**Explains what happened to music--for both artists and fans--when music
went online.
**
Playing to the Crowd explores and explains how the rise of digital
communication platforms has transformed artist-fan relationships into
something closer to friendship or family. Through in-depth interviews
with musicians such as Billy Bragg and Richie Hawtin, as well as members
of the Cure, UB40, and Throwing Muses, Baym reveals how new media has
facilitated these connections through the active, and often required,
participation of the artists and their devoted, digital fan base.
Before the rise of social sharing and user-generated content, fans were
mostly seen as an undifferentiated and unidentifiable mass, often
mediated through record labels and the press. However, in today's
networked era, musicians and fans have built more active relationships
through social media, fan sites, and artist sites, giving fans a new
sense of intimacy and offering artists unparalleled information about
their audiences. However, this comes at a price. For audiences, meeting
their heroes can kill the mystique. And for artists, maintaining active
relationships with so many people can be both personally and financially
draining, as well as extremely labor intensive.
Drawing on her own rich history as an active and deeply connected music
fan, Baym offers an entirely new approach to media culture, arguing that
the work musicians put in to create and maintain these intimate
relationships reflect the demands of the gig economy, one which requires
resources and strategies that we must all come to recognize and
appreciate.
