The Fingertips Q&A: Mark Northfield

THE FINGERTIPS Q&A

Mark Northfield talks about the busted myth of progress, the evils of ringtones, the crumbling of empire, and other musical puzzlements.

December 2008

The Fingertips Q&A was launched in August with the express intent of allowing actual, working musicians the chance to talk about the state of the music industry in the digital age. I guess I've been growing tired of reading "future of music" stories online that seem full of either one music writer's opinion or the opinions of pundits and technology experts and record company officials and just about everyone except, in fact, work-a-day musicians who are out there seeking a living wage in the middle of the indie jungle.

The Fingertips Q&A is not intended as a comprehensive discussion. Each time I ask five simple questions. The interviewee this time around is Mark Northfield, a thoughtful and eloquent British musician who identifies himself as a "pianist, songwriter, arranger, and occasional singer." His answers to the questions below are unstintingly interesting, articulate, and well-reasoned. Northfield's haunting song "Zero," from his album Ascendant, was featured on "This Week's Finds" in July. (Note that I have Americanized Northfield's spellings, just to keep things consistent here. I kind of prefer the British originals, but time marches on, all good things must come to an end, etc.)

Q: Let's say you're in charge of everything, and the music industry will work, moving forward, exactly how you want it to. Do digital downloads exist? Why or why not? Anything you would change right away?

A: I presume the first question is asking whether or not digital downloads should be sold (they can't be uninvented after all). My simple answer is yes, but at the same time I would actively encourage file-sharing by appealing far more openly to people's sense of fair play. Stop treating the audience like naughty children--it only encourages bad behaviour. Tell them that if they like something enough, then, and only then, they should go and buy a copy, or something else by the artist, or go see them live, or enthuse about them to their friends. I think there is a great deal more public discussion that can be had in this area.

A lot of music can take considerably more than one listen to get under the skin and so for the vast majority of (relatively unknown) artists file-sharing is the best advertising possible--it's radio play, effectively. If an artist is so widely known that this "advertising" is not needed then they're probably earning quite enough as it is and don't need the revenue "lost" from those who have no intention of ever buying their music or seeing them live. (Is it really lost revenue, I ask?) If that means a marginally reduced income for our top-earning artists, big deal. They'll live.

I'd certainly put a stop to the ridiculous contention that file-sharing is the same as stealing from a shop. A physical product costs money to produce, a file being copied costs the artist or record company nothing. Sure, there's the issue of copyright, but the concept as it stands is far too inflexible at present, for reasons stated above. It suits the big boys to emphasize it at every turn, as a means of trying to maintain their dominance of the status quo, but it doesn't serve independent artists very well in their quest to be heard. Pointing to declining sales figures and blaming file-sharing with no regard to other factors (competing "entertainment," internet radio, saturation of people's music collections, etc.) is also misleading. I notice that home-taping never did kill music, despite years of trying.

The main problem with the music industry for me is the cozy relationship between the major record companies and mainstream media (I can't speak for the US, but it's very apparent here in the UK). Art is not generally well served by the pursuit of corporate profit margins, which constantly err toward the slightly plagiaristic and safely marketable. Here in the UK, the main pop station (BBC Radio One) has some interesting music in the evening (John Peel's legacy at work), but the main daytime playlists are frustratingly repetitive and narrowly focused, favouring the majors' product most of the time. The argument from both parties might be "We're giving the audience what they want to hear," but it seems rather more like "We'll tell you what you want to hear." Far too much like news and politics for my comfort. The BBC digital music services have broadened things somewhat but they're still small beer compared to the reach of One and Two. Commercial radio is a joke.

Musing wildly and entirely unrealistically, if all record labels were to vanish overnight and those musicians left creating stuff were those who really cared about doing it regardless of whether or not there was money to be made, I suspect that might be quite a good thing for music. There might be fewer acts willing and able to make it, but we're not exactly lacking at present--the world of music seems to be amazingly oversubscribed. Artist development? That doesn't need a huge budget as much as dedication and talent. Promotion? There would certainly be more opportunities to be heard, but as with anything it pays to be organized. With so many mechanisms now in place for musicians to sell their music independently, I don't think it's such a stupidly impossible leap as it might have seemed even a decade ago. The media gatekeepers might struggle to readjust for a while, but they'd get used to it.

Meanwhile, back in the real world... ;)

Q: Talk about one or two things that people who work in the "music industry" don't seem to understand about musicians in the 21st century.

A: Hmmm...I'm not sure what to say about this one! I don't think musicians are that different in the 21st century from the 20th, they just have much greater opportunities right now. I think the industry understands only too well what could happen and is running scared of the possible consequences. Events may surprise the aspirations of both, but more of that shortly...

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