Factors identifying musician entrepreneurship in a less-developed country; a case of Indonesia's independent musician

Purpose This paper aims to examine Indonesian independent musicians' (indie) adaptation to the environmental business model. The research on institutional entrepreneurship (IE) has been used in organizational studies, including the music profession. However, the music industry's information and technology advancement has not been scrutinized in a less developed country (LDC) context. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach is used to conduct semi-structured interviews with 14 independent music professionals and enthusiasts. The interview result was three stages of coding, including open, axial and selective, as well as generating appropriate themes. Findings The results summarize entrepreneurial behavior, socio-economy and technology factors. The existing literature supports these results, though new perspectives are only identified in the LDC context. Internal factors drive IE, while socio-economy, including music literacy, education and legal issues, influence its sub-setting. On the other hand, technology positively or negatively impacts IE based on individual utilization. Research limitations/implications Despite the massive piracy and copyright issues, independent musicians require creativity and innovation beyond product creation. Weak and unclear regulations in Indonesia prevent musicians from revealing their identity and publishing their artwork, preventing or obstructing them from their goals. Practical implications This paper illustrates the urgency to implement copyright regulations for musicians in Indonesia, which are insufficiently enforced by law enforcement. Such conditions prevents musicians from revealing their identity and publishing their artwork. Social implications This paper addresses the extent to which a community such as independent musician, struggles to find its identity toward the changing of its business model. By mapping the factors associated with an independent musician, the paper suggests that this community has strategic economic potential as a creative entity. Originality/value This paper examines the music industry in less-developed nations by contextualizing their institutions using the IE framework. It contributes to identifying the environmental factors influencing independent institutional musicians. Internal and external factors significantly contribute to identifying Indonesia's independent musician setting through IE.

Band Geek: a study of the Toronto independent music scene

Digital technologies have revolutionized the music industry over the last decade and have fundamentally altered production, distribution, consumption and promotion of music. As a result, there have been fewer sales of physical recordings, less support from record companies managing musical artists and more self-promotion by musicians through social media and streaming services. My research examined how independent musicians in Toronto are handling the changed music-making scene and the challenges they face as a consequence of these changes. This paper addresses topics such as: the benefits of connecting with music audiences on social media; musicians striking licensing deals with streaming services (Spotify and Apple Music); and current strategies used to promote music online. My research findings led to my developing a new online social media page, Band Geek, that creates original documentary journalism exclusively for burgeoning local Canadian artists in the music industry.

Band Geek: a study of the Toronto independent music scene

Digital technologies have revolutionized the music industry over the last decade and have fundamentally altered production, distribution, consumption and promotion of music. As a result, there have been fewer sales of physical recordings, less support from record companies managing musical artists and more self-promotion by musicians through social media and streaming services. My research examined how independent musicians in Toronto are handling the changed music-making scene and the challenges they face as a consequence of these changes. This paper addresses topics such as: the benefits of connecting with music audiences on social media; musicians striking licensing deals with streaming services (Spotify and Apple Music); and current strategies used to promote music online. My research findings led to my developing a new online social media page, Band Geek, that creates original documentary journalism exclusively for burgeoning local Canadian artists in the music industry.

An (Un)Marked Foreigner

This essay negotiates the critical tension between race as an analytic and social construct by examining how race becomes socialized in and through the production and presentation of Arab culture in two ethnographic case studies: how Syrian musicians negotiate musical multiculturalism as they integrate into German society and how independent musicians in Egypt navigate the racialized entanglements of national and international security logics that privilege Western foreigners. Both these case studies center the “foreigner” subject as one who embodies proximity to white power and delimits the boundaries of such power. We argue that the category of foreigner is thus a racialized construct that not only complicates the Black–white binary of race relations but strategically evades explicit discourses and practices of racecraft that are violent, discriminatory, and exclusionary. By provincializing critical race theory through the particularities of Arab lived experience, we illustrate how local social categories are entangled with historic legacies of empire and contemporary global logics of racialized difference while remaining sensitive to how conceptions of difference exceed Euro-American categories of race. Our work therefore directs attention towards alternative enactments of racialization within the Global South.

Making mirrors, making albums and making documentaries: the music of Gotye and negotiating Bourdieu's field of cultural production

Recent popular music and film studies have revealed the political functions of documentaries about musicians. These studies suggest that such documentaries make powerful interventions into the field of music production as they construct the value of their subjects and their work. Owing to the expense and complexity of broadcast equipment, production companies have tended to favour documentaries about artists and work considered to be popular and historically significant. Over the past 15 years, however, new technologies have allowed musicians to make documentaries themselves, which they can release at the same time as their song or album. Using the example of Gotye and his album Making Mirrors, this article argues that these developments have led to powerful and distinct interventions into debates and themes within home music production for independent musicians. It also argues that the use of this technology on social media platforms challenges the relationships between text and process.

Musik Rilisan Fisik Di Era Digital: Musik Indie Dan Konsumsi Rilisan Musik Fisik

The release of physical music will never be extinct, as is technology disrupting audio technology. This article provides an explanation of physical music releases in the digital era, where vinyl records, audio and CD tapes are still consumed by connoisseurs and musicians alike. Although digital music players and online music applications such as Joox, Spotify, Apple Music or Sky Music is very important in the spread of music in the digital era. The attitude of independent musicians or who are familiar with the term indie musicians still maintains the release of physical music as a tool for the dissemination of their work. This article presents descriptive data from existing journals which are then combined with interviews to obtain depth about what shapes the attitude of indie musicians in using physical music releases and how indie musicians and indie music distributors collaborate in communicating works - indie musicians work through strategies that are done together. As well as what indie music absorbs local culture and how they influence their work and what their attitudes are. Do they not pay attention to the presence of digital distribution or even combine these two things. With the existence of this article, the description of the things that underlie the independent musicians released the music they made themselves with the release of physical albums. Rilisan musik fisik tidak akan pernah punah, sebagaimana pun teknologi mendisrupsi teknologi audio. Artikel ini memberikan penjelasan tentang rilisan musik fisik pada era digital, dimana piringan hitam (vinyl), kaset audio dan CD masih tetap dikonsumsi oleh para penikmat serta pelaku musik. Walaupun pemutar musik digital dan aplikasi musik secara online seperti Joox, Spotify, Apple Music ataupun Langit Musik sangat berperan penting dalam penyebaran musik di era digital. Sikap dari musisi independen atau yang akrab dengan sebutan musisi indie tetap mempertahankan rilisan musik fisik sebagai alat untuk penyebaran karya mereka. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk melihat bagaimana rilisan musik fisik akan tetap bertahan, dan mengapa sebuah rilisan fisik menjadi hal yang dianggap penting bagi musisi Indie. Artikel ini menyajikan data-data secara deskriptif dari jurnal-jurnal yang ada yang kemudian di padupadankan dengan wawancara untuk memperoleh kedalaman tentang apa yang membentuk sikap dari para musisi indie dalam menggunakan rilisan musik fisik dan bagaimana musisi indie dan distributor musik indie melakukan kolaborasi dalam mengomunikasikan karya-karya musisi indie melalui strategi yang dikerjakan bersama. Serta seperti apa musik indie menyerap budaya lokal dan bagaimana hal tersebut memberikan pengaruhnya pada karya-karya mereka dan seperti apa sikap mereka. Apakah kehadiran distribusi yang dilakukan secara digital tidak mereka hiraukan atau malah menggabungkan kedua hal tersebut. Adanya artikel ini, memberikan gambaran hal-hal yang mendasari para musisi independen merilis musik yang mereka buat sendiri dengan rilisan album fisik.