Steve Albini: the ability to share music is the best thing since punk rock

We’re used to hearing musicians complain about the internet and the fact that it is allegedly devaluing their work given the infinite replicability and shareability of music online.

Steve Albini in an interview with Quartz this week states quite the opposite: “The single best thing that has happened in my lifetime in music, after punk rock, is being able to share music, globally for free.”

Albini goes on to say that the Internet has disrupted what was a vicious cycle within the music industry where a band could sell a quarter of a million records but be indebted to the record company without making a penny from the music.

Labels according to Albini have now become irrelevant as gatekeepers and bands can get exposure without them. More importantly for him: “Music is no longer a commodity, it’s an environment, an atmospheric element.”

This is a far cry from statements released by other musicians like David Byrne, but it’s a much more realistic look at the progress that has been made thanks to the internet. As the saying goes, the genie’s out of the bottle and arguably we’re all much better off because of it. Artists should be looking at creating opportunities out of these new means of distribution rather than wishing for the “good old days” back, since those days were only actually good for less than 1% of the world’s population of music makers.

(Andrea Leonelli)