Posted on June 14, 2009 - by Jamie Russell

Nobody likes a Qwitter…

Considering the inevitable streams of forum inches already devoted to this topic, I surprise myself by even attempting to write about it. In fact, I suggest that you don’t read this post at all. It would make me very happy if you would give up now, turn back and amuse yourself elsewhere. There is nothing for you here.

Gone? Good.

This week, in a move that will make for the most significant insignificant news story ever, Trent Reznor, ‘trailblazer’ for the free world, bade farewell to Twitter and social networking at large. His motives are something I can’t be sarcastic about (although his comments about self-harm are), but the amount of airtime it will receive is something that makes me itch. Ironic to get it off my chest in this manner, I know.

I like Trent. He seems like a nice man. He has a certain knack for straddling the void between the industry and the art, the money and the people, the fashion and the leather trouser – and that is something I respect. But I will always wonder why we galvanise the Radioheads and Reznors of this world as pace-setters for a music industry hoisted to a hang-still by the web-olution. The examples we are waiting for are already out there – Fredo Viola’s excellent album project for ‘The Turn’, the Daytrotter Sessions, Patrick Watson’s phenomenal Take Away Show, the mind-tickling ‘Measure for Measure’ blog penned by Andrew Bird for the NY Times – too name just a few. The most important ‘example’ is written into the music itself; the marvelous collision of sounds we didn’t even know existed before we logged-on, in combinations we are only starting to imagine. What we now have is a new language of music – something like Esperanto, only easier to learn, infinitely more expressive and with a happening bass line. It is written into the way we write, make and listen to music. Which I think is swell.

And so, while Twitter+Reznor has undeniable magnetism, it is what it is what it is. Radiohead are Radiohead and Trent Reznor is Trent Reznor. No one person – who has enough of an audience to make a ‘big’ impression – can ever speak unequivocally for the ‘average’ musician – but they can connect with anyone they want to in a remarkable continuum of inspiring ways. So, let’s release the pressure and hike up the volume a little.

By way of Exit Music, here’s what happens if you take a newish thing, jam it into some really old things and spread it over the world wide toast using an inescapable thing.

Key
Newish thing = ‘Nude’ by Radiohead
Old things = Vintage printers, scanners and hardrives
Inescapable thing = Youtube

Waiting for our sight:

• What Will Replace MTV? (15)
• Our last year of independent? (7)
• Indie O’Clock: Tiny Tide and Nothing Meets All (7)
• Funny Little Bunny (6)
• Christmas Indie Ep from Japan (6)