Netlabels: a “revolução” falhada?

No meio de todas as novidades que abalaram nos últimos meses o modelo tradicional da indústria discográfica (Prince, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, novos serviços de música financiada por publicidade) muitos críticos e analistas nem se dão conta que a prática dos artistas oferecerem a sua música de borla na Internet independentemente de qualquer contrato é um modelo de economia da dádiva que já remonta à década passada, desde o nascimento das primeiras netlabels como a norte-americana Monotonik que conta já com 11 anos de vida.

Mas também é verdade que os artistas que publicam música livre através destas etiquetas virtuais são remetidos ao esquecimento por se inserirem em nichos musicais bastante específicos como techno minimal e IDM e por defenderem uma filosofia totalmente anti-comercial e contra o “sistema”.

Em Julho passado anunciei aqui o Festival de Netaudio em Berlim, marcado para os dias entre 5 a 7 de Outubro. Entretanto as semanas foram passando e apesar de alguns retoques no site não surgiram quaisquer informações adicionais em inglês sobre o evento. O resultado foi que eu acabei por nem sequer me dar conta do festival, nem tive a certeza se ele chegou ao menos a ser transmitido online via streaming…

Num artigo bastante esclarecedor que me chegou através do Phlow, o DJ Disrupt, responsável pela Jahtari, netlabel de Leipzig especializada em sonoridades digitais de reggae e dub, faz um rescaldo bastante negativo da (des)organização do evento e de toda a filosofia anti-capitalista ingénua que continua a dominar grande parte da cultura do netaudio, chegando mesmo a contestar a falta de dinamismo e abertura a outros géneros musicais. De facto, penso que a única solução para os impasses actuais da cultura do netaudio passa por diversificar, agregar esforços e recorrer sem receios à publicidade. Eis alguns excertos:

Last weekend the 2007 Netaudio festival took place in the RAW Temple in Berlin. Lots of people from the scene from all over the world met in that awesome location to hear and discuss at workshops about the current state of affairs and to have a party afterwards. While the general tone sounded like everything is just splendid, „we“ revolutionaries are fighting „them“ evil Major-GEMA dudes successfully with the Creative Commons license concept and that this generally will be the future I think it’s also time for some honest criticism. A thing essential to overcome problems and to improve in general. And a thing totally missing at such a key convention.

(…)

So why nobody at a Netaudiofestival discusses about the lack of ideas and variety within the scene? The main advantage of the Netaudio-CC-thing is that music can be released without having to deal with the hurdles of the music industry. The hope coming from that was – and maybe still is – that finally new, ground-breaking stuff will reach a wider audience, which was impossible before without a record deal. Wow, so we got the freedom of ideas now and can show the „evil music industry“ the middle finger. But what comes out of it?

Well, that party night was really an eye opener. There were three different floors in the RAW. Huge floors. The organization, especially the technial side, was downright amateurish. Total chaos, mistakes happened that wouldn’t have happened to us 10 years ago when we were organising parties, being merely out of our teens. But that’s not the point. The point is that on all three floors Minimal Techno was being played. Simultaneously and all night long.

(…)

Don’t get me wrong, there definitely are some netlabels who really come up with really interesting stuff, in great quality and far off any mainstream. They’re important and much good will come from them in the future. But let’s face it: the chances of finding something different there or better compared to the stuff you’d find in your average record store around the corner are pretty thin. Only in a record store you’ll get something nice to look at and to hold it in your hands, you’ll get it in maximum quality and you’ll get it nicely mastered.

(…)

No way around it, most mechanisms of distribution of the money just suck. But within the CC scene it almost sounds like a sin, like greedy sell-out, to have money involved. But keep in mind that without any money going to the indie sector the whole sector itself, labels and distributors, will go down the drain eventually. Remember the death of Hausmusik lately, or EFA three years back and let it be a warning to you. Because with the all-for-free attitude the net scene is propagating it will eventually lead to that futuristic horror scenario it proclaims, of having only Majors on one side and the net musicians on the other. The Indie sector, the one and only true engine for musical innovation since decades, will be dead by then. Killed by the same people who actually came to safe it.

Artigos relacionados:

1. Netaudio.es – um encontro de netlabels para debater a “nova indústria discográfica”

Tagged as: creative_commons, disrupt, dj_disrupt, idm, jahtari, netaudio, netaudioberlin, netlabel, techno_minimal