Record Industry: Embrace the Big Bang
The music business makes my head hurt…
The plight of the major labels has been well documented in business journals, in Ad Age, even Rolling Stone. “Album” sales (I think its cute that they still refer to the category by it’s original format), have plummeted 25%. The industry as a whole as hemorrhaged billions in revenue in the last 7 years. The major labels are floundering.
First, the big evil was illegal downloads. And the music industry tried many things to resolve this. They successfully went after Napster. Remember Metallica’s piracy crusade? Then any/every other peer to peer network. Then they targeted consumers to stop the stealing of music. Jamie Thomas of Duluth, MN, paid handily for her 15 minutes of fame when the RIAA successfully sued her for $220,000 for having 24 illegal downloads on her computer.
But now apparently folks are stealing less music too. Last week , I read this….“Downturn in music sharing.” According to Marketing Vox and the NPD group, teens are not only buying less music (19% less), they’re downloading less free music (6% less) from p-to-p networks.
So, kids are buying less, but downloading less free stuff too?
What gives?
If people are downloading less and buying less they must be listening to less music. Right? Wrong! People aren’t listening to less music. Music has simply permeated more deeply into our culture and our daily lives. Services like LastFM, Pandora, streaming radio, podcasts, pitchfork, addicttech, Soma Radio, etc. are so prevalent that the average music listener doesn’t even have to sneak on to some p-to-p site to get what they want to hear. They can go to any of thousands — probably hundred thousands — of legitimate places online and hear anything they want– and mostly for free.
Add in relatively cheap digital production tools like Traktor, ProTools, Serato, hell even WinAmp and almost anyone can produce a quality product and bring it to to their audience. Take a look at needledrop.com. It’s the online experience designed to support Rhythm Lab Radio, a 2-hour weekly radio show hosted by two Twin Cities djs. Rhythmn lab broadcasts on Minnesota Public Radio and Milwaukee Free Radio. With the help of a couple of feeds (music news, arts and culture, technology, upcoming events), some easy social network integration (twitter, facebook), and suddenly these two tech-savvy djs provide a product much bigger than the 12 – 2 a.m Sunday morning slot on public radio. They’ve created their own movement that has a very loyal following.
Yep. Music has gone back to the people. But that doesn’t mean there’s not a business here.
Lil’ Wayne catapulted into the limelight this past year with his platinum release, The Carter III — plus four grammies to back it — because he understands how to use his music to build a community. For years Lil’ Wayne flooded the Web with free music/”mixtapes”. He built a huge community by giving away his material (the fact that he rapped over a lot of pop songs that he didn’t have the rights for made it that much more enticing to the music underground). When he finally put out an legit industry release, it soars to platinum.
Why? Because of basic human nature. You show me love and I’ll show you love. His followers were happy to pay for a release after getting so much free music love from Lil Wayne.
Radiohead’s street credit went through the roof when they released In Rainbows using a “pay what you want model.” Their not talking exact revenue numbers, but estimates have put sales at $10 million.
I’ve been watching the music industry from a variety of perspectives — as a strategist working with record labels, as a big consumer of music, and as a musician. To say the industry is fracturing is an understatement. I think of it as exploding into billions of small particles.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just different from the past. There’s still a music industry out there. It just looks different (and I don’t just mean the ringtone market).
Instead of fighting the wave, record companies are in the unique position to take this to the next level and evolve the way the music business is run. Every artist is already reaching out to their following. But think about the power of a group of artists doing this together. The record label (or entertainment group — ah hem UMG) who is willing to pull together its entire family of artists to drive a focalized, ongoing community around music could win huge. Imagine swapping blog comments with Kanye, providing immediate feedback on Calexico’s concert, seeing videos of your favorite artists working in studio on tracks you’ve never heard, being one of 500 people to be able to download Lil Waynes next track before it goes on sale, or hearing the next cadre of up and coming artists the label is thinking of repping (the community feedback potential alone could provide priceless insights and a lot of free PR).
People are hungry for music. The Web has just intensified that hunger. Yes, labels will have to give a little love away for free. But the upside could be huge.
Or they could continue the direction their going and, well, I’m sure it will all work out.
posted by Popular Front on April 15th, 2009 at 1:52 pm Permanent link to this post
10 Responses to “Record Industry: Embrace the Big Bang”
I’ve been actually following quite a few underground music artist blogs where they are just giving away full albums worth of content and a lot of it is better then the stuff I’m seeing put out for sale.
Great read. I totally agree with you. Its amazing how it seems like the labels are fighting so hard not to change instead of creating the next new method. I believe the artist will figure it out long before the labels do. I guess we’ll see.
Here are a couple music blogs that I find stuff on from time to time.
Indie Pop and LoFi blog: http://gorillavsbear.blogspot.com/
Electro Pop blog: http://discodust.blogspot.com/
It would be great to start a list of where everyone is getting legal/legitimate free music.
I found this site yesterday, has some bands I haven’t heard of before but it says that they’re high on the “internet” charts:
http://wearehunted.com/
This is so true.
The first wave of this started about 5 years ago when this huge shift occurred in the land of radio. Demand plummeted once we started seeing satellite options. Their response was to begin integrating HD stations, producing podcasts, and adding online streaming in hopes of driving the audience back, but in the meantime the entire landscape was reinvented.
Had all of this been introduced a few years earlier when the first signs of the switch to everything digital were apparent, these might have been real solutions. Unfortunately for radio it seems it might be too little too late…but in the case of the labels, they still have some leverage.
The first thing a touring band starting out in the nineties did was scrounge money to record a single, then market it to an indie label, get distribution into the alternative “record” stores. Then they tour themselves into the zines and hope Geffen shows up.
Now, the first thing you do is create a MySpace page, or a video for YouTube. Bypass the pressing plant. Bypass the indie label. Bypass the major label. Bypass the record store. Bypass the endless tours that wound through major markets and small towns.
Music has lost it’s “place” to a certain extent. I think about that sometimes.
Sanders, while you have to respect the old school method of bands making it big, new school is making a whole world of music more easily accessible to the masses. Not only that, but since bands have the ability to bypass any labels, could you argue their work could potentially be less tainted by the industry? However, with the likes of MySpace or YouTube, it takes away from the rare-factor of finding undiscovered, obscure bands at alternative “record” stores mentioned.
Brilliance.
I don’t feel like I can comment much on the state of The Industry, cuz I’m an old school vinyl junkie. Long as I can get some wax, I’m fine. There’s enough old vinyl I’ve never heard available at garage sales and thrift shops to keep me record hunting for the rest of my life. I’d be really pissed if they stopped pressing new vinyl, but I’d live.
Most of the stuff I hear digitally… I hear, but don’t feel… and so don’t really care weather I have access to it. But there is some good stuff out there (Joanna Newsom) that I’d have never heard were it not for someone having shared a download.
Additionally, I’m blessed to have many amazingly talented musicians from multiple genres, in my life. I suffer from no lack of good music in my life.
If the Industry, like so many other 20th century dinosaurs, is in it’s death throes, then perhaps it should be allowed to die. Maybe it has served it’s purpose and it’s time for something different. I would not be saddened by the loss of something that supports Britney Spears and thug life…. but that’s an entirely different discussion.
And I didn’t feel like I could comment much. I’m gonna shut up now.
I wish I’d known you were interested in this, I would have invited you to the screening last night
Impossible to discuss this topic anymore without viewing the (opensource / free to download, controversial / award winning and possibly illegal) film “RiP: A remix manifesto”
In RiP: A remix manifesto, Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers. ( ie Copyright laws, once used to encourage creativity, gone horribly wrong after Disney distorted them beyond recognition)
Learn More Here: [http://www3.nfb.ca/webextension/rip-a-remix-manifesto/]
Then Download it here (and then remix it!): http://www.opensourcecinema.org/
Anytime you want to grab a drink and discuss further, let me know