Music: Chasing the Long Tail

Chris Anderson wrote this book called "The Long Tail" a couple years ago based on an article of the same name that he authored in Wired Magazine. The premise was that where we once all used to listen to, watch, and buy the same stuff, there is now this bell curve of cultural choices where the end of the curve, the "tail", goes on and on and the small numbers buying each of a zillion choices are as significant as what used to be the zillions of people buying a few products or partaking of a few cultural phenomena (like Beatles records, or Star Wars movies, or "All In the Family"). We all do our own thing now, and there is less and less that holds us together as a culture, guiding our talk around the water cooler, recalling shared experiences. About all we've got today, lucky us, is "American Idol" and Britney's latest midnight run to the ER.

This long tail effect seems to be especially taking hold in the world of music, where there are sea changes in how the whole business model of purveying music to people works. Things like the CD, the music store, and the "album" seem to be endangered if not already obsolete.

Despite the seemingly sorry state of the music industry, music itself seems to be thriving. For example, I have always been drawn to the more flashy, chops-laden, and sometimes edgy music known as progressive rock, or prog. Prog had its heyday (some call it the first golden era) in the early 1970's, with a number of top-selling bands pushing their envelopes: your Emerson, Lake, and Palmers, King Crimsons, Yeses, Tulls, Focuses (Foci?). Everyone has heard something by at least one or two of these.

There followed a backlash as straight-out rockers stripped back to the essence of music, and "punk" ruled the day, not nudging, but forcefully kicking prog off the charts and into the shadows. Then there were the eighties, but I don't want to upset you, dear reader.

There were some flare-ups in these years, as some formerly esoteric artists went more than a bit mainstream and were rewarded with riches. Genesis, for example, became platinum sellers as Phil Collins abandoned the drumkit for the spotlight.

The last fifteen to twenty years, however, have seen prog, as just one genre of music, or actually a cluster of genres, go pretty much underground. However, interestingly, there are now more prog artists for the ardent fan to follow than ever before. Just fewer fans out here on the long tail. And new ways to find the music, since Wal Mart does not stock it, as it in fact reduces the number of titles in its lowest-common-denominator inventory. The best avenue is the Internet: through listservs and discussion groups, on-line niche vendors, news sites like the excellent Dutch Progressive Rock Page (www.dprp.net), artists' websites, and giants like Amazon, whose inventories reach far down the tail.

Numerous sub-genres survive, including Neo (perhaps the most accessible prog, with artists who emulate the orchestral sound of Genesis, or the 1980's band Marillion); RIO (rock in opposition, with its more challenging, atonal, amelodic sounds); Canterbury, sounding like the rollicking music from that region of Britain; fusion (shared with the jazz world; the half jazz/half rock hybrid laid down by Return to Forever, Weather Report, and Mahavishnu Orchestra, and plenty of others less well known); symphonic prog (pretty much self-explanatory), and such out-there labels as Zeuhl, "popularized" by the French band, Magma, and its resident genius Christian Vander , who not only created his unique chanting music, but also invented the language used for the chanting. The second picture at the top of this post is of Magma appearing at the Northeast Art Rock Fest ("NEARfest") in Bethlehem, PA, last summer. The picture above it is of the Italian band, Le Orme, busting out their sitar at a previous NEARFest. Le Orme has been around since the 1970's.

Prog has always been an international genre. Its germination was largely in England with the above-mentioned Tull, ELP, Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, etc., but American prog bands (notably Kansas) sprang up, and other countries (Italy, Germany, Japan, Argentina, Sweden, to name a few) made and continue to make large contributions.

These musics (doesn't it sound more like an academic treatise when one says "these musics?) continue today with an ever-growing repertoire, and thanks to affordable computer-based studio and mixing programs, the zero material costs of mp3s, and the global reach of the Internet, but many, if not most, of their musicians have day jobs. It's fun and rewarding, but few can make a livin'.

Prog is just one of the genres of music that I enjoy. Many other genres are no doubt experiencing the long tail and a resulting intimacy between the artists and their fan "base". An example of this intimacy is this: One of my very favorite CDs from about three years ago is called "The Feeling of Far", by a guy named Fritz Dotty. I bought this CD from Mr. Dotty, who was selling them at NEARfest that year. I emailed him later, to tell him how much I liked what he had done. He emailed me back and thanked me for the kind words.

No, the music I enjoy will never, for the most part, get to number one with a bullet on the Billboard charts. I am not even aware of what music actually does rest in that lofty position these days. But as long as there are ways for appreciative listeners to obtain and support the music that represents their favorite part of the long tail, music will survive and most of us will be happy.