Beware of the Great Analog Revolution

Records, Tapes and Zines, oh my

A Cautionary Tale

A long time ago, in a land far away, a brave young man with a meaningful mustache set out to recapture the feeling of a time even longer ago. Taylor Austin and a group of friends put together Honky Tonk Times. Completely offline and without any digital content, this magazine covered a range of modern-day, off-the-radar country music.

Launched at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the zine hit people’s actual inboxes when they had nothing to do and wanted something real.

I worked on this project, serving as the self-appointed West Coast Correspondent. I wrote about a historic concert in Bakersfield, interviewed luminaries in the space, profiled the historic Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas and really pissed off some bigger players in the country music industry.¹

Honky Tonk Times staff, Cindy Davis, Taylor Austin and me, at the historic Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas - Dec. 2023

This labor of love cost more than it ever made, and while the project was fun, it never paid me (or anyone else) a dime. People want something real, but they don’t want to pay for it.

There has been a lot of talk on social media — of all places — of an analog revolution. People want something else, or at least they want you to believe they want something else.

This Revolution Will Be Expensive

For several years now, we have seen strong record sales, thanks in part to Gen Z collectors.²

And while that is cool, it’s not cheap. On any level.

The average cost of a new record is approximately $20 to $40, depending on the pressing and store, while the cost of a premium streaming service ranges from $10 to $30 per month, depending on the offering and platform.

Now, you may be saying, “This is good — more music will be consumed at a fair price.” And I agree. I’ve started listening to records more regularly, because it’s fun, tactile and sounds better. Importantly for smaller artists, a direct purchase of a record pays the bills.

However, I only agree to a point. This move backwards ignores how the music industry landscape has changed since the 1990s. To listen to a wide range of music today using this older format, a fan would need to spend thousands of dollars annually to access new music, in large part because this period also saw the death of meaningful local radio.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 led to massive consolidation of radio station ownership and, therefore, a streamlined decision-making process for what was played on them.

The radio DJ is no longer a curator of music but rather a purveyor of what the boys upstairs want played on the air.

Yet in the 25 years since Tom Petty mourned the loss of “The Last DJ,” the radio personality-as-curator has been replaced by influencers, bloggers, newsletter writers (you're welcome) and other such parties. We just wouldn’t get the music today without digital infrastructure.

And while the mainstream has been consolidated beyond recognition, alternative genres and independent musicians have simultaneously reclaimed control at a grassroots level. This decentralized structure has enhanced the diversity of available music, giving space to Americana, alt-country, revival genres, like honky tonk and Western Swing, and the range of bluegrass offshoots that seem to dominate the barefoot set.

There are so many more ways for people to get their music heard today — and that is 100% due to the lower barriers to entry and production. A push back into physical media will decrease access, increase costs and diminish diversity more than I think we are ready to admit.

A Balanced Revolution

Margo Price’s album jumped up the iTunes country charts this weekend after she appeared on CBS's Saturday Morning. The target audience of this program is older than the Gen Z analog revolutionaries. Many viewers likely had large record collections or a catalog of CaseLogic binders filled with CDs. And they still buy MP3s.

Price’s visit to CBS Saturday Morning provides an audience hungry for something different, new music to consider. She delivered a stellar performance, and people immediately purchased digital copies of her music.

I would be interested in seeing whether the appearance moved the needle on physical record sales. I would guess it did not.

But her social media accounts, public statements and regular support of small businesses likely drove her physical record sales.

What we need is balance.

Artists and labels need to develop sales strategies for today’s market that support performers now and lay the foundation for a more sustainable system. This kind of approach requires digital and in-person marketing, meaningful interaction with fans and the development of new music that speaks to enough people willing to pay for it.

A simple rejection of digital will not give us a better system.

Back to the Cautionary Tale

Honky Tonk Times published issues for a little more than three years. During that time, we amassed a few thousand social media followers and just a couple of hundred on-again, off-again subscribers. Anywhere anyone associated with the magazine went, people said they loved what we did and promised to purchase the next issue.

There were undoubtedly problems with the publication, many of them due to the fact that we were all volunteers. Things could have been better, but that required a massive influx of capital from sustained subscriptions, which never materialized. No one wanted to invest in something they said they wanted.

After an ambitious fundraising effort that fell far short of the goal, the magazine shut down for good.

There isn’t a week that goes by that someone in this space doesn’t ask me about the magazine.

Most of them never held a physical copy.

We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat

We need a better music economy. This will require more from artists, fans, and, of course, the industry to carefully manage available resources in the development and distribution of great music.

This should be the aim of this revolution. We don’t need a retreat from digital or online life — we need progress toward quality. No more fast fashion albums. No more disposable art. No more empty calories on Soundcloud.

We deserve more Margo Prices, and I’m sure there are women out there making great music that we haven't yet heard. We need more people taking risks with music after they have achieved a meaningful mainstream platform, like Jake Owen’s latest project.

Perhaps more importantly, local bands need to develop local sounds. Every scene has these bands, which, with some additional support, could be fantastic. The rush to create an album quickly inhibits the establishment of something unique and worthy of capturing on tape, digital or analog.

We don’t need to get rid of the digital experience — we need to foster sustainable local music ecosystems that yield great music unique to these cities. Fans need patience. Artists need resolve. And the industry needs to reinvest in art.

With that, we also need a better method to discover new music to cross-pollinate these local sounds. Streaming can’t be beat for finding and testing out new music. It’s not good for artists, but it’s incredible for fans. I know the ethical arguments (and the intellectually lazy argument that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism). However, the streaming systems provide incredible access to music.

Last year, I found at least two artists online, thanks 100% to the algorithm. Emily Love’s album, Heart of a Fool, never would have crossed my desk, and I never would have sent it along to friends who have alt-country radio shows, without Spotify putting it in my new releases. The algorithm was right — I love that album.

But the dozens — perhaps hundreds of times — I listened to those songs provided next to no economic value to Love.

The streaming platforms function as the radio, influencers and online critics, the DJs and the musicians remain. But the guys upstairs figured out how much we would pay for what we used to get for free. At the same time, they took away the ability to make a living in this industry.

It’s comical to believe that simply buying physical music will somehow bring us back from the abyss. It wasn’t like being a musician was easy or highly lucrative during the physical media era.

What we need is a better model that balances access and value.

As members of the larger music economy, we can have a say in what this system looks like in the future. Massive deals between record labels and AI companies aren’t the only way forward.

We need a nuanced conversation about the future. And that future isn’t in the past.

Until next time, keep on listening to great country music.

1. Paid subscribers will get a view of some of these stories later this week. For the details about pissing off the bigwigs, buy me a drink, and we can talk.

2. Interesting data from the research: People have been buying more records than CDs for the past six years. This is a kinda cool but flawed metric. Records are the true nostalgia play, for now. I’m sure you’ve seen the push into cassette tapes as well. I’d love to dive into this, but there is only so much space in this already very long newsletter.