Emma's Final Paper

Updating the Lyrics
Emma Rippe

This picture is showing that the our music does impact our society

"I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music," Billy Joel states. His idea that music affects everyone is true; our society's problems and issues in media are given a voice through music. Not only does it affect our music but also the way music is listened to and how it is published through music industries and the technology advancing through time. Technology and media today affects our music industry today because as we go through time this concept is evolving, from buying CDs to illegally downloading music and having applications for devices to support the music you listen to. Not only is the music industry developing but the music itself is developing too, the way it is written based on how we as a society is effected by media, and also the way we create music, becoming more "techno." Our technology and media has been impacting the way our music is listened to and interpreted.

                As technology advances the devices we use to listen to music consistently change. 10 years ago we were listening to music on CDs and cassette tapes, and now we can fit thousands of CDs all into one small device that we carry in our pockets. Starting from just having a small box that is physically winded it up to create sound also called a phonautograph. Then we moved into juke boxes, this all led up to society having devices that can hold thousands of songs, not only songs, but even applications, cameras, video cameras, phone, alarms… etc.

This show that technology of devices have advanced through the years

Our technology has advanced so much in less than a decade. This sort of evolution is amazing because it gives us, the community, new music that we can explore like unknown artists that may not be main stream. It gives a person more variety in their music, to open up and expand music taste. The advancement of technology has its negatives and positives. For example a negative is that it creates new ways to obtain free music and rip off artists and also the new technology is closing down music stores rapidly. According to the New York Times article from 2008, written by Ben Sisario, “Some 3,100 record stores around the country have closed since 2003, according to the Almighty Institute of Music Retail, a market research firm.” Therefore showing in the span of 6 years our technology closed over 3,100 record stores. These stores have been closing because there has been no reason for them to stay open when all music can be purchased cheaper online or on a device. Technology is also forcing CDs to disappear over time because of the advancement in music technology. A positive with technology advancing is that it gives unknown artists a chance to get their music in the industry or to more audience. 2 decades ago we didn’t have YouTube or iTunes, but they did have gigs to play at and places to talk to try to get their music out there. In our generation it is much easier to show the talent through social media and the internet. This also leads to giving society an expansion in the different type of artists and songs we can listen to. There are positives and negatives to the advancement in music technology, but as we continue moving on through the years we don’t know what to expect of the way we will be listening to music or even the type of music we will be listening to, our society could be affected positively or negatively in the evolution of our music. 

This shows that sites like iTunes and converters are taking CDs and records away 

Even though the evolution of music is beneficial for us, it's detrimental to artists producing the music, music industries, and record labels. Now that we get music online rather than in a store it's easy to find free downloaders for music, therefore not giving all the profit to the artist, but cheating them by getting it for free. In fact according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), every year there is a $4.2 billion loses in the music industry worldwide. Not just the music industry loses money, but the artists themselves lose the money they are trying to earn, especially small artists that are trying to make a living. Especially in the generation now, the norm to getting music is to get it for free online, and if you buy the music it’s considered to be a waste of money. Even when the album or song is on sale on iTunes or Amazon, consumers still look at the price as too much, since we have the idea that it is easier and free to get it online. Now days our consumers have developed the idea that free music is okay, and don’t look at the impact it is having on the artists or music industry. On the internet today there are tons of different free downloaders, an example of a free downloader used today is the YouTube Converter which is a website that takes YouTube videos and converts them into your iTunes library. This taking away a lot of money from the music industry and the artist’s themselves. This is good for consumers like us, because when we hear free, it means it’s better, easier, and cheaper, therefore more useful not thinking about the cause of free music. Producers get affected by having music not being purchased; it takes away a huge amount of money from them including the artist. There are still ways that artists are making money from their music, which are applications and websites like Spotify and Pandora.

This shows we are now using the apps on phones to listen to our music

                  Even as music develops so does the technology of phones, more apps are created every day for laptops and phones. Some examples of free music applications that have developed over the past 10 years are iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, and even YouTube. These applications/websites for music listening have been created to make it so one can access an “unlimited” amount of music. iTunes is a website/application that makes it so there is an unlimited selection of music to buy from to create a library of music that can be used during anytime on most devices like iPods, iPads, smart phones, laptops…etc. Even though apps like Spotify, Pandora, Rhapsody seem unlimited, the artist is still making money for each time the track is played. Unlike Spotify, which the application/website describes itself as, “Spotify is a digital music service that gives you access to millions of songs.” This music application makes it so that you have access to a lot of music for no money but need Wi-Fi for it to work with advertisement in the songs and application/website. To get the application on a smart phone device, you pay for the app to be able to access all songs on the application and also it gets rid of the ads on the application. The website Pandora is described on its site as, “Pandora is free personalized internet radio.  Simply enter a favorite artist, track, comedian or genre, and Pandora will create a personalized station that plays their music and more like it. Rate songs by giving thumbs-up and thumbs-down feedback and add variety to further refine your stations, discover new music and help Pandora play only music you love.” Which is a different website/application than Spotify and iTunes, where it creates stations for you based on how you personalize it, meaning it isn’t a “chose a song” kind of website; it’s like a typical radio station but, personalized for yourself. All these different applications and websites have created a new world of music listening, making it easier to get music but all in different ways.

This is describing how YouTube can create fame

                  Even though all those applications and websites are there, there is a website that really stands out compared to a lot of others, which is YouTube. This is a website where anyone can post videos, and it is also where a lot of music videos are produced. YouTube isn’t just videos like comedians or short videos, but also is the community of society expressing their talents like singing. YouTube is a website that also stands out compared to the rest of them because it’s a place to find new musicians that may have never been discover. For example, most people know who Justin Bieber is, the young boy who became famous from his YouTube channel (KidRauhl) and his talent of singing.  He went from being a regular boy to being a big pop star known world wide, and even one of his songs, “Baby,” got 2 billion hits on YouTube this past year. YouTube is what I would like to call a “place of discovery,” like discovering new, talented, unknown artists that didn’t have a chance before. There are many stars like Justin Bieber who have become famous through YouTube, and are now published musicians like, Carly Rae Jepsen (YouTube Video: Call Me Maybe 500 million views), Ok Go (YouTube Channel: OkGo), and Psy (YouTube Video: Gangnam Style reaching on 2 billion views). These are some examples of YouTube fame and how many views they get from the public. YouTube is also connected with Vevo, which is its own site as well, but publishes music videos. These websites have become a phenomenon in our generation because it gives us a place to discover an unlimited amount of music and videos. Therefore improving the development of our music that society has been shaping.

This is showing the development from acoustics to DJs

                  It’s not just the way we listen to music that is developing, but what is produced is developing too. Our generation now is a lot of electronic music, like dubstep, ambient, break beat, drum and bass, house music, trap, and techno. These types of music is all being electronically processed through a computer or produced through a computer focusing on using bass, synthesizers, and mashing up music (remixes). This kind of music only creates different variations of an original song or it is a bunch of beats produced in different ways to create a catchy rhythm. Now a day our generation has created a type of music that gets us on our feet to jump up and down to. Our generation then doesn’t realize true and original music, since music is now remixes or hidden by large bass drops. For example, our generation of music is losing their originality and working off other songs that have already been produced. “Stronger” by Kanye West, released on the album, Graduation, in 2007, was developed from Daft Punk’s song, “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” released as a single in 2001. Our generation is now using old music to create new music but with bass or rap to create a new song, showing that we are losing originality in what we are making for music. It also creates a way for artists to hide behind through electronics making unnaturally made/altered music. This is changing how we see artists and natural talent.

This showing gay rights

                  Throughout many generations of music, a lot of lyrics have been made to show emotions, tell a story, or express an opinion. Music is so powerful and can affect the audience’s opinion on what is happening in society now. A strong demonstration of how a song expresses an opinion about what’s going on in the world is, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s featuring Mary Lambert song, “Same Love,” on the album The Heist, which came out in 2012. This song is about same sex marriage and equality, and how there is so much discrimination against gay and lesbian couples, describing how our society is structured to believe that it isn’t normal to be gay. It gives a different incite on how our society judges others. Macklemore gives his opinion through rap about how he feels on this controversy going on today. The fact that Macklemore raps about gay rights really stands out, because most rap is about other problems that go on. There has never been a rap that has gone viral through radios about the topic/controversy of gay rights. This song hit top charts, almost all pop radio stations and was nominated for the 56^th Grammy’s Award, “Song of The Year,” and sold almost 2 million copies in September of 2013 in the United States. The music video on YouTube got over 100 million views to this day. Some of the lyrics like, “When everyone else is more comfortable remaining voiceless rather than fighting for human that had their rights stolen I might not be the same, but that’s not important no freedom till we’re equal, damn right I support it.” These lyrics are rapped by Macklemore in the song, and it’s just an example of how his lyrics state his opinion on the controversy of gay rights. It shows how much our community listens to music and how many people listen to an opinion on a huge controversy in our world right now. It shows how powerful media can be to just deliver one statement by an artist.

This is just showing that he's involved in music and not the outside world

                  Overall the generations of music have been evolving through technology, production, what we are listening to, how it impacts us, they have all been developing as we move on through the years. There are years ahead to experience more change and evolution, we are not sure what expect, everything could change in less than a decade at this rate in how society is creating its self. We went through listening to one song through a physically turning a machine to pressing a button and listening to thousands of songs. Then we went through all sorts of controversies being expressed through generations of music, to our music stores closing through the advancement in the technology we have. We are experiencing negative and positive adaptions as we and our music evolves.