in media res

In light of Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, I got to thinking about hardcore punk 7” records, specifically something I read recently about a 7” put out by a Canadian hardcore band called Fucked Up. Fucked Up have something of a tradition of releasing their music sporadically in 7” singles of two songs, and just before Christmas they announced their latest release, David Christmas, which was limited to 1000 copies (ordinarily quite a high print-run for a hardcore band, although Fucked Up are currently receiving quite widespread and borderline mainstream attention), ordered online and shipped in specially designed Fucked Up gift wrap (the commodity double-whammy).

By way of introduction to the subculture associated with a record such as this, I should perhaps explain how hardcore records are normally distributed. Their production is paid for by either the band or a small, independent label, and then sold for minimal profit either at gigs, online, through shops (who necessarily add on a percentage) or through independent distributors, known as distros, who buy multiple copies at a wholesale price and sell them on themselves at gigs or online, again adding on a small amount to cover their own costs. This all comes under the umbrella term of DIY, which is adhered to in order to keep commercial interests and corporations at arms length, as well as minimising the divide between the artists and the fanbase, keeping prices low and maintaining control over the music.

However, what often happens is that certain records are fetishized more than others, often relating to the attachment of a ‘limited edition’ or ‘rare’ tag (perhaps due to the record being pressed in a different colour vinyl, or due to a particularly limited print run) or, increasingly, though online hype. As such, its exchange-value and associated price skyrocket. This phenomenon is particularly associated with ebay, whereby the distribution of records overcomes geographical and social boundaries, as well as being able to occur at a much greater speed. This has happened with Fucked Up’s David Christmas 7″, which can already be found on ebay with buyers edging the price up way beyond what the original buyer would have paid for it only a month or so ago.

At the original level of production, on behalf of the band and their immediate associates, use-value is pretty much constant across different records (perhaps a longer recording may have a slightly greater use-value) whilst exchange-value is undetermined. They cannot predict whether their new record will be able to sell for anything more than any of the other records similarly produced and distributed. Thus, I feel that it is a particularly cynical move to designate the record as limited edition when more could be pressed in the future, or make superficial differentiations like producing different coloured versions of the same vinyl, in order to increase the potential exchange value.

As if surprised that their record had suddenly acquired a massively inflated exchange-value and corresponding ebay price (this is not the first time that a Fucked Up record has become particularly sought after), Fucked Up had this to say via their blog:

“A lot of David Xmas 7″’s are on ebay. Just for the record – if you are selling one of those, we think you are a DOUCHE. We had to spend more than 2 weeks wrapping those things and getting everything together so you assholes could click a button and flip them the next week. Fuck you!”

Now I don’t want to condemn the band too far – to complicate the issue, the record was sold for slightly more than a regular 7″, and the profits went to a local charity – but I do wish to use this as an example of a pattern repeated throughout ostensibly anti-capitalist musical subcultures. The annoyance that they express operates from a basic duality between those ‘real fans’ who, it is assumed, deserve the music (and here there are numerous other discourses relating to the idea of integrity within hardcore punk – the comments to the above blog post are interesting in this respect), and profiteers who buy the record knowing of – and contributing towards – an imminent and drastic increase in its exchange-value.

The fact that Fucked Up, once the record was sold out, uploaded the music online to allow access for those fans who weren’t able to buy the original vinyl further complicates the matter, but doesn’t deter the completist’s mindset who still wants a material product, a record to hold as well as the music to hear. In this case, we could think about a reappropriation of Benjamin’s concept of the aura: for him it was within the original but not the copy; here, it is attached to the mechanically reproduced copy but not the tertiary reproduction of the digitalised music. The aura has shifted along the line of production and appropriation.

Ultimately, what I think this scenario represents is the intrusion of capitalist logic within a counterculture that, for the most part, is quite successful in dodging capitalistic concerns. Other issues at stake include: the rise of the internet as a market, and how variations invalue are accelerated; the role of online hype, and promotion from anonymous sources affecting material values; and the development of digital reproducibility as an antithesis to commodity fetishism. If the sovereignty of the commodity could be bypassed – if one could be content without necessarily owning the record but at least having access to the music – then this ambiguously originating and disproportionate inflation of exchange-value could be avoided. A step further, embracing Benjamin’s “revolutionary demands” for “the politics of art”, in our age of mechanical and digital reproducibility, we could eliminate exchange-value almost entirely. MP3s as the weapons of anti-capitalism (yes, I know you have to buy things to play these, but you get my drift!) Digital reproducibility could lead to a reassessment of the commodity form.

sam