The comment that record companies should have welcomed Napster etc. because cheaper access to music (for evaluation purposes) would increase sales, misses a significant point: Control.
Currently, the marketing machines for these Record companies have the luxury to virtually decide which albums should be popular and which should be relagated to the 'indie' audiences. By controling what the audiences are exposed to, they can better direct the purchasing habits.
Napster removes a level of that control. In many ways, this is like college radio, back before putting out an album was everyone's high-school project. This and a number of related developments lead to punk and indie music on the 70s and 80s. It wasn't until the 90s that music lables managed to pop-ify punk and indie music.
When I was in college, in the early-mid 90s, I saw a very noticable change in the music played by the DJs at my college radio station. It went from people who loved to play good music, especially music that was hard to hear anywhere else, to DJs who wanted to play virtually the exact same songs as the commercial station. (Note: I'm biased. I was a DJ and played mostly techno and industrial, and although I appreciate pop music, am hardly a fan of almost anything which commercial radio stuffs down my throat.)
Do yourself a favor and go out and buy "Coercion", Douglas Ruskoff's latest book. I am not normally one to recomment Rushkoff, but this book is a good into to the realities of just how important control of the consumer has become.
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The comment that record companies should have welcomed Napster etc. because cheaper access to music (for evaluation purposes) would increase sales, misses a significant point: Control.
Currently, the marketing machines for these Record companies have the luxury to virtually decide which albums should be popular and which should be relagated to the 'indie' audiences. By controling what the audiences are exposed to, they can better direct the purchasing habits.
Napster removes a level of that control. In many ways, this is like college radio, back before putting out an album was everyone's high-school project. This and a number of related developments lead to punk and indie music on the 70s and 80s. It wasn't until the 90s that music lables managed to pop-ify punk and indie music.
When I was in college, in the early-mid 90s, I saw a very noticable change in the music played by the DJs at my college radio station. It went from people who loved to play good music, especially music that was hard to hear anywhere else, to DJs who wanted to play virtually the exact same songs as the commercial station. (Note: I'm biased. I was a DJ and played mostly techno and industrial, and although I appreciate pop music, am hardly a fan of almost anything which commercial radio stuffs down my throat.)
Do yourself a favor and go out and buy "Coercion", Douglas Ruskoff's latest book. I am not normally one to recomment Rushkoff, but this book is a good into to the realities of just how important control of the consumer has become.