The title of the In The City conference this year was Brand New Dance…but I don't know it's name. Beautifully reflects the confusion and opportunity that is the music industry right now. citizensound was asked by In The City earlier this year to help them assess what the key concerns were in the music industry. We sensed that the speedy reshaping of the industry around the growth of the DIY music culture seemed a good place to start. Artists who have decided to control their own destiny without the support of a major record label are not doing anything new, so understandably another discussion on the rise of DIY music might have been a bit 'so what'. However, DIY music means many things. It could mean DIY in the sense of the era of skiffle music in the 50s where young musicians used what they could find at home to make music (spoons, washboards and more). It could mean a Punk attitude, where making the right notes were not as important as getting up there and not holding back. Right now, the IT in Do-it-yourself is more about the investment, marketing and distribution of music, rather than just the creation. It is about artists wanting control over all of these elements. The number of artists who going 'DIY', has led to new business models being tried and tested at a blistering pace. All sorts of artists, be they artists whose glories are behind them, established stars or unsigned acts, are testing out new routes. Sir Paul MacCartney and Starbucks, Prince and The Mail on Sunday, Madonna and Live Nation. Three very different models for three iconic names. Just before the In The City event, Radiohead announced their 'pay what you want for the music' model for their album download, which has been portrayed as either revolutionary or just clever marketing. Either way, the buzz around 'DIY' shot through the roof!. And at the event itself? Well, every panel I attended raised the issue of DIY - it was clearly the buzzword of the conference. At the publishers panel, the fantastic audience with Daniel Miller (founder of Mute Records), and a wonderful audience with Jazzie B…these discussions and more all mentioned the movement to DIY and the concerns on how artists will deal with this. Good thing then that the panel we pulled together for In The City investigated not whether artists are going DIY, but how they mean to deal with the elements that historically others would deal with.