Video: Jay Smooth explains music

I came across this one in my feed reader somewhere, and while anyone who has been following the music industry knows much of this already, hip-hop radio DJ Jay Smooth has a nice way of describing what has happened since the days when we all saved up our money and took the bus to a record store to buy a new album. A new record was a special event, with all sorts of rituals that had little or nothing to do with the actual music — the social experience, the album cover, the liner notes, and so on (although I confess that unlike Jay, I have never licked a record).

All of these things are missing, or at least radically different, in a world filled with leaks and downloads instead of records. How does the industry deal with that? How do musicians deal with that? Radiohead found one way, Trent Reznor and GirlTalk and David Byrne have found ways — others will no doubt find their own way. It’s a fascinating time for the industry. For more on Jay Smooth, his show Ill Doctrine and his background in New York’s hip-hop radio scene, check here and here and here.

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