The Current State of Play

by Creed Griffiths

Senior Editor

/ DISCUSSION

September 10, 2019

The current music landscape has changed due to the growth of the internet and the integration it has made into our lives. All songs, from any era, from any artist and any genre can be found on streaming platforms such as; Spotify, Apple Music and Soundcloud and if what you’re looking for can’t be found there (which is highly unlikely) then a little more digging across other streaming platforms and some hidden corners of the internet should do the trick. With such an abundance of content available to the public it can be difficult to keep up and even more daunting to start trying. At any given minute people all across the world are uploading their music and sharing it with the world. Gone are the days when an artist would spend years recording an album no more than ten tracks in duration, submit it to their record label, partake in the necessary advertisement designed to promote exposure and public excitement, for it then to be released to music stores on vinyl, cassette and CD – depending on the era in focus. Today, a school kid can make a two-minute track, and have it uploaded to the internet before he or she goes to bed and wake up to find it with millions and millions of streams across the world.

How are we as a music loving community ever going to find the time to make our way through all this available content when we have our own lives to live, jobs to work and perhaps music of our own to create? That is where music publications designed to critique and inform the public on what to listen to and why - such as Pitchfork or The Rolling Stone - come into play. The issue with most of these mainstream publications is that they do not go deep enough into finding new talent and unearthing it for the world to see. Too often we see only the worlds most popular artists talked about and even what is said about their product cannot always be trusted in today’s landscape.

The Independent Opinion has been designed to be different from other publications in the way it communicates with its fanbase. The information is not coming from a large publication, but a fan of music who is passionate to do the hard work for the fans and sift through the masses of content to find your next favourite artist, song, musician or even genre.