyl, music-lovers would flock to the record store and buy their favorite artists’ new music on wax without a second thought. It was about loyalty to the artist and what they represented rather than ratings or entertainment. Movies are the same. I vaguely remember seeing somewhere that in small Indian villages, communities would organize to set up a huge projector screen and play a movie that the audience would watch outside, sitting cross-legged and whooping during the action sequences.
Streaming services don’t have to be these nefarious, media-peddling middlemen. We can use them to connect with artists and creators on our own terms. Granted, it’s much easier to remain loyal to the distributor than to the creator, but once we learn who the creators are, there are ways for us to connect with them and support them individually.
Spotify shows me new music through Discover Weekly, which I’ll scan through to decide whether or not I like it. From here, I can purchase that music in Bandcamp. It goes the same way with anything else. If I like a movie or show that I stumbled across while lazily browsing a streaming service, I can purchase it outright to show support. Maybe I can reply to people’s Tweets too instead of spectating, and go to thrift shops instead of shopping malls.
One step at a time, though.
My friends do cool things too.
I never followed basketball but was still upset to hear about the tragic loss of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna. My friend Nikil put it into better words:
My friend Nitin made a groovy, upbeat electronic music track and is constantly working on more:
My friend David (who is also a talented rapper) created his first finished Lo-Fi hiphop beat: