The Needless Tragedy of NU 107's Closure

Over dinner last night, fresh off watching "The Social Network" and reminiscing (and ranting) about NU 107, my hubby suddenly asked, "Will Sean Parker go to hell?"

Say what you will but Napster changed the world.  Wait, that's giving them way too much credit.  What they did sure wasn't ethical (hypocrite alert).  So, let's just say that Napster gave us ideas, which it really did.  Share digital files over the interwebs?  Whaaaat?

So I replied with this, "Imagine if they didn't invent Napster."  The hubby chuckled, "Someone else will?"  Ha ha ha.  "Yes. If Napster didn't exist at all and online file sharing still wasn't possible, things could be worse now."

"How?"

"We'd still be suffering those capitalists' every whim."  Think about it.

When Napster was shut down, I remember people in forums arguing that it wouldn't even have existed and we wouldn't even get on it if buying music didn't cost an arm and a leg.  Then, CDs generally cost between PHP400-700 (around US$7-14).  Off my meager salary at the time, I'd willingly blow PHP1000 (roughly US$20) on CDs in Music One, which was the local rep of Tower Records in PH.  Sure you could find CD sales in holes-in-the-wall where you could get 5 CDs for just PHP100 (US$2), but there weren't a lot of these places.  Fast-forward to a post-Napster world, CD prices began dropping down to PHP300-500 for foreign albums and PHP250 for local ones.  Before long, Tower Records became a thing of the past.  Nowadays, who goes to record bars to buy music?  I still do but only occasionally.  Music wasn't as easily accessible then as it is now.

But it is in this context that NU 107's shutdown is tragic.  They say NU isn't really closing down, rather it's reformatting -- to masa pop!  WTH.  NU's as good as dead.  The sugar pop machine has won.  Traditional advertising & marketing has hammered in the nails on the coffin.   It's all so ironic because the world we live in now allows us the liberty of making our own choice, we don't have to cater to the whims of what the powers-that-be say is "hot" right now.  Music is now, more than ever, a personal experience.  And yet, traditional media (MTV, I'm looking at you) is still hellbent on holding on to its fading powers of spoonfeeding and brainwashing the masses.

NU's rock jocks knew their stuff.  They don't innunciate or tidy up their spiels.  It was all about the music; they didn't hide their love for rock and roll.  Music doesn't get the same treatment in other radio stations.

I'm not an expert on the politics and economics in the recording industry.  I just read a lot and my rockstar hubby tells me about the challenges they have when it comes to royalties, album sales, marketing.  My take is that, the world's different now.  Current social web technologies have changed the game.  Traditional marketing and advertising don't really work anymore.  NU's "death" is actually a needless tragedy because all the management has to do is to understand what these new technologies can do for them, use some creativity and make these work for them.

Several artists, like Jay-Z, The Pixies, Daryl Hall, Elvis Costello, Nine Inch Nails, John Mayer, etc. have moved on from depending solely on album sales and have embraced the social web.  They've realized that there are so many new and awesome ways to get to their audience directly.  The beauty of the social web is that it has given fans a direct line to their favorite artists and vice versa.  In fact, that is the unique connection that iTunes 10 leverages.

The OPM rock music scene will never be the same without NU 107, but the music will keep playing.  It's up to the artists to find out how.