One part of the story that interests me is the discussion of Polyphonic, an organisation formed by the manager of Radiohead, along with a couple of other people. Their main objective is to facilitate the formation of direct links between musicians and listeners. To me, it still sounds like a new version of record labels, so I’ll be interested to see how it works out. I’m hopeful that some of the more bottom-up type approaches might work a bit better. One example is the organisation that Kristin Hersh is using to build these links – cashmusic.org. They have a mix of people that have been around and already have a fanbase along with artists that are newer and less widely known. Ultimately, I’d like to see music distribution more under the control of the artists – they’re the ones creating nearly all of the value here. But like I said, the industry is in flux so it’s hard to say where it will end up.

In the meantime, I’m currently listening to Martine Lund Hoel, who connected with me in a distinctively analog manner – she was playing on the street in Copenhagen, and she was so good that I bought her cd on the spot. So the story of the music industry isn’t entirely digital yet either…