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The Music Industry's Crisis Writ Large
The NY Times has an opinion piece that makes starkly clear the financial decline of the music industry. It's accompanied by an infographic that cleverly renders the drop-off. The latest culprit accelerating the undoing of the music business is free, legal online music streaming. "Since music sales peaked in 1999, the value of those sales, after adjusting for inflation, has dropped by more than half. At that rate, the industry could be decimated before Madonna's 60th birthday. ... 13- to 17-year-olds acquired 19 percent less music in 2008 than they did in 2007. CD sales among these teenagers were down 26 percent and digital purchases were down 13 percent. ... [T]he percentage of 14- to 18-year-olds who regularly share files dropped by nearly a third from December 2007 to January 2009. On the other hand, two-thirds of those teens now listen to streaming music 'regularly' and nearly a third listen to it every day."
Before advent of easy recording, just about every family that wanted to appear civilized owned a piano or some other musical instrument. That is, people used to play music themselves. I personally record my own music for my family and listen to a lot of bands of friends or ones that play small venues. You know, I listen to music that people can actually play. I'll never forget in high school going to one concert for some bands I liked quite a bit (U2 with the Pixes opening) and realizing that they sounded absolutely awful live and that the sound on their records has been manipulated to the point of being false. That was the day I stopped believing that the "current world" was the best solution. I don't need the RIAA, I can keep playing my own music and traditional, non-copyrighted music to my heart's content. I'm not alone in this. Don't believe me? Go spend a few hours on youtube.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
The primary benefit that record companies provide to the artist today is promotion. Without promotion, most artists will remain in some kind of local niche. A few might get national attention for doing something that gathers lots of publicity - like running through a public park naked or something like that. That is about it.
What people do not understand is the full spectrum of promotion. Kill off the record companies and promotion dies. With it go a lot of magazines that music promotion is supporting. FM Radio is going to change a lot in the US, because it is mostly a music promotion vehicle. I would expect most stations to just give up and shut down. The rest will do something else. They will not be playing popular music.
How far do the tenacles of music promotion go? I don't really know. I suspect that the ripples from ending music promotion will go much further than anyone suspects.
There, fixed that for you. The record industry is the one that makes money on recordings. The music industry is the one that makes money on music in general including concerts. The music industry is fine and will be fine. The record industry is fucked.
I got out of the retail record business over 25 years ago because the industry was rapidly losing its customers to consumers. They weren't choosing better music; they were choosing cheaper music. Saving 50 cents on Saturday Night Fever was more important than their store actually having a wide selection of interesting sounds. Eventually, it wasn't worth it to stock the better; only the popular.
I blame the Decline of Western Civilization on the Rise of the Consumer. YMMV.
For most purposes, 355/113 is close enough.
It really is bizarre, much more than the usual situation. Actors and directors, for example, kvetch about Hollywood, but I haven't seen nearly the same level of anti-studio invective from prominent directors and actors as I have seen anti-music-industry invective from prominent musicians. The RIAA types seem to have done a remarkably thorough job in pissing off the people they claim to represent, across a wide swathe of genres.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I bought the first Velvet Revolver CD, which installed a rootkit on the computer to prevent you from doing anything other than listening to some shitty WMA files. After that I swore I would never buy a CD again, and I haven't. You only screw me once. So until we have no DRM and a perpetual license (buy the music once, have the rights to any format) I'm done playing their game.
- anticompetitive business practices (price fixing, etc) that have given potential customers a sour attitude towards music labels
There is some truth in that, but come on. People really stopped buying music because of that?
I did. I spent many thousands of dollars on music in the 80s and 90s. The music industry went from selling $7.99 LPs that cost $1.50 to make, to selling CDs that cost less than 50 cents to make - yet they charged $15. WHY?
Well one exec at the time said the reason why was because "they sound better so its worth it," which was akin to saying "fuck you, we do because we can."
But the REAL reason was because they were illegally price fixing. They were NOT competing companies, they were an illegal cartel, violating anti-trust.
They were found GUILTY of this, and yet the fine for the entire music cartel was less than what they sue one filesharer for.
THAT'S why I swore I'd never give them another damned cent of mine - and I haven't. They were found GUILTY of being essentially organized crime, of ripping off their own customers to the tune of billions of dollars... they got a slap on the wrist and then complain that their CUSTOMERS are the crooks.
And that's after notoriously ripping off most of the musicians whose product they are peddling in the first place.
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No, let me repeat that, advertising is very expensive.
Why is this? I know this probably sounds hopelessly naive, but where do these "marketing" funds go to? I'm not talking about advertising a live show. More along the lines of how any of us ever heard of Miss Spears in the first place.
It may be the more interesting aspect of this story isn't the record industry losing customers, but the younger generations skipping the main marketing arm of the recording industry, FM radio. The overtly corporate and hopelessly generic radio stations across the country all playing the exact same line up paid for by the "recording industry". I'm old enough to have witnessed this transition from edgy to safe FM stations in my life. Due to this I have satellite radio in my car, and I listen to streaming Internet stations at home.
If FM survives the fall of the RIAA giants it will likely mean that stations will go back to when they chose for themselves what they would play. I think we'd all be better off if that kind of marketing money were to vanish.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
I've never done any studies or analysis of what people like and why but it seems a lot of people like something after hearing more often and if someone else likes it or if it is trendy. Think about it, teens twenty years ago were listening to 80's music and loving it. Why aren't teens listening to 80's music now? If Eddie Grant's Electric Avenue was good and a number one hit then, shouldn't it be good and a popular hit now? Did humans somehow evolve and now naturally like some other type of music? The trend makes something "good" in pop music. How does the music industry take advantage of this? Pick a few artists to promote (get them interviews, guest appearances on popular tv shows, special contests with soda makers etc...). The music industry can only promote so many dumb blonds or a limited amount of any genre at a time. The music did not find the diamond in the rough with many of these stars, they promoted them to that position. Those artists would have the same talent with or without the music industries blessing. With less involvement of the music industry,the trendy part would change but I don't think the there would be a lack or good quality music. People might have to figure out what they consider good for themselves and not let the music industry do it for them.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
I have cash to burn, but I am definitively too old. The stuff which they put out for sale, DO NOT interest me. What I like is stuff like electrical music vangelis/Jean michel Jarre , classic from funeral march for a marionette to tocatta in c minor, and a few rock/hard rock group and strange stuff (queen, megadeth, smashing pumpkins, and a few other less known ; commercial stuff like e-nomine, and a few other like in-extremo). For the first group, there isn't much which was put to sale recently and has got the quality of an oxygen, or heaven and hell. For the second group you can own so many version of them until nothing new comes out, for the third group, i search and search but rarely find stuff of interrest.
So what bring us this long rambling on my taste ? I started buying a lot of CD end on 90. Then by 2002 it dwindled down. Because my classic collection was complete, and for electronic music I did not find anything new, except a few rare stuff coming from Japan (Idea/eufonius). Sure, I would wish to see much more new stuff, but my exposure (university) has dwindled only to friend and colleague. So now a day I try pirate stuff in hope of finding something to buy which please me , and I throw everything away after trying. The bottom line is that I buy no CD , not because of the crise, but because nothing cater to my taste.. Yeah my taste are eclectic.But hey nobody is perfect.
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The music industry has always been fucking us over, it's only their tactics that have changed; it is interesting to note that their 'jump the shark' moment came when they were making the most money, because it was then that they refused to evolve with the market.
To elaborate on the evolution of 'fucking over': From its early (quite honest) goals of trying to appeal to as many listeners as possible, the music industry tried to influence and control the airwaves (airtime = records sold) to make themselves even more the only 'door' to stardom... but as we grew more educated (especially in recent years), the industry began targeting a younger and younger audience (explaining the '13-17-year-old' statistics mentioned ITFA - even the thought that this bracket is considered by them to be a major source of income is disgusting) and even 'creating' artists (with doubtful talents) especially for them. They have been stuck in this rut since the CD heyday - from the early 90's. In short, the music industry is failing because they are failing, through all their (expensive) manipulations, to keep the market mentality and structure exactly the way it was then.
I personally don't care who gets the money when I buy an album, but hearing a catchy tune that interests me is not easy these days - I used to rely on internet radio stations, but these seem to be coming under the influence of the mainstream as well. The more popular streaming sites (Deezer, etc) will probably go that way as well.
The irony of it all is that I can't help but thinking that the early music-industry days could be a good model: when there was only radio and records, we would buy the record to get the entire album (also instead of having to wait by the radio for hours to hear our favourite song); even when cassettes appeared, there was no comparing the quality of an original album to the sound of a cassette copy.
If the music industry really wanted to protect itself, it would have to evolve with the market, as well as working (objectively, not profit-oriented-ly) with other organisations to find a definite definition of 'piracy' that could be put into law.
The music industry would fare much better if it were illegal to a) make an entire album available in one place at one time for free and/or b) provide for free music above a certain quality.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
Agreed. Capitalism might seem like beautiful mathematical perfection to anybody who hasn't been under its heel 50 hours a week. Libertarianism rarely survives ones first graduate job.
And for the record, fuck yes I am anti-business. Corporations are, from my personal experience, a completely malignant form of social and economic organisation. I have found them to be places that stifle creativity, individuality, hope and happiness.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
To me their ultimate "jump the shark" or "nuke the fridge" as the kids say, was when they made the music unlistenable. This is why I only buy from local independent artists now, because they are actually the ones that compose the music and therefor don't want it sounding like shit.
I had the pleasure of helping an old friend to convert his LP collection to MP3, and we took the "Pepsi test" by comparing his original 70s albums with the "remastered" CDs you buy in stores today. Frankly I wouldn't call the "product" the CDs had on them music. Compare say....Bat Out Of Hell 1, or Queen A Night At The Opera with the 'remastered' and it seems like a bad joke. The CD sounds like it is being broadcast down a long distance telephone line with all the compression. Why would anyone want to buy product that sounds like dogshit?
Sadly 'articles' like this prove that it doesn't matter whether you are legal or not, all they know how to do is scream "Piracy!" and demand more cash and more draconian laws. Before the loudness war I bought quite a few CDs, now I buy none. They will of course put me down as a pirate even though I wouldn't take their product even if offered for free on a silver platter. They will just keep pushing more insane laws with treasonous bribery....err I mean lobbying, while the young simply ignore the laws because they are bullshit. Maybe if they would actually put out a usable product at a decent price their sales would pick up? Nah, that's just crazy talk. I'm waiting for them to be labeled "too big to fail" and just get a check from us monthly whether we want their "product" or not.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Libertarianism rarely survives ones first graduate job.
Liberalism rarely survives ones first paycheck and the discovery of how much of your money the Government is taking from you. To borrow a quote, "If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain."
And for the record, fuck yes I am anti-business. Corporations are, from my personal experience, a completely malignant form of social and economic organisation. I have found them to be places that stifle creativity, individuality, hope and happiness.
Got a better suggestion? For all it's flaws our capitalist system has produced much of the wealth and technology that we take for granted. I've yet to see a system that I'd rather live under.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.