From Independent Record Shops to the Internet: Recorded Music Communities in the Digital Age
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION STUDIES From independent record shops to the Internet: Recorded music communities in the Digital Age A thesis submitted to Auckland University of Technology in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Lewis Tennant 1 March 2016 Abstract The Internet has altered notions of space and place. This study examines these changes against the backdrop of the independent brick-and-mortar record shop, a location where the transforming power of music has traditionally brought people together. Ideas, opinions, and histories are shared. Musical projects and friendships are formed; the art form of music critiqued. Globally these stores have decreased in numbers significantly since the turn of the 21st Century, particularly affected by the ‘post-Napster’ growth in the online acquisition of music and other media forms. In considering the substantial decline in numbers of brick-and- mortar independent record shops, and in turn what these spaces offer the people who frequent them, this thesis questions how recent technological changes have affected the social interactions of communities that are based on recorded music, also exploring the changing ways in which people engage with recorded music in their everyday lives. In doing so, this study investigates how communities manifest themselves on the Internet, examining in turn what aspects of physical spaces and face-to-face interaction may not be replicated in the online environment. In a series of focus groups and semi-structured interviews, notions of ‘space(s)’ and ‘place(s)’ for modern music communities and subcultures are examined in the context of decreasing numbers of physical spaces to congregate. Participants describe a media acquisition and communication environment far more flexible and free than that of the past, though also identify that contemporary interactions with others seem to lack a depth of connection. The study then suggests that the independent brick-and-mortar record shop, or some variation of it, might continue to serve an important function as a space that encourages local face-to-face interactions in an increasingly globally networked world. i | P a g e Table of Contents Abstract i Table of Contents ii Attestation of Authorship v Acknowledgements vi INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW 1-1 1.1 ‘Background to the research project’: Situating the researcher in the study 1-1 1.2 ‘On studying recorded music communities’: The purpose and scope of this research 1-1 1.2.1 ‘Conversations with friends’: How I arrived at the research question 1-5 1.3 ‘Introducing the project’: A brief overview of the following chapters 1-8 HISTORICAL CONTEXT & LITERATURE REVIEW 2-10 2.1 ‘The 100111001 revolution’: Music distribution and consumption in the 21st Century 2-10 2.2 ‘From Commodore to chain stores’: A brief history of music retail spaces 2-15 2.2.1 ‘From Talkeries to today’: The history of the record store in New Zealand 2-20 2.2.2 ‘From brick to binary’: The declining number of traditional music retail spaces 2-23 2.3 ‘Plug it, play it, burn it, rip it’: The expectations of modern music consumers 2-26 2.4 ‘Hear it, see it, touch it, feel it’: The expectations of traditional music consumers 2-32 2.5 ‘A hard-drive stash of pirated musical booty’: A case study of collectors 2-36 2.6 ‘Music for your plants’: The value of independent record shops 2-44 2.6.1 ‘Selling stories’: The social and cultural relevance of independent record shops 2-47 2.6.2 ‘The McDonalds effect’: Cultural standardisation, globalisation, and localisation 2-55 2.6.3 ‘Adapt or die’: The future of the brick-and-mortar record shop 2-60 2.7 ‘Pounding away in 24 time zones’: Community and the Internet 2-68 2.7.1 ‘F2F, IRL, AWK, CMC, and virtual’: Comparing on and offline interactions 2-75 2.7.2 ‘Face-to-face and online together’: How on and offline interactivity converge 2-80 2.8 ‘Contextualising the research question’: What is distinct from previous research 2-85 ii | P a g e RESEARCH DESIGN & METHODS 3-90 3.1 ‘Research design’: A flexible yet grounded approach 3-91 3.2 ‘Data gathering’: Interviews & focus groups 3-93 3.3 ‘Data analysis’: Grounded theory 3-105 FINDINGS & ANALYSIS 4-109 4.1 ’29 people and three cities’: Introducing the participants 4-110 4.2 ‘Big brothers & Black Sabbath’: The origins of a lifelong interest in music 4-114 4.3 ‘666 Satan stoner’: Pleasures gained and sought when consuming music 4-118 4.4 ‘Finding that track from 1982’: Changes in how music is acquired 4-128 4.4.1 ‘Freed music, not free music’: Music availability online and offline 4-132 4.4.2 ‘Possibilities are endless’: The richness & reach of the modern media environment 4-137 4.5 ‘Nothing products’: Format preferences, perceived value, and reliability 4-140 4.6 ‘It’s all just data!’: The album, the artist, and ‘the quickening’ 4-148 4.6.1 ‘You always have the liberty of changing it’: The album versus the shuffle button 4-153 4.7 ‘Wow I’m seeing it in real life!’: On the contemporary relevance of record shops 4-161 4.7.1 ‘Sha-zamm!’: On the relevance of tastemakers and other intermediaries 4-169 4.8 ‘Sharing is accepted more in the Internet age ‘: Problems with the record shop ethos 4-177 4.8.1 ‘Put it in the bag! Put it in the bag!’: Record shops as emotionally loaded spaces 4-183 4.9 ‘It seemed like a unified kind of existence’: A general discussion about ‘community’ 4-189 4.9.1 ‘Falling into a YouTube wormhole’: Counterculture, capitalism & community 4-194 4.9.2 ‘Music harks back to a tribal thing’: Alone, together? 4-203 4.9.3 ‘How the person looks in their face’: Evaluating face-to-face and online interaction 4-210 CONCLUSION 5-222 5.1 ‘Richness and reach and richness of reach’: Overview of research findings 5-222 5.2 ‘Old deejays’: Limitations of research findings 5-234 5.3 Potential areas for further research 5-236 REFERENCES 239 GLOSSARY 261 iii | P a g e Attestation of Authorship “I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person (except where explicitly defined in the acknowledgements), nor material which to a substantial extent has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or other institute of higher learning”. Lewis Tennant iv | P a g e Acknowledgements Thank you to music, without which life would be a mistake. Thank you to my supervisors Dr Jacqueline Harrison and Dr Peter Hoar, for your invaluable advice, support, and professional guidance. Thank you to my friends, co-workers, and family—in particular those who said ‘I can’t wait to read it!’—for providing support and motivation. Thank you to the administration staff in the AUT Communication Studies department, as well as the administration staff in the AUT Scholarships office. Thank you to AUT University and the Vice-Chancellor Derek McCormack for awarding me a VC Doctoral Scholarship, without which I would never have come this far. Thank you to the 29 individuals who gifted their time to this project. Your reflections were honest, insightful, often entertaining, but most importantly invaluable to the realisation of this study. Finally, rest in peace Emma Reilly, Emma Gleaves, Soane Filitonga, and Kevin Upton; friends sadly lost during the completion of this thesis. Ethics approval was given by the Auckland University of Technology Ethics Committee for this research 5 August 2014 AUTEC Reference number 14/181 Introduction and Overview 1.1 ‘Background to the research project’: Situating the researcher in the study The independent brick-and-mortar record shop is a space where the transforming power of music brings people together. Ideas, opinions, and histories are shared. Musical projects and friendships are formed, the art form of music critiqued. Globally, these shops have fallen on hard times, with over 3000 independent record shops having closed in the US for the decade through to 2008 (Toller, 2008), and 90 % having closed in the UK as of 2015 (Ediriwira, 2015). Over the last twenty years in New Zealand the number of specialty music stores has fallen from approximately 300 to about 30 (Rice & Stiven, 2015). Despite these changes, record shops have not ‘died’ as Harris (2003) reported, though their numbers have declined significantly (Benzine & Dosanjh, 2007; Campbell, 2010; McIntyre, 2009; Rice & Stiven, 2015). A combination of a rise in online music retailers, online music piracy, major recording labels trending toward backing blockbuster pop stars rather than developing and nurturing a wider range of artists’ careers, and ‘big box’ retailers such as The Warehouse offering physical music sales for prices smaller retailers cannot compete with, has led to a climate where survival is difficult for independent retailers. It happened to the shop I grew up with in New Zealand, The Soul Mine in Wellington, New Zealand, which shut its doors after over twenty years of trading in 2005. The owner of this shop’s knowledge and passion for his wares (as well as his patience for a ten-year-old boy with a lot of questions) set me off on a lifetime of collecting and critiquing music, also leading to my forming long-term and meaningful friendships with fellow customers and staff of shops I would meet along the way. 1.2 ‘On studying recorded music communities’: The purpose and scope of this research In day-to-day conversation there is a tendency to refer to the sound recording companies who develop and market artists and their cultural products as ‘the music industry’.