I am about 3/4 of the way through Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine. It is indeed a deep look at some strange issues around the Spotify behemoth. Lots of info I was unaware of (because I live in an entirely different musical universe to the music abused by Spotify and don’t follow the scene she writes about). The coverage of AI-generated music and what is basically library music is revealing about what the future may hold. But, what is most disturbing - although I have known it for ages - is that all this is based on rigorous surveillance of listeners’ habits and all this is possible because so many people use music simply as functional acoustic background. They have no concept of culture or art. However, so far I am ultimately unconvinced by her argument because the music I am interested in, global obscurities you might say, is reasonably well served. Almost all of that is hard to find in physical form aka expensive and the artists are ‘t getting paid ‘cos most of the material is previously owned i.e. used records and CDs. In addition, I find even the dreaded “keep playing similar tracks when an album finishes” feature quite good. It introduces me to new artists, reminds me of something I haven’t heard for a time, draws a connection that I might have missed. Undoubtedly, there are musicians who are exploited by Spotify just as the music industry has always done. Daniel Ek’s investments in AI militarism are also to be decried. However, I find Pelly’s approach to be somewhat ahistorical and, in particular, the idea, the assumption, that small-time musicians can expect to make a living just because they declare it to be so is frivolous. But I’ll finish the book!
Interesting observations. If someone had told me as a kid I would essentially have access to the largest music recording archive in history I would have been thrilled (and I often am); streaming is almost utopian. It's Daniel Ek's passionless drive for profit I find off-putting (why not use even a tiny fraction of his money to fund new bands/albums?).
Having said that, I try not to fixate too much on Spotify - or streaming in general - as there are lots of much more radical and imaginative ways of creating and distributing music through the internet; ways that have barely got started. The Bucky Fuller approach of build a better system seems apposite.
Make no mistake, I feel a little dirty using Spotify. I’ve looked at other streamers, even tried Apple (disaster!), but none have really measured up. Basically, they are really all the same system - not following the Buckminster Fuller philosophy. Bandcamp is perhaps the closest to providing a halfway sensible alternative - and I occasionally buy through there. But Discogs, eBay, and (gulp!) Amazon are my best “friends.” I spend about $100 a month on music in physical form. And some smaller amount on books. I am addicted to the “real” world of “artifacts.” My brain simply cannot organize around files. You’d probably enjoy my library.
Well, it's good you have an active conscience, but without even your generous spending on physical music, I would still stick to the Fuller idea that the problem is the system, not you.
I agree that streaming services are basically variations of a formula, but imagine one simple change: supposing, in addition to your monthly fee money, you could add optional sponsorships.
You like band X and would like to send them 1$ a month, perhaps for some exclusive access, or perhaps just for the pleasure of helping them thrive. Repeat that 5 times so that you're now sending 5$ a month to 5 different artists/bands. Even if the streaming service takes 10% of those fees, artists are getting paid more and so is the streaming service, and it brings the focus back to artists, not playlists, or recommendation algorithms, or AI DJs.
I think it would change the system at a fundamental level, by opening up the gift/patronage economy, which, to my mind at least, is closer to most people's basic human values.
Addictive spending. Had a habit for well over five decades!
And while I abhor AI anything, especially AI DJs - almost a contradiction in terms, I myself have been a DJ for over four decades. Although a bit dormant lately. A major part of my practice was to bring the new and wonderful to the dance floor.
The problem with Spotify is more disturbing than this. The fact is, experimental music often end up with under 1000 listeners per year and thus doesn't get paid at all. If they get paid, we're talking coffee money. This is because, for the Spotify system, a track that is played 100 times (but not actively listened to, i.e. background music) is 100 times more valuable than the track that is played one time but listened to with full attention. Therefore, the system guides people towards making music that just sits in the background but doesn't get listened to. Bandcamp is a much, much better alternative for more demanding music.
I had to take the Liz Pelly book back to the library before quite finishing it, but I have to say that as I read it I became increasingly dissatisfied with her argument. It’s not that it’s not a reasonably correct argument in its way, but it’s incomplete. She certainly has some very interesting things to say about many of the issues raised by “All You Can Eat” digital media streaming and its effects on art and culture. However, when you get down to it - and here I am basically agreeing with you - the very idea that experimental, demanding, in-your-face music should be played by some algorithmic machine as background, laid back style is laughable. If that’s the music you make, if you want any serious claim to be “indie,” fuck off out of the machine. It doesn’t owe you anything, its capitalist interests are definitively not yours, and clearly it’s not going to do you any favors whatever (fraudulent) claims it may make. Yes, go to Bandcamp! But the essential problems are twofold. One is that most people simply don’t listen seriously to music. They just want fodder and, past a few teenage obsessions, most people hear music only in a functional way. Sorry about that. But Spotify clearly exploits that, tasteless as it may be. The second is that somewhere along the way a lot of musicians became convinced that the world owes them a living regardless of their talents and skills. And appeal. Somehow they fooled themselves into thinking that streaming would solve all their problems. But the question remains. Realistically, what is one stream worth? A hundred streams? A thousand streams? I suggest a lot less than many musicians would like. A very small percentage of what I listen on Spotify gets much in the way of streams. A lot of what I listen to only gets listened to by me three, four, five times (if that). So where’s the monetary value? Once there was a counterculture and it was proud of its oppositional stance to the machine. Now, there’s a lot of “how fast can I sell out?” And whining about how the price is not high enough in a totally saturated “market.”
I think you are touching on something important here. The reason I do not get very involved in Spotify politics, and perhaps also why I have not yet read this book, is that I think it distracts from the most important issue of what a good digital music culture looks like. I'm not very interested in scalable digital systems because, almost by definition, they are driven by corrupting incentives. By contrast, the small is beautiful philosophy, I do find interesting. You can be much more creative and daring if you're not trying to please everyone. Spotify still only uses a tiny fraction of the possibilities that digital music on the internet offers. If the internet were a film, we would still be in the black and white silent movie era; Spotify is basically a giant jukebox in the cloud with some playlist features and algorithmic suggestions - a 20th-century idea of music as frozen recordings. There's a place for such things, and it could be done much better, but as you mention, they are antithetical to any kind of countercultural movement because you're squeezing yourself into this one-size-fits-all box. There are so, so many more ways of presenting music that are way more interesting, but the only way they are going to come into being is if artists, or people at least sympathetic to artists, just go ahead and build them. The one thing I slightly disagree with you on is there not being many attentive listeners. That might be true by percentile, but by sheer numbers, it's huge. Here in Valencia, I see plazas filled with people turning out to hear music by Xenakis and others. There are plenty of people who want the challenge of new music, but in the digital realm, it's just not there. At the root of it, I think the reason is the 'industry' part of music is deeply, deeply conservative, and lives off a reputation from the 20th century of being brave and daring, when it's anything but. There's a need now for a brave DIY approach to music that doesn't just create new and challenging music but creates new and challenging ways for it to be experienced and interacted with. It's not going to scale, or make anyone rich, but it could change the world and interesting and beautiful ways, and surely that's more important.
Yes, certainly, live-in-the-moment music is a completely different beast from frozen-in-time polished recordings. And plenty of people will accord it the respect it deserves.
Speaking purely for myself, I am a massive fan of finely recorded music, but the truth is that my tastes might be called focused in that, widely as I listen within the field, I still mostly listen to musics of the African diaspora. And am constantly frustrated that I don’t have more time just to listen; there’s a lot of music out there. But when it comes to live, or even just filmed performances, I enjoy almost anything. Especially if the seats are comfy for the listening kind - or there’s room to move for the more kinetic approach.
So, I find the Spotify politics kind of tedious in that I think they are limited and ignore the undeniable benefits of what it offers to the listener if you're not just looking to be laidback, but have an active interest in exploring what’s otherwise hard to find. However, Liz Pelly makes some valuable observations about the effects of Spotify does have on certain kinds of music and musicians, real or imaginary.
The idea of making more music more interesting and more available in novel ways is obviously appealing. Years ago, long before Spotify or Napster or Pandora, I was working up an idea of streaming music - I called it SoundSwell - that in theory would have done more than any of these services. Waaay complicated. Far more features. Prior to that, I have a long-time interest in spreading the word about, and the sounds of, neglected musics through new (and now outmoded) digital technologies. But I’m not a businessman or entrepreneur - and at some time I just realized that I’m basically addicted to the real world of being in the same room as other people paying attention to more or less the same thing. And here I am typing away into the digital realm!
Very interesting recommendations, trying to read more about music so these feel very timely.
As someone profoundly influenced by punk music and it's DIY spirit, I would not feel right without recommending Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up and Start Again and Michael Azerrad's Our Band Can Be Your Life as incredible texts on the intersection between the evolution in musical recording technology in the latter half of the 20th century and the shifts in music making ethos downstream of those changes (they might not have set out to write about this specifically, both books are closer in spirit to ethnographies of British and American punk scenes in the late 70's-mid to late 80's).
Hi Kirill, I was not aware of either book, but both sound fascinating. Moreover, potentially quite relevant to our current moment where accessible digital technologies (rather than recording) can potentially birth DIY music cultures.
Can’t recommend John Culshaw’s “Ring Resounding” highly enough. A first hand account of the first complete recording of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. The drama, heart, and politics of 50’s European opera stars makes it as fun a read as when it was published decades ago.
Great recommendation, Josh, thanks. I've read some reviews online, and it sounds unusual and engaging - I actually own the vinyl as well! I'll add this to the list.
I’ll definitely have to add all of these to my reading list (I am a slow reader and really haven’t spent much time on books about music), but I will also recommend checking out “Music and Mind” edited by Renee Fleming. It’s a great compilation of essays penned by researchers in various fields about how our brains and bodies are affected by music and what potential music might have as a therapeutic tool. I’m only part of the way through it, but it’s been fascinating so far!
As a techno-optimist complement to Mood Machine I can recommend You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song by Glenn Macdonald.
Glenn has a broadly positive take on streaming (he worked at Spotify until the recent layoffs) and emphasises how much more discoverable music is now, both in terms of finding music you like, and, when you have access to listening data, finding communities of listeners.
Thank you for these recommendations, Dom. Have you read Elijah Wald's How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music?
Thanks Donald. No, I have not, though he touches quite a lot on 'the British Invasion' in the Dylan book. I'd be interested to hear his argument. I did detect a bit of purism in his writing, although for a folk musician, perhaps that is appropriate.
And a book recommendation! Two-Headed Doctor: Listening For Ghosts in Dr. Johns Gris-Gris by David Toop is an absolutely fascinating look at the world of New Orleans music. Spectacular research and about far, far more than just the Dr. John album although he has some interesting things to say about that mysterious and marvelous piece of music making.
Great list Dom, I will be reading a few of these based on your recommendation. Perhaps my new book Music and the 7 Hermetic Principles will make it onto a future list of yours 😉 Shall I send you a complimentary PDF?
Hey Su, I did think of your book, though I've not read it... yet. I would pay, but I wonder if there is any inventive way to get a physical copy in Europe? I really struggle to finish e-books.
I imagine a lot. With books from India, I've had people give them to friends travelling to Europe, who then post them within the continent. If it's not too much hassle.
As far as I can see, you can order it from Blackwell’s for delivery to a UK address for $15.12. Or at least I can when I made a test cart to my niece in Cambridge. If that doesn’t work for you, let me know - and I’ll make you into to my “niece.” Email me @ my name with no spaces @ the big g (mail) with relevant details and I’ll send it to you. My gift to you and Su.
Thanks Jez. Sound Within Sound has been on my reading list for years now, and by all accounts excellent. A good reminder - I'll try to read it before the year is through! Soundscape/Tuning The World is a beautifully written book.
Specifically in Our Band Could Be Your Life, the organising principle for the book is the story of a network of independent record labels (SST being the most well known), with the practice of bands sharing knowledge and equipment sometimes originating from whole states apart and coming together to make demos. This decentralised network could only exist IRL at the time but the internet opens up many more possibilities. An extant example would be Echio, a platform where electronic musicians share workshops and demo feedback with aspiring musicians and it's monetized by paying them directly (I'm sure the platform takes a cut for maintenance but it's a similar spirit of peer-to-peer knowledge sharing as in the punk days). Or a corruption of it since the original spirit was the sharing of knowledge for the love of the game. Either way it's cool.
I am about 3/4 of the way through Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine. It is indeed a deep look at some strange issues around the Spotify behemoth. Lots of info I was unaware of (because I live in an entirely different musical universe to the music abused by Spotify and don’t follow the scene she writes about). The coverage of AI-generated music and what is basically library music is revealing about what the future may hold. But, what is most disturbing - although I have known it for ages - is that all this is based on rigorous surveillance of listeners’ habits and all this is possible because so many people use music simply as functional acoustic background. They have no concept of culture or art. However, so far I am ultimately unconvinced by her argument because the music I am interested in, global obscurities you might say, is reasonably well served. Almost all of that is hard to find in physical form aka expensive and the artists are ‘t getting paid ‘cos most of the material is previously owned i.e. used records and CDs. In addition, I find even the dreaded “keep playing similar tracks when an album finishes” feature quite good. It introduces me to new artists, reminds me of something I haven’t heard for a time, draws a connection that I might have missed. Undoubtedly, there are musicians who are exploited by Spotify just as the music industry has always done. Daniel Ek’s investments in AI militarism are also to be decried. However, I find Pelly’s approach to be somewhat ahistorical and, in particular, the idea, the assumption, that small-time musicians can expect to make a living just because they declare it to be so is frivolous. But I’ll finish the book!
Interesting observations. If someone had told me as a kid I would essentially have access to the largest music recording archive in history I would have been thrilled (and I often am); streaming is almost utopian. It's Daniel Ek's passionless drive for profit I find off-putting (why not use even a tiny fraction of his money to fund new bands/albums?).
Having said that, I try not to fixate too much on Spotify - or streaming in general - as there are lots of much more radical and imaginative ways of creating and distributing music through the internet; ways that have barely got started. The Bucky Fuller approach of build a better system seems apposite.
Make no mistake, I feel a little dirty using Spotify. I’ve looked at other streamers, even tried Apple (disaster!), but none have really measured up. Basically, they are really all the same system - not following the Buckminster Fuller philosophy. Bandcamp is perhaps the closest to providing a halfway sensible alternative - and I occasionally buy through there. But Discogs, eBay, and (gulp!) Amazon are my best “friends.” I spend about $100 a month on music in physical form. And some smaller amount on books. I am addicted to the “real” world of “artifacts.” My brain simply cannot organize around files. You’d probably enjoy my library.
Well, it's good you have an active conscience, but without even your generous spending on physical music, I would still stick to the Fuller idea that the problem is the system, not you.
I agree that streaming services are basically variations of a formula, but imagine one simple change: supposing, in addition to your monthly fee money, you could add optional sponsorships.
You like band X and would like to send them 1$ a month, perhaps for some exclusive access, or perhaps just for the pleasure of helping them thrive. Repeat that 5 times so that you're now sending 5$ a month to 5 different artists/bands. Even if the streaming service takes 10% of those fees, artists are getting paid more and so is the streaming service, and it brings the focus back to artists, not playlists, or recommendation algorithms, or AI DJs.
I think it would change the system at a fundamental level, by opening up the gift/patronage economy, which, to my mind at least, is closer to most people's basic human values.
Addictive spending. Had a habit for well over five decades!
And while I abhor AI anything, especially AI DJs - almost a contradiction in terms, I myself have been a DJ for over four decades. Although a bit dormant lately. A major part of my practice was to bring the new and wonderful to the dance floor.
PARTY AT JONATHAN'S PLACE!
The problem with Spotify is more disturbing than this. The fact is, experimental music often end up with under 1000 listeners per year and thus doesn't get paid at all. If they get paid, we're talking coffee money. This is because, for the Spotify system, a track that is played 100 times (but not actively listened to, i.e. background music) is 100 times more valuable than the track that is played one time but listened to with full attention. Therefore, the system guides people towards making music that just sits in the background but doesn't get listened to. Bandcamp is a much, much better alternative for more demanding music.
I had to take the Liz Pelly book back to the library before quite finishing it, but I have to say that as I read it I became increasingly dissatisfied with her argument. It’s not that it’s not a reasonably correct argument in its way, but it’s incomplete. She certainly has some very interesting things to say about many of the issues raised by “All You Can Eat” digital media streaming and its effects on art and culture. However, when you get down to it - and here I am basically agreeing with you - the very idea that experimental, demanding, in-your-face music should be played by some algorithmic machine as background, laid back style is laughable. If that’s the music you make, if you want any serious claim to be “indie,” fuck off out of the machine. It doesn’t owe you anything, its capitalist interests are definitively not yours, and clearly it’s not going to do you any favors whatever (fraudulent) claims it may make. Yes, go to Bandcamp! But the essential problems are twofold. One is that most people simply don’t listen seriously to music. They just want fodder and, past a few teenage obsessions, most people hear music only in a functional way. Sorry about that. But Spotify clearly exploits that, tasteless as it may be. The second is that somewhere along the way a lot of musicians became convinced that the world owes them a living regardless of their talents and skills. And appeal. Somehow they fooled themselves into thinking that streaming would solve all their problems. But the question remains. Realistically, what is one stream worth? A hundred streams? A thousand streams? I suggest a lot less than many musicians would like. A very small percentage of what I listen on Spotify gets much in the way of streams. A lot of what I listen to only gets listened to by me three, four, five times (if that). So where’s the monetary value? Once there was a counterculture and it was proud of its oppositional stance to the machine. Now, there’s a lot of “how fast can I sell out?” And whining about how the price is not high enough in a totally saturated “market.”
I think you are touching on something important here. The reason I do not get very involved in Spotify politics, and perhaps also why I have not yet read this book, is that I think it distracts from the most important issue of what a good digital music culture looks like. I'm not very interested in scalable digital systems because, almost by definition, they are driven by corrupting incentives. By contrast, the small is beautiful philosophy, I do find interesting. You can be much more creative and daring if you're not trying to please everyone. Spotify still only uses a tiny fraction of the possibilities that digital music on the internet offers. If the internet were a film, we would still be in the black and white silent movie era; Spotify is basically a giant jukebox in the cloud with some playlist features and algorithmic suggestions - a 20th-century idea of music as frozen recordings. There's a place for such things, and it could be done much better, but as you mention, they are antithetical to any kind of countercultural movement because you're squeezing yourself into this one-size-fits-all box. There are so, so many more ways of presenting music that are way more interesting, but the only way they are going to come into being is if artists, or people at least sympathetic to artists, just go ahead and build them. The one thing I slightly disagree with you on is there not being many attentive listeners. That might be true by percentile, but by sheer numbers, it's huge. Here in Valencia, I see plazas filled with people turning out to hear music by Xenakis and others. There are plenty of people who want the challenge of new music, but in the digital realm, it's just not there. At the root of it, I think the reason is the 'industry' part of music is deeply, deeply conservative, and lives off a reputation from the 20th century of being brave and daring, when it's anything but. There's a need now for a brave DIY approach to music that doesn't just create new and challenging music but creates new and challenging ways for it to be experienced and interacted with. It's not going to scale, or make anyone rich, but it could change the world and interesting and beautiful ways, and surely that's more important.
Yes, certainly, live-in-the-moment music is a completely different beast from frozen-in-time polished recordings. And plenty of people will accord it the respect it deserves.
Speaking purely for myself, I am a massive fan of finely recorded music, but the truth is that my tastes might be called focused in that, widely as I listen within the field, I still mostly listen to musics of the African diaspora. And am constantly frustrated that I don’t have more time just to listen; there’s a lot of music out there. But when it comes to live, or even just filmed performances, I enjoy almost anything. Especially if the seats are comfy for the listening kind - or there’s room to move for the more kinetic approach.
So, I find the Spotify politics kind of tedious in that I think they are limited and ignore the undeniable benefits of what it offers to the listener if you're not just looking to be laidback, but have an active interest in exploring what’s otherwise hard to find. However, Liz Pelly makes some valuable observations about the effects of Spotify does have on certain kinds of music and musicians, real or imaginary.
The idea of making more music more interesting and more available in novel ways is obviously appealing. Years ago, long before Spotify or Napster or Pandora, I was working up an idea of streaming music - I called it SoundSwell - that in theory would have done more than any of these services. Waaay complicated. Far more features. Prior to that, I have a long-time interest in spreading the word about, and the sounds of, neglected musics through new (and now outmoded) digital technologies. But I’m not a businessman or entrepreneur - and at some time I just realized that I’m basically addicted to the real world of being in the same room as other people paying attention to more or less the same thing. And here I am typing away into the digital realm!
Very interesting recommendations, trying to read more about music so these feel very timely.
As someone profoundly influenced by punk music and it's DIY spirit, I would not feel right without recommending Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up and Start Again and Michael Azerrad's Our Band Can Be Your Life as incredible texts on the intersection between the evolution in musical recording technology in the latter half of the 20th century and the shifts in music making ethos downstream of those changes (they might not have set out to write about this specifically, both books are closer in spirit to ethnographies of British and American punk scenes in the late 70's-mid to late 80's).
Hi Kirill, I was not aware of either book, but both sound fascinating. Moreover, potentially quite relevant to our current moment where accessible digital technologies (rather than recording) can potentially birth DIY music cultures.
Many interesting suggestions there Dom, thank you!
Thanks Jules!
Can’t recommend John Culshaw’s “Ring Resounding” highly enough. A first hand account of the first complete recording of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. The drama, heart, and politics of 50’s European opera stars makes it as fun a read as when it was published decades ago.
Great recommendation, Josh, thanks. I've read some reviews online, and it sounds unusual and engaging - I actually own the vinyl as well! I'll add this to the list.
Oooh thank you for writing this. I’m adding some of these to my reading list!
I’ll definitely have to add all of these to my reading list (I am a slow reader and really haven’t spent much time on books about music), but I will also recommend checking out “Music and Mind” edited by Renee Fleming. It’s a great compilation of essays penned by researchers in various fields about how our brains and bodies are affected by music and what potential music might have as a therapeutic tool. I’m only part of the way through it, but it’s been fascinating so far!
Fascinating recommendation, Melted Form. I've added it to my reading list. Thanks for sharing.
Wonderful diverse list. Fascinated by the Pedro Bravo book on Silence.
As a techno-optimist complement to Mood Machine I can recommend You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song by Glenn Macdonald.
Glenn has a broadly positive take on streaming (he worked at Spotify until the recent layoffs) and emphasises how much more discoverable music is now, both in terms of finding music you like, and, when you have access to listening data, finding communities of listeners.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199504414-you-have-not-yet-heard-your-favourite-song
Sounds fascinating Gary. Great recommendation, I'll get myself a copy and I'll add it to the readers' list I've put at the end of the article.
Thank you for these recommendations, Dom. Have you read Elijah Wald's How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music?
Thanks Donald. No, I have not, though he touches quite a lot on 'the British Invasion' in the Dylan book. I'd be interested to hear his argument. I did detect a bit of purism in his writing, although for a folk musician, perhaps that is appropriate.
And a book recommendation! Two-Headed Doctor: Listening For Ghosts in Dr. Johns Gris-Gris by David Toop is an absolutely fascinating look at the world of New Orleans music. Spectacular research and about far, far more than just the Dr. John album although he has some interesting things to say about that mysterious and marvelous piece of music making.
That is indeed one of the greatest albums ever made. I’m ordering that book.
Great recommendation, Jonathan. If you can judge a book by its title, it sounds like an excellent one.
Great list Dom, I will be reading a few of these based on your recommendation. Perhaps my new book Music and the 7 Hermetic Principles will make it onto a future list of yours 😉 Shall I send you a complimentary PDF?
Hey Su, I did think of your book, though I've not read it... yet. I would pay, but I wonder if there is any inventive way to get a physical copy in Europe? I really struggle to finish e-books.
I can send you a copy by DHL....not sure of the cost though...
I imagine a lot. With books from India, I've had people give them to friends travelling to Europe, who then post them within the continent. If it's not too much hassle.
As far as I can see, you can order it from Blackwell’s for delivery to a UK address for $15.12. Or at least I can when I made a test cart to my niece in Cambridge. If that doesn’t work for you, let me know - and I’ll make you into to my “niece.” Email me @ my name with no spaces @ the big g (mail) with relevant details and I’ll send it to you. My gift to you and Su.
Thanks so much, Jonathan, I'll give this a go!
If you have a problem, let me know via email and I’ll have a go.
Gracias Jonathan!
Some really interesting stuff for me on this list - thank you!
I can recommend Sound Within Sound by Kate Molleson and I’m hugely intrigued
by Soundscape/Tuning The World by R. Murray Schafer.
Thanks Jez. Sound Within Sound has been on my reading list for years now, and by all accounts excellent. A good reminder - I'll try to read it before the year is through! Soundscape/Tuning The World is a beautifully written book.
Specifically in Our Band Could Be Your Life, the organising principle for the book is the story of a network of independent record labels (SST being the most well known), with the practice of bands sharing knowledge and equipment sometimes originating from whole states apart and coming together to make demos. This decentralised network could only exist IRL at the time but the internet opens up many more possibilities. An extant example would be Echio, a platform where electronic musicians share workshops and demo feedback with aspiring musicians and it's monetized by paying them directly (I'm sure the platform takes a cut for maintenance but it's a similar spirit of peer-to-peer knowledge sharing as in the punk days). Or a corruption of it since the original spirit was the sharing of knowledge for the love of the game. Either way it's cool.