Re: [microsound] politics of music: online labels

[Marc Hiatt <mark@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

he

marc.m., i think that what you were getting at here :
>if i were to impose politics and  narrow definitions of genre i would end up
with >something bred from my own ignorance.

corresponds rather well with my comments here:

>for myself i would have to say that the main answer lies not in the style of
>music one creates, although that can play a part, but in the way in which it
>is transmitted to the listener.

although i can say that at least for myself my ear prefers (and has been
conditioned to some extent by my political thoughts) sounds which do not
blatantly lend themselves to commercial exploitation. i can see that this is
a  (conditioned) narrowness in my own hearing/thinking/perception but, so
far as things go, i haven't had many problems to date because currently,
music which _sounds_ commercial usually _is_. but i certainly agree that it
is desirable to avoid the sort of in-crowd approach promoted by many
"underground" labels. the long history of avant-garde art shows us many
examples of the sort of useless snobbery that can lead to.

on another point, which david brought up:
>the biggest problem from that point onward
>(at least if you intend to make it into a "career") is popularity: how
>to build a fan base.

do you or many of the artists with whom you have contact really see this as
a priority david?  what about the rest of you? can one make a career out of
freely distributing mp3s? would one want to?
what precisely did you mean by the word "career" here?

marc.h.