Less Platform, More Performance

I've been part of music and technology panels at music conferences for several years, and they've all been great in their own way and we've got another one today (Tuesday) at IBMA. But I'm struck in this week of the release of MySpace Music and the ongoing obsession with the iAnything and a billion blogs that we're talking too much about platforms and too little about the production and presentation of talent. Radio worked because it had producers who found artists and got them to do their best work - LIVE - over and over. TV worked the same way for about 25 years. Now we've got this gift of the internet, and while there's no end of applications and gadgets, I see precious few examples of crafty, well-staged offerings of serial talent by musicians. A very very few are creating their own webisode series, and that seems like a promising direction, but it's just a start. Producers, investors, sponsors, patrons and artists are going to have to step up to the plate to get us past the idea that the web is only good for streaming old-wave music videos and dowloading recordings.