The Grey Album’s virtual success is a representation of what we call technological potentialities (change in technology over time). The new technologies in cyberspace such as file sharing have allowed the album to gain momentum and reach a larger audience than ever expected. This gain in momentum of popularity and success is ironic because Danger Mouse agreed to discard any material relating to the album due to legal issues. However this did not stunt the growth of the album, the general public is responsible for the albums continued success through Internet file sharing.
Danger Mouse’s motivation behind The Grey Album was not to make profit. In fact his drive for his composition was purely for his love of music and creativity. In my eyes Danger Mouse was expressing himself by making a mix of his favorite genres, which evidently became very hip and not sanctioned by the music industry. It was not sanctioned by the music industry because his music began to make profit that was to going to the record labels that he sampled from. Also it was not sanctioned because the general public and other websites would participate in file sharing also leaving out profit for record labels. I strongly believe had the album not become successful the issue of copyright would not have come into play.
I find it very intriguing how power and money hungry the music industry has become. Music is no longer about the creativity of the artist, it is about what sells and how the industry can maximize their profit. Some artist have even come out and stated that they do not care how their music reaches the public (legal or illegal) as long as they can listen to and understand their works. At the end of the day the record labels are cracking down on copyright laws so they don’t lose out on anything that would allow success.
Before reading this article I had not listened to any of the songs from The Grey Album. Below is my favorite mix that I found on The Grey Album.
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