Enter the music creative brief.

We realized right away that some of the difficulties with executing a project like this had to do with the very intense time constraints of two incredibly busy people. Before we could even consider the creative process itself, we needed to figure out how to get around the fact that we didn’t have a lot of time. We had initially agreed to meet once a week for a couple of hours, telling ourselves that instead of larger periods of engagement which weren’t realistic, we would establish a pattern of smaller increments of activity which would, over time, bear fruit. But we quickly noticed that it takes longer then 2 hours to reach the point where good ideas begin to flow. After setting up, getting a click track going and microphones properly placed, we barely had time for a single sketch, which often sounded forced. We realized that most of our truly exciting ideas came to us when we least expected or were prepared to deal with them–outside, on walks, at the store, doing something else completely unrelated, and often alone and without the means to make a record of the creative spark in order to unpack and develop it later. Our best collaborations up to this point were great because our egos weren’t paying attention and we weren’t trying too hard. We needed a way to develop seriousness without killing the creativity which comes from having a deep yet relaxed sense of play.

We knew we needed a more conceptual framework, and a combination of both real-time and non-linear means of collaboration. Once we had our framework in place, creating sounds with instruments would have far more purpose and meaning.

Practically speaking, what this amounts to for us is, first mapping out our concepts – in terms of narrative, structure, composition, and so forth, and with the help of google docs, we will begin to compile fragments of these ‘sparks’ which we will be ready to capture and log when they happen. After we’ve compiled our fragments, we will begin laying a foundation of  melodies, lyrics, and compositional shapes and structures, always being mindful and considerate of the whole, and it’s purpose. Here are some of our maps from last night’s collaboration. I think we’re both pretty excited about what lies ahead, definitely stay tuned for more updates.

Fast forward to 2011–it seems in the past year MySpace tried to clean up it’s act in order to catch up to Facebook’s unprecedented success, and ended up alienating a lot of it’s core user base who were sticking around for the features that made it unique to begin with–core functionalities which were taken off the table altogether in favor of a cleaner, more corporate–and some would say tepid–offering. In attempting to compete with Facebook, which had clearly stolen the zeitgeist of social media away from them, MySpace decided to try and become a clone of it. By pulling the plug on what made MySpace a unique and differentiated offering in order to appeal to the Facebook crowd, it ended up accelerating it’s decline far worse then needed to happen.

Let’s face it–Facebook has a lot to offer, but a great place to discover new music it’s not. MySpace could have continued to innovate in the key ways it allowed users complete freedom over the presentation layer of their profiles. They could have chosen to continue serving it’s core user base, and copied some of the models proven so successful by Facebook, Twitter, and other more modern offerings, while keeping the things which made it unique–some might even say obnoxiously so–intact. Instead it fell prey to an all-too-common syndrome of many has-beens in decline–drinking the poison of false comparison and envy–and a last ditch attempt (and subsequent failure) to conquer it’s rival. Just Google “Yahoo!” for another famous example of this.

MySpace was never going to reclaim it’s former glory as the first successful player in the social media space, but it could have easily continued to build on it’s unique strengths and serve the throngs of music lovers and narcissists who wanted more then just a generic online experience. They could have taken what was weird about itself and continued to own it. Instead they flushed it all, and ended up left with nothing overnight. Users fled in droves; it’s hard to imagine they’ll ever make it back.

It’s too easy to say that MySpace is dead. The Timberlake equation has my curiosity piqued. It’s at the very least a brilliant PR move, as most people consider him a semi-social media expert, having played one on TV. Part of me is now rooting for a comeback, as I often do with underdogs and other strange and ugly creatures. All they need to do is go back to it’s breaking-all-the-rules-anti-design of 2004, sprinkle in some of the better features of Facebook, and it might just have a place at the table once again, albeit a motley one. Personally I think people are getting tired of the primacy of Facebook and are open to something new, which sometimes can mean something old.

By the way, Justin, if you’re reading this, please bring back the sexy like you promised.

dsr