MySpace music loss: Should bands rethink how they keep and archive their songs?
Millions of pieces of music have been wiped from MySpace, leading to new questions over how artists store the songs they have created
Uploading music online is common practice for emerging bands who want to reach a wider audience.
But should they be putting all their trust into these digital platforms?
This week MySpace admitted that it has lost every bit of music uploaded between 2003-15 – an estimated 50 million songs from 14 million artists gone up in smoke during a server migration project.
In the early noughties, MySpace was leading where the likes of Facebook would soon follow. Everyone who was anyone had a MySpace page, where they would share their thoughts on the state of the world – and the art they were creating.
In 2006 it overtook Google to become the most visited site in the USA.
It helped launch the careers of bands such as the Arctic Monkeys, who uploaded some of their earliest music to the platform, and went on to become one of the biggest bands in Britain.
Some users have been complaining about being unable to access old music for more than a year – and now the site has admitted the huge backlog of files was lost during a server migration project.
Jordan Harris, 27, is the frontman of the Walsall-based band RootNotes, and says he has likely lost an early collection of demos from his first band The Resurrection.
“My first band had a collection of demos on MySpace that at one point meant the world to me,” he says. “They are most likely lost now.
“I think it is sad in a symbolic way but really, was anyone still using MySpace as a primary tool for listening to music without considering that one day this might happen?
“I would have had some inclination that this could happen but I didn’t do anything to protect that music, I think it is irresponsible to expect a website that has famously fallen out of favour to preserve something for me.
“Luckily, I don’t feel too emotionally attached to the material now and I don’t tend to be too nostalgic over things so I don’t mind.”
Jordan believes artists wanting to keep an archive of their music should keep physical copies – but warns against being over-reliant on even CDs.
“Bands should definitely be looking to keep physical copies of their material but how long are physical platforms such as CD’s going to be around for?” he says.
“When the time comes that they are obsolete, are you going to be able to get the material from that platform to the most current one?
“I think it comes down to preference – you have to be willing to keep up with technology to ensure your work isn’t lost.”
Luke Odenwalder is guitarist with the up and coming Telford-based band The Raiders.
They have written and recorded various songs and uploaded online to platforms such as YouTube, Spotify, iTunes and Facebook.
Luke says this is essential for bands to do, although is less concerned by the MySpace file loss occurring elsewhere online saying people are much more tech savvy than they were back in the early 2000s.
“No one really buys anything any more and they just stream music,” he says. “So we have to upload music. We will have a physical copy but we use things like Google Drive to back-up our music and we will have copies on memory sticks.
“So if someone was to steal my laptop which had a song recorded on it then it would be backed up, I could literally just go on my phone and download the file. You have to have the copies of the music to upload to websites originally, so you already have a copy.
“There are so many platforms now it is really hard to actually lose music in this way, but I understand that back then there may only have been a few places you could upload, like MySpace.”
MySpace was bought by NewsCorp in 2005 for $580m but was sold in 2011 for just $35m to ad targeting firm Specific Media.
While it is no longer a major player in the social media field, some people who used it in its prime still used it as an archive.
“I do think that there is an over reliance on technology to store our music, perhaps this MySpace story will be a wake up call,” added Jordan.
“I hope the message is getting sent to young musicians that they need to archive their material in as many ways as possible.”
