‘The last desperate fart of a dying corpse’? Thom Yorke has had more poetic metaphor than this one, but after all this really fits with his thoughts. He has said it before, he hates Spotify and he just expressed one more time his hatred in a very colorful (and angry) way during this last interview with Mexican site Sopitas.com:
‘I feel like the way people are listening to music is going through this big transition. I feel like as musicians we need to fight the Spotify thing. I feel that in some ways what’s happening in the mainstream is the last gasp of the old industry. Once that does finally die, which it will, something else will happen. But it’s all about how we change the way we listen to music, it’s all about what happens next in terms of technology, in terms of how people talk to each other about music, and a lot of it could be really fucking bad. I don’t subscribe to the whole thing that a lot of people do within the music industry that’s ‘well this is all we’ve got left. we’ll just have to do this.’ I just don’t agree.’
Something else will happen? Sure who knows what will be the music format in a decade, but this is soooo vague, tell us Thom, will we have some micro ipods implanted in our brains? But one thing is sure, Yorked doesn’t think Spotify is there to stay:
‘When we did the In Rainbows thing what was most exciting was the idea you could have a direct connection between you as a musician and your audience. You cut all of it out, it’s just that and that. And then all these fuckers get in a way, like Spotify suddenly trying to become the gatekeepers to the whole process. We don’t need you to do it. No artists needs you to do it. We can build the shit ourselves, so fuck off. But because they’re using old music, because they’re using the majors… the majors are all over it because they see a way of re-selling all their old stuff for free, make a fortune, and not die. That’s why to me, Spotify the whole thing, is such a massive battle, because it’s about the future of all music. It’s about whether we believe there’s a future in music, same with the film industry, same with books.’
And I am with him on this, why do we need a Spotify interface when we can give all the money to the artist? But streaming has entered the house and kids like it! However, Yorke is still talking about the next big thing without explaining exactly what it is:
‘To me this isn’t the mainstream, this is like the last fart, the last desperate fart of a dying corpse. What happens next is the important part.’
‘You know, people like us and him [Massive Attack collaborator Adam Curtis] and Massive Attack we need to be standing together. Bullshit, it ain’t over. It’s like this mind trick going on, people are like ‘with technology, it’s all going to become one in the cloud and all creativity is going to become one thing and no one is going to get paid and it’s this big super intelligent thing.” Bullshit. It’s hard not to think about it all the time, because to me it’s the most important thing happening in music since when… it’s like when the printing press came out.’
Yeah, it’s hard not to think about it because it’s true, just try to type Radiohead torrent in Google and in a minute you will be able to download the band’s whole discography, right? It is so easy, so accessible that I truly understand why musicians worry, but what could be done? The cat is out the bag, and it will not go away. What is this next big thing he is talking about? I don’t have any idea and neither does Thom Yorke.