How has the internet changed electronic music?

The thought of buying a record from a high street record shop is now alien to many people. Being an electronic music enthusiast, the methods I use to hear about the latest must-have and getting my grubby mitts on a copy have changed drastically in the past couple of years.

Firstly, the emergence of ‘net labels’ has meant that artists who wouldn’t have had a chance before can now reach the hordes of electronic music fans who now use the web as their main source of finding out about the music they love. Because these online-only organisations do not charge for their releases, they are becoming increasingly popular, and have provided a gateway for artists to go on to bigger things. Well-liked labels such as Merck have been known to pluck artists from net labels. The ability to release music in this way also means that there is more electronic music being produced at the moment than there ever has been, which can’t be a bad thing for fans.

When recently faced with the dilemma of deciding whether or not to fork out precious sterling for a shiny CD version of Squarepusher’s latest effort, I opted instead to pay a reduced price for the digital version from an MP3 website.

If you plan to stay on the right side of the law, which I must responsibly recommend, buying MP3’s legally is now easier than ever, and a number of labels and online record stores now have a dedicated MP3 downloads service.

Bleep, the Warp Records-owned MP3 download site, is currently at the forefront of providing the best new electronic music in digital form, mainly because the influential label has shown the pulling power to lure many of the most popular labels into making their catalogues available for purchase.

The German techno label Kompakt also has its own download site, which is, along with behemoth Beatport, threatening to snatch the crown as the best electronic music MP3 provider, as their rapidly expanding digital stock now even showcases Warp’s back catalogue, while they’ve resisted making theirs available on Bleep.

Trusted music specialist Boomkat has recently launched its own MP3 service. While the amount of music available at the moment looks puny compared to Bleep and Kompakt’s sprawling roster, it will be interesting to follow its expansion and eventual head to head with the giants.

There are pros and cons of choosing MP3s over CDs, with possibly the most substantial pro being the convenience that downloading MP3s offers. However, if you don’t want to make the effort or part with the extra cash for a CD, you miss out on that sensational feeling of a having a brand new physical item, something to hold and the excitement of playing it for the first time. If you use a file-sharing program to download MP3s, you are getting free music, but at the same time you are breaking the law and begrudging the label the money they would have gotten before file-sharing came to prominence, and therefore potentially damaging the quality of their future output. Artists have been quick to make their feelings known on the subject, with Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea’s rant particularly memorable. It’s a moral dilemma that consumers must tackle by themselves.