Philosophical Notes: The Metaverse, Web3 and Music

It takes perhaps 5000 words to summarize Web3 and even then you may not be completely clear on its significance (if you want a decent shot at a summary, here you go). The Metaverse seems easier to understand, given that it is imaginable as a virtualization of life. We know life, so we imagine we know that a virtualization of life would be a kind of low-res version. I think that may miss the point, in that the virtual life can have things in it that your life doesn’t have (dragons? Einstein?). But, anyway, in studying Web3 and the Metaverse, I want to point out some challenges they present to audiophiles. These are more conceptual reminders than literal issues (though I’m sure there are some of those, too).

The big issue is that as the world contemplates shifts in the fundamental platform we use for human interaction, audio really hasn’t made the transition to the fundamental platform shift we began as a society in the 1960s. A lot happened in the ’60s, but I want to recall that we made a shift to having widespread video as a virtual medium back then. Audio had become a widespread virtual medium in the 1930s. Audio, though, continued to lead the way even in the ’60s and ’70s in the important sense of user choice: listeners could play records of huge variety at will. In contrast, users who wanted a video virtual experience had to live with the content and timing decided by the broadcast networks, and later the cable networks. This began to change as VCRs and DVDs advanced in the 1980s and 1990s.

Historically, this is where audio lost the handle, I think. Audio got focused on corner-case high-res formats and then on resisting the move to streaming. Audio should have realized the challenge it faced from video, and jumped on the bandwagon. And certainly the audio industry should have realized that its smaller file sizes meant that it could build out a streaming platform much ahead of video. In the end, we got streaming audio, and a blessing it is. So maybe that one doesn’t matter, except to indicate a reactionary streak in the industry. But the lack of video integration in the business model is an on-going issue.

The people want video as part of their audio experience. How do I know? Because YouTube delivers 47% of music streaming (2018, so possibly more now). I could go on about how visual evolution has made humans, etc.

Here’s where it gets really weird. Audio people, and especially audiophiles, would like to be part of a growing sport. And, they’d like that sport to be foreground music (as opposed to background music, which is pretty clearly the dominant form). I assert that adding video to audio would enhance music’s appeal as a foreground sport. So we should be asking for or demanding video-ized audio. Because YouTube doesn’t really support a full catalog of music (lots of old concert footage on YT). And it really doesn’t do decent resolution. But we don’t act like video is a thing, or if we mention it, video-ized audio is dismissed as an annoyance rather than upheld as a goal.

The weirdness gets expanded when you look at what the music industry is doing. Since I love lists of recordings that critics find enjoyable, I recently read the TAS section on best recordings of 2021 (recommended). I also read this one from Andrew Batson. While looking up Fretwork’s The Art of the Fugue, which Batson praises, I found that Fretwork, a British string quintet, has 34 recordings in the catalog. I’m sure Fretwork is very good at what they do, but the industry has chosen to do zillions of recordings of music that has already been recorded zillions of times instead of figuring out how to regularly and engagingly do some (fewer, no doubt)  video + audio works. Like how ’bout the basic classical repertoire or the great jazz players who are still with us, or Neil Young and Eric Clapton and…in high quality recordings? There is an economic analysis needed here that I’m not in a position to do, but I think this may have a lot to do with the music industry turning the crank it has and that its people know how turn, instead of building a new crank and learning to turn that.

As an example of what works, though an extreme one, consider Disney+’s The Beatles: Get Back (trailer here). You can argue that the Beatles are a special case reality, of course. But beyond that, Get Back uses pretty basic film-making (with lots of editing, admittedly). And Get Back is really engrossing. I assert that it is engrossing because watching musicians create and perform music is pretty darn interesting as a means of enhancing what is already pretty interesting (the music). Basic video production is enough to make this happen, which would keep the cost down and allow semi-ubiquity.

Video-izing music (a large catalog of it so that it becomes a primary way to experience any music you like) is a way to get more people involved. That includes our children and our grandchildren and our friends. It would be quite a gift.