There was ALWAYS a "long tail" - most people just never saw it.

Little groups in Derbyshire, cover bands in Australia, Irish groups in New York... there were probably as many small, specialist artistes and bands doing around 5000 vinyl albums or CDs at gigs and by mail order.

I remember hundreds of them; some good, some bad, some even "broke through" (The Barron Knights; Jive Bunny). There were also comedians and loony religious nuts - but word never spread about them either. Now experts talk about the long tail but it was always there; normally mediocre or adequate specialist stuff appealing to small groups of fans for a variety of reasons.

It may be easier now but it was always there.

Yes and they have always existed but that's not the long tail. You are missing the point of the argument about the long tail and are biased from the hit driven perspective.
In relation to music. The long tail is intertwined with availability. In the old days the masses did not have access to the obscure groups so were never going to find them.
However with the long tail, automated recommendations by Amazon, Spotify and iTunes, using algorithms expose new content to the masses. They can also search using generic
criteria and discover new artists. The paradigm of the long tail is best seen in Youtube which of course is not perfect but has given multitudes of niche driven content producers thousands and millions of views seemingly by random. You search for something and end up liking and subscribing to someone you did not think of subscribing to the day before. Upon this, relationships are built and sales will follow through. The long tail is not against hits but the reality is that as people get exposed to other forms of music, their dependency on hits wanes until the hits emerge from their scene. A lot will leave and form other splinter groups because they hate the idea of "selling out" and we repeat the process. The sales model is terminally ill and will cross over to the other side and in a streaming only world shall the full effect of the long tail be seen as money no longer becomes the determining factor which of course is a major flaw of the hit driven sales model. Only those who could be bothered to buy make the hits the majority may not want to buy music but people in the music business will try to convince us that a song that appeals to only 1 or 2% if the country is a hit when it really is not.

Jaded and Bored wrote:
In the old days the masses did not have access to the obscure groups so were never going to find them.


This is the kind of canard that is being put around in all branches of the media these days. The 'masses' DID have access to obscure artists who were genuinely good, because the BBC and the likes of the NME and various other influential sources highlighted them and record stores accommodated them. The difference now is that, while the likes of Radio 1 thinks it is merely there to be as market-obsessed as any commercial station, and journalism has given up hope of being more than PR, people have access to pretty much everything - all of the dross as well as the good, the quirky and the noble failures - and there is no discrimination, no impact and no point. That's not progress.

Thank you Hyram; yes, everyone found obscure artistes, just in different places. J&B, stop assuming I'm championing BAD filters; it's the GOOD filters that are needed. They will, by being good, get huge attention and will bring great music to the attention of the millions.

Times have changed but the essentials remain the same.

I never said you were championing bad filters. It is the notion of filters as was in the past
which I am criticising. Them days are gone forever. Filters remain and will always remain they
just are different to what you and most of the old school thinkers are used to. it is more fragmented.
So please hear what I am saying and don't make assumptions.

Ah but J&B you are either deliberately misunderstanding me here and in the Long Tail thread, or I am failing to communicate my view of good filters. Mass appeal radio or TV or online sites which, by being so accurate, attract huge audiences and therefore cross over and bring great music to millions instead of hundreds. Radio One was great when it was good. Before that, we had Radio London and Caroline. In the US they had great top 40 radio in the 60s. Here we had Top of the Pops.

There wasn't any of this in most countries which explains why UK and US music dominated the globe.

Now media has gone global, we need equivalent enthusiasm boosters online or wherever.

I remember how the global music scene was affected in the 80s by Entertainment USA and No Limits. We had enormous ratings, exposed different music which the audience adored and bought, creating a landslide. Our pebble rolling downhill became an avalanche. Acts came over from America, raved about the shows (plus TOTP) which exposed them unlike anything in the States, and went back raving about certain British hits, which then broke over there.

Filtering out the crap (99%) so enormous audiences could find great music and spread the word to millions more; the pyramid of hits.

Now the "long tail" - that 99% - has similar attention (tiny You Tube audiences, My Space, Twitter, Facebook) spread thin across all the many sites and threads (which used to be the NME, R1 when it went off, bad commercial stations, music TV ruled by Janet Street Walker, awful dance club floors ruled by E), but the 1% tends to get ignored unless it is virtually unstoppable like Gangnam.

Your hatred of filters sounds like your music was never picked or broken by the good filters. Perhaps the music was in the long tail instead of the head?

I am not an artist nor a label. I am a music lover and a DJ and no I don't hate filters per se. The problem with what you're saying JK is that you are presenting a very rose tinted picture. One which seems to suggest that records were picked on merit, a world without corruption. But you and I and the whole world knows that this is NOT the case. Where would Motown be without Payola? Radio stations in the US and the UK routinely filtered out black music on the basis that it would not appeal to white tastes. Were it not for the hard work and determination by the labels that brought reggae into the UK and lovers of soul music who had to resort to bribing radio DJs to get past the blatant racism that was rife in radio land in the early days of Rock and Roll.

How about when dance music kicked off in the UK. Radio One refused to play it, insisting that it was music for the clubs and not radio. These people (bad filters) were the same people who broke the hits (good filters). They are one and the same people. Every label has quality control. I am a fan of quality control but you don't need to concentrate power into the hands of a few so that people could manipulate them and push their own product over and above others.

It is also ridiculous to state that 99% of music is rubbish unless you actually have sampled all the music being released. Sure you can say it but my response is prove it which you can't. You are also missing the point as to why Gangnam Style was a huge hit. It was a viral video hit before it was a music hit and of course the filters missed it entirely until the masses took it up and spread it via social media. You seem to be oblivious to the fact that it was due to the opening up and diversification of the filters that this happened. People power turned it and Gotye's song into a hit but of course our radio filters missed it.

Yes both were released on labels who have their own quality control or filters in built I don't have a problem with them after all if one disagrees with what labels are releasing they can go out and set up their own labels and release music to which many have done.

Finally JK wishful thinking is another thing I am jaded and bored with. No matter how much you wish it, the media will not be consolidating to form a centralised clearing house of music, nor will the numbers of the wannabes be decreasing. People like you and Lefsetz seem to hate artists and sneer at them, You judge them not worthy and decry them for not having hits but when they do you diminish them like you did in that post about One Direction who are the biggest band on the planet at the moment. You also said Cowell will only be remembered for Susan Boyle and totally ignored the 1D boys who will outlive Subo in the public eye.

For the record I don't hate filters, i just want millions more of them which is what we are getting thanks to social media. The professionals are still there, no one has killed them off but their power and influence has declined. If you want to know from where the next big hit will come? It will come from genuine virality spread by word of mouth through social media and not dictated on high by curators favoured by the old dinosaur like you and Lefsetz and I'm not trying to insult you here as you make good points and I admire your passion but you are not being a visionary, I am and I do not see anything other than further splintering and the long tail take hold.

Jaded and Bored wrote:
automated recommendations by Amazon, Spotify and iTunes, using algorithms expose new content to the masses. They can also search using generic criteria and discover new artists.
Neither of these statements are true, all of them "recommend" artists that would only be new to you if you'd been living under a rock for the past 50 years. Spotify loaded a screen saying "Discover New Music" which had Jay-Z and Madonna on it FFS.

As for searching, this only brings up what is "popular", in most cases what has been promoted by the majors. I tried in vain to find a friends band using iTunes search even when typing the full name and title of one of their songs, it simply returned the "popular" stuff again, most of which had no relation to the search criteria at all. He had to send me a link in the end.

Hi K

I suppose the automated recommendations are talking about new releases rather than new artists.
I also agree with your experience but Youtube has thrown a lot of new artists and videos by amateurs,
semi professionals and non mainstream providers.

I guess when it comes to discovering new music, personal recommendation is the most important discovery tool.
The big music online sites pander to the majors, which is understandable as their catalogue is a huge draw.
But by applying simple word of mouth techniques independent and unknown artists can grow their audience immensely
and there can be a lot more of them with decent figures.

'Twas always so J&B; my main "tool of choice" was Word of Mouth; just another similarity. Yes, Internet has made the potential audience bigger but the solution remains the same; only the methods need adapting.

Now we have Internet (a strong source) replacing much of radio and TV (dying off in impact as programming declines)... but until we get some popular, mass appeal filters (on the Internet, quite likely) we won't have routes to success for quality and commercial music.

That's my worry.

Incidentally when Word of Mouth was mentioned in my trial the Prosecutor sneered "then why wasn't everyone doing it?". To which my reply was "Indeed".

I think we're getting somewhere haha. Well JK I think we have the filters in place but it
is not being used in music effectively. The viral effect is it. Double a penny a day and within
a month you will be a millionaire. Ark Records seem to be the masters of the viral music
video. They did Friday, the Thanksgiving song and the Chinese food song. The media came
on board and sustained the growth. Everyone is looking for ways to reach mass appeal but
the truth is each one to reach one and if you have IT you will get mass appeal. Good filters
will report the news and take it to the next level like Gangnam Style.

JK2006 wrote:
Incidentally when Word of Mouth was mentioned in my trial the Prosecutor sneered "then why wasn't everyone doing it?". To which my reply was "Indeed".Where's the like button?