How many times have we walked into a store and browsed to find the particular track or album we want or need in our life right now… The limited shelf space of the store has been the first go to for entire generations of music buyers and the casual shopper out looking for a music purchase. We have been quite happy to let stores stock music and may not have been aware that some massive percentage of music cannot be shelved in a single store. Imagine the size of the building that caters for all genres and releases. As we now understand the web has come to the rescue with endless tail of virtual shelving, every album that has been manufactured will exist in some form on some site which we all can access. Then we sit and wait for the post to deliver the new tunes we crave….

This is one of the virtues of the digitalization of our industry. The long Tail of endless choice. In reality every artist should be catered for somewhere on the net. It can be a specialist website catering for just black metal to the polar opposite of Christian fundamentalist rock. Sold online to whoever inputs the correct dat. Throw into the mix rogue elements of free downloads and online piracy then it is little wonder that Bill Gates came up with the idea to carry music around on high storage personnel hard drives, and creating the worlds best digital hub in the process. At any given time in most major cities a rough head count of a few hundred people could possibly yield up 100,000 tunes. If the average ipod can hold 1000 songs, that’s a mind blowing statistic given that there are few specialist music stores around. Prior to the digital download Wal-Mart and Tesco had decided to pick what we would listen to and stock those artists on their limited CD shelve space. Never a good idea to let supermarkets stock what they feel is current, look what it did to the farming community and chickens!! There are few independent stores left in our towns that hold that amount of stock, so why are we consuming more music than ever and being told of a crisis in the recording industry.

The Charlatans gave away their last studio album in 2008 “You Cross My Path” as did Radiohead with “In Rainbows”. The results of the exercise are as follows…YCMP had 200,000 free down loads and sold 60,000 paid cd’s. The Charlatans have just finished their biggest world tour lasting two years. Radiohead’s figures are even more startling: over 3 million copies including downloads, 100,000 deluxe box sets at around £100 each, 1.2million concert tickets sold. Both bands marketed there album online, The Charlatans gave theirs away for free, yet still did their biggest tour to date. Radiohead are one of the planets biggest bands, and not a record label in sight. Record companies are to be put to the ultimate test as the head is now severed from the body, the best visionaries and music svengarlies will soon step forward, and smaller more lean businesses can take over from the corporate machine.

The fact of the matter is that no one in the record industry was that interested in technology at the big moments when new hi tech inventions were first introduced, and rightly so, who wants to be in a record company and have to be a geek…an accountant maybe! But as employees and associates and music fans we still hold on to the power of music as an emotive force for good, and the belief that we can escape through the transcendent doorway into the world where no agenda exists but for our imagination and taste.

One thing is for sure that this revolution has not affected the right of the individuals freedom to access whatever, whenever without anybody dictating that we must conform to in terms of economic models of purchase and price or current taste explosion in the form of chart shows on the many different channels, who actually has the control over the charts is not very clear. But it has to be pointed out that any music on TV is better than the mind sucking cooking dross which is now common place on Saturday mornings (for now!). We don’t have to consult newspapers and TV channel guides to find out what we should be watching due to the scheduling hours. Online access can free us up to watch on demand and free time to spend discovering the topics of interest that come with being an individual… the day of coffee break chats about Eastenders could be coming to an end!

Surface unsigned continues to act like a giant music magnet finding exciting ground breaking new acts; it re-energizes the inner cities searching out new talent and then presenting the would be winner to the masses in a never before attempted unsigned festival. The organization from the team is inspiring and the gigs continue to go from strength to strength. Last years final was a landmark as the finalists got to play at the prestige’s O2 arena in front of an excitable crowd. The prizes and industry weight of the various associate sponsors shows the level at which unsigned music and this festival in particular is now held in the industry. Here and now in Europe more gigs will be held, the winners can look forward to a European outdoor festival slot as part of the many prizes to be had.

Jon Brookes 2010