HOW ONE GENERATION KILLED THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

[techristian]

GOOD READING AT THE LINK BELOW.

 

http://elitedaily.com/music/how-one-...dustry/593411/

[1001gear]

I'll start by saying industry killed music. If I ever learn to express my thoughts, I'll finish that thought.

[WRGKMC]

I wouldn't say it was the industry. It was the people running the industry that failed to modify or protect it from changes in technology utilized by people who lack morality. They felt no guilt stealing art and destroying the artists career path.

 

The artists are the victims here, not the industry. Even if artists were being victimized by the industry prior to the internet, the fans showed no loyalty or morality stealing art and destroying one means of artists supporting themselves. All they have left is live music now.

 

The big wigs in the industry weren't hurt like artists were. Yea you had your small time leaches that made money off of promoting artists that lost their businesses but the big companies simply switched to selling products that were more profitable. If they cant make money selling music they switched to selling insurance, automobiles or toilet paper.

 

Marketing is marketing and you cant earn money selling things people don't want to buy no matter how much you love it. Given the corruption in the recording industry and the way artists were ripped off, maybe the "Big Flush" that's occurred wont be such a bad thing in years to come. Time will tell.

 

Artists are creative individuals who will adapt and utilize things that come along in creative ways. What they may use in years to come cant clearly be foretold at this point. It may be some interactive software, Three D transmissions in a live format, or some new technology some bright individual uses.

 

I can think of dozens of things that have potential. How bout private lessons or virtual jams with popular bands. Someone puts up the cash to record with a famous band. Its done via the internet and your guitar is connected to an amp sitting in that bands studio via the internet. You jam along with that band as a guest player and have your part recorded with that band as a backup and you're sent a copy back to you. I can think of many rich individuals who would give their left nut to have a live recording with a famous band and it would be a one of a kind recording you could then covet or sell so long as you pay the royalties.

 

The band would get their money up front and move on to another high roller. They may be able to make $50K in a single day just by jamming with other unknowns.

 

You could do the same thing with private lessons. On line meeting software is nothing new. Businesses use it all the time. The artist and individual sit down in front of their computers and take live lessons via the internet and do a pay pal transaction. You would need some decent software that would transfer high quality sound to both ends or maybe an I Rig type gadget that will allow the teacher to plug his guitar into the students guitar amp simultaneously via the internet so they hear decent sound quality not squeaky sound through computer monitors.

 

Setting up a site to get artists and rookies to meet up and schedule lessons could make someone a mint if they were smart.

 

There are endless other possibilities for those with the creative ability to use the technology. It wont be like the old. We can dream about the old days for ever, its not going to bring them back. We need new ideas and put the past to rest and use the best of the old with the new just like we do with our music.

[davd_indigo]

"You could do the same thing with private lessons. On line meeting software is nothing new. Businesses use it all the time. The artist and individual sit down in front of their computers and take live lessons via the internet and do a pay pal transaction. You would need some decent software that would transfer high quality sound to both ends or maybe an I Rig type gadget that will allow the teacher to plug his guitar into the students guitar amp simultaneously via the internet so they hear decent sound quality not squeaky sound through computer monitors."

 

 

 

Lessons via Skype are pretty common these days. I live in Orlando and have taken several lessons with a guy who lives in Leicester UK (Mark Polishook). There are occasional latency problems, but not too much. We don't "jam" together though.

[Nijyo]

I think my favorite part of that article is the image titled "The Ever Diminishing Role of the Album" containing a bar graph with no label on the Y axis.

[Geoff Grace]

I don't see how the millennials are to blame. They love music like any other generation. When looking for cause and effect, you can disregard what remains the same and instead look for what changed.

 

My observation is that technology made the difference. First, music was digitized. This made it possible to create copies that sounded as good as the original and also possible to make copies faster than real-time. This enabled piracy to a much greater extent than had been possible before. The invention of the MP3 codec and the expansion of the Internet enabled fast distribution of pirated copies that dwarfed the brick and mortar model. Instead of driving to a store and spending hard-earned money, consumers could simply click a link and download music for free.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[Ernest Buckley]

Check this out: https://hereandnow.wbur.org/2015/07/06/witt-how-music-got-free

 

 

I`ll add a couple of thoughts….

1) I agree with Geoff.

 

2) The article/interview above is really interesting and I think it touches on some key points….

a) many kids love music but don`t have the $$$

b) its limitless

c) it becomes a habit

d) after a while the idea of right and wrong is lost

 

I think the key point he makes is that he thought after a while that "things on the internet should be free". We have an entire generation who thinks like this…

[logopearl]

The new inexperienced generation ruined this industry. Now, everyone who has little idea of music has started playing senseless music. The old era was the golden era.

[blue2blue]

The industry as it existed had outlived its morphology in a changed environment.

 

It wasn't the mammals that killed the dinosaurs. But the mammals were there to take advantage.

 

Now, by 'mammals,' I'm not referring to music 'freeloaders' (so much more instructive a label than 'thief' in this context, I think). I'm speaking more of the truly independent artists who have taken advantage of the opportunities offered by new disintermediation tools like direct distribution and ultra-low cost distro aggregation (like that offered by DistroKid) to take charge of their own careers.

 

The way forward is by no means clear. The 'old guard' still tend to control access to mainstream media and its established promotional channels -- and the gray market corruption/backroom dealing mean that it remains very expensive to 'break' a band in traditional big pop terms.

 

But outside the ever-shrinking cultural milieu of Big Media Pop -- mainstream media exposure means less than ever in today's music marketing.

 

The 'problem' for these marketers is that an album is no longer a pig in a poke that can be surrounded by smoke and mirrors with the audience hypnotized into thinking its release is a watershed cultural moment that must be marked by purchase. Nope, Joe and Mary Musiclover just jump on iTunes or YouTube or whatever and take a quick listen.

 

This is not to say that music marketing will go away. HARDLY. In the evolving streaming milieu, you don't need to market one event-release -- you need to continually remind the music consumer how much he likes some or all of the music of artist X, Y, or Z -- and hope they act on that by playing it.

 

Because in the stream model, only those tracks that actually get played on a continuing basis continue to make money.

 

It's going to be interesting.

 

[blue2blue]

Some interesting stats in the music discovery avenues section of the article. Nearly 2/3 of 12-to-24's still use AM-FM radio for discovery! (I hope it's better where they are. Ugh.)

 

That said, 71% of them use Pandora. I thought Pandora sounded like a great idea when it was introduced around the turn of the century, but I could never really get it to work for me. I almost always seemed to exhaust my free-tier skip supply within 15 or 20 minutes. The 'associations' that guided the bots to their selections seemed vaguely reasonable -- the genres were usually about right -- but there was just so much stuff that would quickly push my hand to the skip button.

 

By 2004 I was using a paid radio service from MusicMatch that offered better control -- but they also added a fully on-demand tier. (Selections were definitely limited in those days.) I think it was around the end of 2004 or beginning of 2005 when I switched up -- and quickly fell in love with the ability to play what I wanted when I wanted. I didn't need some bot to tell me what to hear next, there was a big library, just go look. And, though the discovery tools were primitive -- basically similar artists listed for most artists -- it worked reasonably well. If I saw a name I didn't know associated with something I liked, I listened. Pretty easy. Just need to know how to click.

 

What is surprising is that only 26% of them listed Spotify. That's not much more than a third of those who use Pandora. For me, the ability to pick what I listen to and when, is crucial.

 

That said, I was paying for subscription streaming back when the quality was noticeably inferior (with quality I estimated in the 128-160 kbps range)... I always hated commercials on radio and, even though I have myself on a super-tight-near-zero-frill budget, I don't have a problem paying a ten spot a month for music (and particularly not now that is virtually indistinguishable from full quality at 320 kbps in the case of my service, [which is not Spotify but does rhyme with 'boogle']).

 

But, you know, I know that I'm not everybody. Or even much like everybody.

[gubu]

Hang on a second.

 

Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke netted $5m each from Blurred Lines. A single.

 

Yes, Pharrell is a long-established hitmaker, and yes, they had some serious industry muscle behind them, but that's still a phenomenal amount of money to make from a single track. And, subsequent court case aside, those sort of earnings give lie to the 'music industry is dead' meme that keeps rearing its head every 6 months or so.

 

It's not dead, it's changing, and will continue to do so.

 

How did the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and the rest of the superstars of that 'golden' era become so successful in the first place?

 

They rehearsed, and gigged and gigged, and found great management and production teams, and put themselves into the position where that sort of success was possible for them, with the help of some serious industry muscle. And you still have to do that.

 

For those who don't have the drive, or talent, or in more than a few cases, enough luck, the music industry is a valley of broken dreams. But it's never been any different.

 

Kids are still consuming the latest music with the zeal that only kids can bring to such endeavours. Topline bands are still making stupid money from touring, merch, airplay, and licensing. And journeymen musos, writers and producers are still working their butts off trying to get the break that would allow them to play in the big leagues, and make some of that stupid money for themselves.

 

Some make it, some don't. Same as it's always been.

 

So, the system of delivering recordings to the masses has changed. Also, the means of production is often unrecognisable, compared to what went before. And yes, the current earnings distribution models for many services, particularly streaming, are badly skewed in favour of the tech owners, not the content creators. But that will get worked out. And if it doesn't, it's still only part of the pie chart, and won't stop the talented, the driven, and those with heart and chutzpah, from at least making a living doing the thing they love.

 

The notion that there was some golden age, in which everyone had the chance to get their music heard, and earn astronomical sums in the process, is a false one. An illusion. For 99% of the musicians any of us have ever heard, music is hard graft.

 

My advice:- go out and play gigs. See if anyone likes what you do.

 

Rinse.

 

Repeat.