Beck and the Future of Music

Today I read some more of the new issue of Wired, the cover story is about the changing face of music. As usual, Wired says it bluntly: "Radio sucks, the labels are lame. Now Bands are taking over--and fans are getting what they want." There is an interview with the musician Beck, who talks about the new album he has coming out. But it is no longer really called that...he'll have stickers on each unit that people can arrange in their own unique way to create their own one of a kind album art. He wants to put out an album you can mix and layer directly into itunes.

Once Beck posted tracks to a song and people made their own versions. Using his musical building blocks they created their own unique versions. Another cool aspect of this project (which is what you call his CDs now) is that Beck will put out a version of the record that people will be able to watch on sites like YouTube. He also made a quick video for every song on the disk that which will be put up on the 'Net so people can mash them up.

He talked about a side band that his mates started for fun. At the concert they joked that everyone should check out their MySpace page, that they hadn't even put up yet. Just after the show, they signed up, put up some live recordings of the show and a couple of days later a bunch of people had visited and listened to their music.