Tag Archives: The Long Tail

There’s been a lot of talk on the interweb tubes recently about The Long Tail advocated by Chris Anderson, which suggests that businesses can be profitable serving niche markets rather than concentrating on big hits.  Since my musical tastes are well outside the commercial mainstream, I’ve got a vested interest in the long tail – I’d much rather listen to someone like Panic Room than Leona Lewis.

Helienne Lindvall, writing in the Guardian, cites a survey that appears to question the existence of the long tail, but on closer examination appears to show that’s she hasn’t really understood what the long tail theory says; you’ll get no understanding of the length or width of the tail when you’re not looking below the neck. Quite a few commenters have pointed this out, although you should ignore the twit who equates going to a gig where a member of the band greets you by name with ‘giving money to buskers’.

The Jinni Blog makes a very imporatant point, that the real importance of the Long Tail is not economic, but cultural. If you’re only interested in the size of Simon Cowell’s bank balance or which corporate indie clone bands get playlisted on Radio One, then you might not care about the long tail.  But as far as I’m concerned, the long tail is where most of the worthwhile music can be found.  More importantly, it’s where the mainstream will be getting it’s new ideas from.

Just about all the music I love lies deep within the long tail.  Of my top ten albums of 2008, no less than seven were purchased directly from the band, either from their websites or from merchandise stands at gigs. And four of those were pre-orders, where fans pay for an album before it’s recorded, instead of the band getting an advance from a record company.

Long live the tail.