Wiki album- an idea whose time has come?
At the MusicThoughts mailing list, jam band guitarist/poet Clifton Johnston shared an interesting idea about the concept of a ‘wiki album.’ Since he expressed it so well, it’s worth quoting him in full and pondering his thoughts.
Watching WebOfDistress‘s Serial Dreams album unfold and posting “work-in-progress” albums of my own have really got me thinking about an interesting phenomenon that is coming about thanks to the wonder of modern technology we call the internet.
It is more and more common it seems to see works-in-progress posted on Fuzz and other such sites. For artists that move wholly to releasing albums in the digital realm, there opens a possibility for perpetual revision of material over time, or the birth of a true “wiki-album.”
Some folks have mentioned that I may want to go back and re-visit some of my works once I’m finished with the madness of pumping out 50 Zen Junk albums this year (if I just don’t keep making them forever). In this new paradigm, one could easily go back and revise, extend, remix and remaster at any time. The album becomes something that is no longer static, but fluid, dynamic, interactive even.
There are unlimited possibilities really:
- The greatest hits album that is always dynamically updating itself as tastes change and new music is released
- A fan-interactive album where the album is modified over time through fan feedback, submission of remixes, alternative album covers, etc
- An archive album that continually grows including everything from original demos, to the “finished” songs, to remixes and live performances
Will there soon come a time when fans don’t purchase an album as much as they subscribe to it? Where they pay their initial fee (or in the free music world, they add it to their library) and then receive automatic updates when a new version, remix, video, live recording, etc is added?
I’d love to hear what other folks think of this.
The future is a cool place, man. I can’t wait to get there ;)
To quote Keanu Reeves, Whoa. That’s a lot to get your head around, an album that constantly changes. When I first saw your headline though I thought you meant wiki as in, something that everyone can contribute to - an album that fans and non-fans alike could contribute to and change as they saw fit. Like the idea of authors who let their fans contribute to their works in progress, dictating character development and even the ending of a novel.
The idea here of a music album being updated and changed by the original artist is an interesting one, and would take not only a change in the mindset of the general public/the audience, but with the musicians themselves, who would have to change the way they think about the end product. There could be a divergence between two types of artists - those who believe their work is finished at the end of an album’s production, and those who want to keep revising.
Comment by Lara Killian from Vermont — March 2, 2008 @ 9:43 am