Spin Magazine made an interesting announcement this morning regarding it’s reinvented views on their core business. Spin is a 26 year veteran of music journalism, a large portion of which revolves around music reviews and criticism. Today, they introduced a new Twitter feed, @SpinReviews, which represents their new outlook on music discussion and gatekeeping in the modern music space.
Spin explains “The standard music review, once presented as an imperious edict, has increasingly frayed into a redundant, gratuitous novelty in an era of fewer and fewer actual music consumers. Tight security on major-label albums (and practically no security on indie-label albums) often means you're downloading a leaked album the same day as your favorite magazine or website. The value of the average rock critic's opinion has plummeted now that a working knowledge of Google can get you high-quality audio of practically any record, so you can listen and decide for yourself whether it's worth a damn… Um, but don't tell anyone we said that, okay?” (sorry guys)
While this is obviously (at least in part) a clever press release to promote a new feature on Spin.com and Twitter, it’s also an honest commentary on the ripple effect of technology in the traditional music business. We usually think of the labels and artists when we think of the impact of both illegal downloading and as well as services like Spotify and search engines like Google and Twitter (and when it comes to finding download links, Twitter is a fantastic search engine). The fans get access just as fast, if not faster in some cases, to a large portion of the new music that’s being released as companies like Spin and Rolling Stone. The traditional role of gatekeeper and news source for music is fading away as you can now hear directly from the artist when their new album is coming out or get a mixtape link from your favorite blog on your phone minutes after it’s released.
With approximately 1500 album releases scheduled for 2012, Spin explains “More than 1,500 reviews means more bands, more records, and more opportunities to explore under-covered genres like hip-hop, heavy metal, dance music, chart pop, world music, and the outsider avant-garde… to help you decide which records are worth breaking the law to hear… and which are worth the price of owning a vinyl or CD keepsake.” What’s exciting is to see media companies adapting, rather than complaining about technology and begrudging new services. We’ve always been on the side of appreciating changes and knowing that it’s ultimately a good thing for music that so many people are listening, sharing, and talking about it. It’s great to see others on the same page. We wish Spin the best of luck with the new approach and hope their outlook on the industry is contagious.
