Interesting Admissions From Record Industry

way2trivial writes "Many in the Slashdot community say the reason music sales are off is the content. It appears the industry and some music producers agree. In todays NYTimes magazine there is an article that says the quality of todays music is the problem. I have an issue with one part however, it reads "...and the once lucrative album market has been overshadowed by downloaded singles, which mainly benefits Apple" and here I thought Apple made most of their money with their hardware sales and a pittance on each track, giving the majority to the producer."

Comments

The missing decade

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically the music industry looks back on a decade of not seeing the internet as the opportunity it is, and now the labels frame Apple, which forced them to open their eyes, as the bad guy. They're such good sports.

Re:Reality

[cayenne8]

"Maybe reality is finally setting in. I remember buying albums because I liked 2 or 3 songs on the album. The rest of the songs sucked. But that was my only choice. "

Yeah...that is sad really. I mean, sure, I did that too with a few songs I really like back in the 70's and early 80's. But I gotta say, the majority of the albums I bought back then...I liked EVERY song on.

I bought the album for 2-3 songs, but, it turned out...the WHOLE album was great. What happened to that? Boston's first 2 albums...all good. Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, The Wall, the entire Zeppelin collection (with the exception to Hat's off to Roy Harper on Zep III), A Night at the Opera, Get Yer Ya Ya's Out (possibly one of the greatest live albums ever), Some Girls, Tattoo You, Paranoid, Abbey Road, Klaatu, Hope, Aqualung, Back in Black....etc...etc.

Sure...I bought singles on some songs...a few clunkers, but, large part...most every album I bought, the whole or 99% of it turned out to be quality music. What has happened to that? Why are there largely not bands that put out full quality work?

The music industry...plain and simple. They are only interested in a quick buck, one hit and out the door. Bands today don't get the luxury of developing...that takes time and work. I personally don't feel that there are as many good venues for new bands to play and hone their skills before 'breaking'. With licensing the way it is...hard to let a band play cover tunes, and guess what....that is how many of the old bands started!!!

Sad....I see young kids even today..wearing AC/DC and Zeppelin shirts....I mean, I'm very happy to see the music I grew up with has lasted...but, really, these bands should have been replace with quality groups today.

I can barely find a band today that has a guitarist of the caliber of Page, Claptop, Vaughn or the like. Seems today they are more interested in sampling the playing of the past, rather than learn to play, sing and excel at original content that is fun to listen to.

They summed it up well on page 4

[intrico]

"Until very recently," Rubin told me over lunch at Hugo's, a health-conscious restaurant in Hollywood, "there were a handful of channels in the music business that the gatekeepers controlled. They were radio, Tower Records, MTV, certain mainstream press like Rolling Stone. That's how people found out about new things. Every record company in the industry was built to work that model. There was a time when if you had something that wasn't so good, through muscle and lack of other choices, you could push that not very good product through those channels. And that's how the music business functioned for 50 years. Well, the world has changed. And the industry has not."

--- Essentially, the music industry has been operating as a monopolistic cartel for so long, and now they are (relatively suddenly) forced to survice in an environment with real, healthy competition. Columbia is on the right track by using Rick Rubin the way they are, but they (and the other major labels) need to do a whole lot more to save themselves.