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Bug in the system
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by JACK OATMON Much has been made of the record industry’s plight in recent years. And, though some might want to do a dance of exuberant joy about the prospect of EMI and Warner crumbling to dust, our old pal the independent record label has been feeling the squeeze too. It’s been especially tight in the trend-driven, technology-embracing world of club music. “A lot of people, if they don’t have the track at the first moment, they won’t buy it three weeks later because they have the impression that everybody else has already played it,” explains Germany’s Steve Bug, stalwart deep house and minimal techno DJ, producer and label head. “It’s not about good or bad or whether you like it or not. For a lot of people, it’s about being the first to have it and playing the shit out of it, forgetting about it and deleting the file.” But familiar as those symptoms may sound, little exists in the way of remedies, alternate business models or predictions for the future of the small record business. As two of his three labels, Dessous and Poker Flat, celebrate their 10th anniversaries, Bug took the time to talk about challenges and possibilities for the coming decade in the business. “The original idea was that everybody can put music on the Internet and they didn’t have to go through the label and ask people to release it, which I think helped some people to get big,” says Bug of the growing phenomenon of digital distribution platforms. “But on the other hand, because everyone’s doing it, it’s very hard to find that special track. No one’s able to listen to a million files every week, so people go back to only buying records from the labels they already know. Some digital platforms are already realizing they have to cut down on the number of labels and releases they host. So I think there are definitely going to be fewer labels in the future.” Bug predicts that this backlash could also apply to people’s buying patterns and format preferences. “If you have a movement, there is always a counter-movement. There are a couple of new vinyl-only labels that release records just for the sound. Everyone will tell you that in five to 10 years, vinyl will be totally gone, but there’s always that possibility that people will go the opposite direction and you’ll have this new market of people who only play vinyl music. That would be a sort of new underground, because everything else is so commercial in the sense that the whole digital thing’s a big market.” Some of those new vinyl-only record labels, such as Meanwhile, Millions of Moments and Beyond, are also fronting a backlash of musical genres, reviving and modifying classic Detroit techno and New York instrumental house sounds, styles that had been buried under the weight of French filter house, electro and minimal releases. “When big hypes are starting to die out, people always focus back on the beginning, and from there, something new grows out of the tree. It kinda happens in decades. What happens in the next few years will be interesting as people focus back on those sounds and add something new to them.” WITH DJ MINI AT LE PARKING TONIGHT, |
