In Joni Mitchell’s 1974 hit “Free Man in Paris,” the Canadian singer-songwriter sees the world through the eyes of David Geffen, who at the time was already a busy and successful agent and part-owner of a record label.
Geffen’s job, in Mitchell’s alliterative lyrics, is “stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song.”
Understand that line: Geffen was not looking for the most talented musical artists or the most creative songwriters. He was “stoking” — encouraging, inciting — the “machinery” that vaulted certain singers or bands to stardom and pushed certain songs up the charts.
That is what record companies and the surrounding infrastructure of the music industry did in the second half of the 20th century. Musicians couldn’t get anywhere without being signed to a record label, and from there, people in offices in New York and Los Angeles charted their careers.
The internet changed all that. In the past 15 years, many successful acts have been discovered online, where musical artists post songs, accrue followers, sell merchandise, and grow their “brand.” Sometimes record labels are never involved. This is a glowing example of the democratization of content that the internet promised.
The so-called “gatekeepers” have been pushed aside in the music industry. Whether or not you believe that this is a good thing depends on your taste in music.
Another venue in which the phenomena has occurred is politics. It wasn’t long ago that the elite of the two major political parties had significant influence over who the presidential nominees were — if not in meetings in the proverbial “smoke-filled back rooms,” then in the party’s allocation of resources along the campaign trail.
Bernie Sanders’ supporters argued vociferously that Hillary Clinton, and then Joe Biden, were unfairly helped by the Democratic National Committee. While such support did happen, it’s not clear that it was, in fact, “unfair.” The national party’s goal is to put their best candidate in the strongest position to win. I voted for Sanders in the past, but I’m pretty sure that Biden is the only Democrat who could’ve won last November.
For comparison, look at the other party. The Republican National Committee (RNC) lost its ability to have any influence on the campaign. They initially tried to sandbag Donald Trump, but once they saw the loyalty of his base — largely cultivated through his communications on the internet — the RNC made an about-face.
And now, the Republican party is Trump’s party. His tweets, before he was banned from Twitter, and an endless stream of videos on YouTube and Facebook that spread absurd lies and dangerous misinformation motivated enough disillusioned Americans to get him elected in 2016 and to force their way into the Capitol after losing in 2020.
The democratization of national politics has not worked out as well as some of us had hoped.
Then there’s the print media. The internet has taken a wrecking ball to newspapers and magazines across America. Many shut down; others were sold off to private equity firms and hedge funds, who stripped them for parts. The ones that survived — unless their names are The New York Times or The Washington Post — have cut their payrolls to the bare minimum.
What, then, of the citizen-media that would rise up to keep an eye out for every crooked politician or corporate glutton? It has happened in some places, but not nearly enough to provide the oversight that a robust and free media offer to balance the scales against wealthy and powerful interests.
Meanwhile, the monster that is misinformation flows forth continually from a legion of websites into homes and onto phones across America.
As counterintuitive as it might have seemed, it appears that the gatekeepers — political party bosses, newspaper editors, and yes, even though I hate to admit it, record labels’ A & R (artists and repertoire) staff — did provide valuable services. Or we’ve seen, at least, that we could not eliminate their negative qualities without also losing the positives they brought to their jobs.
There is, however, no going back. As Joni Mitchell sang in another song: “We can’t return, we can only look behind, from where we came.”
Jim Correale is a teacher and writer living north of Boston.
