The Music Industry's Crisis Writ Large 554
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."
Decimated... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Informative)
Music industry not dying (Score:5, Informative)
These reports all say the same thing: concert ticket sales growth more than makes up for the decline in recorded music sales.
Re:Let it die. (Score:2, Informative)
Hur dur the internet?
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Informative)
I did live sound for 20 years. It is not always the engineers fault if the sound is crap. Some rooms are just impossile to get a good sound. Some bands are so loud on stage that the PA system cannot keep up, again bad sound. Some PA systems are crap.
Bottom line is if you werent at the mixing desk yourself you have no idea of the problems that are in front of the Sound guy.
How many times have you actually mixed a band?
Yeh right never, it shows.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Informative)
Tell this Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 - 1759) and he'll laugh his ass off. He was probably the best paid musician of his time. And music made him extremely rich. He just hit the right taste of the rich people sponsoring/hiring him.
Most of the Music written from the 17th century onwards was basically contract work written for rich people. Bach has written most of his works being sponsored. Mozart, too. The whole idea that Music must not be paid for is ludicrous.
Even the Minnesänger in Medieval times (12th - 15th century) had pretty well paid jobs at the royal and imperial courts. They didn't write their Minnelieder (minne - noble love) just for "love"...
"hot" mixed music sounds like crap (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.prorec.com/Articles/tabid/109/EntryId/247/Over-the-Limit.aspx [prorec.com]
RTFA, its a long one but a good one. Why do you think that the music on radio fails to hold your attention, or fails to impress?
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Informative)
Plenty thanks, only 2000+ shows in 20 years, most of which were repeat bookings, some in the hundreds of shows. Not to mention at least that many more that I had to refuse as I was already booked, often 6 months in adavance.
Where did I say poor equipment that wont go as loud as I want? You just made that up, re read what I wrote. How many times have you mixed a band? Ah of course none.
I will explain it simply as you don't seem to have a clue about live sound. If a rock band for example is very loud on stage(Instrument amps and speakers can be surprisingly efficient)say 105 dbspl one needs to be able to add 10db of volume (115dbspl)above the off stage volume for the vocals to be heard clearly.
A snare drum on its own can when hit hard, exceed 120dbspl.
Hence you need a powerful system capable of exceeding the off stage level. Turning down the volume is not an option in this scenario, unless the band is willing to turn down on stage, and let me tell you that virtually never happens, or if it does only for a few minutes then they are back up again.
To ensure quality some "headroom" (Unused power)is required, that is power above what is required, to keep all points in the signal chain below the threshold of clipping, and hence the sound clean. Even so most systems I used would flash the clip lights on the peaks of the bass drum, this is not unusual with high powered actively crossed over systems.
In an active xover system clipping of the bass amp does not effect the higher frequency channels.
One of the things I discovered was that clean sound can be very loud without bothering listeners, whereas dirty or poorly equalized sound can be annoying at almost any volume.
At no stage did I say I wanted a system to be louder if it was crap. That would just result in louder crap.
As a long time live sound professional I did not choose crap systems for my shows, but some were equipment provided, so one had to make do with what was there. When I specified the systems it was never a problem.
Obviouslyly the quality of the band and their instruments and amps has a huge influence too.
On many occasions I mixed multiple acts, some of which sounded like crap and had me working my ass off thinking I was doing something wrong.
When the next act came on all of the problems were gone and the sound great without any changes on my part, but even after many years it is sometimes very difficult for me to be sure whether it was the engineer/system causing the bad sound or just a bad band!
Like I said if you are not at the desk doing the gig you have no idea under what limitations the sound guys is operating, and no real basis for criticism.
Re:irony (Score:4, Informative)
Right, these are RIAA numbers. Since when did we care what spin doctoring they did to their own numbers to try and justify their war on piracy? The only slant this article gives the numbers is that there are more and growing opportunities to listen to music for free... a fact the RIAA mentioned no where. But, guess what? Since around the 1950s or so, we've all been able to listen to music for free over the radio. And the Boston Strangler aside, the advent of the portable music player has only made music more accessible.
The fact that we're in a fairly serious global recession coupled to the inflation they sprinkle on the numbers might make them look tragic. But last I checked, everyone still wants music. They just don't have as much to spend on it right now. I don't see the music industry going anywhere.
Well, the major labels might vanish. But they stopped being a required piece of the music industry more than 10 years ago. Course, they won't really vanish unless their copyrights actually expire. Or our generation dies out and is replaced by a culture that believes music should be enjoyed rather than owned.
Re:You Only Rip Me Off Once (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Informative)
Actaully, the way the drummer plays is the biggest influence on volume, a loud drummer gives the rest of the band little choice of how loud they play, they have to be able to hear themselves.
Pete Townsend of The Who had hearing damage, which occoured due to excessive headphone volume in the recording studio, not live gigs.
You do kinda have a point regarding volume, but in my experience it is not as big a problem as you may think. As exposure to loud levels is relatively short (At most about 2 hours at a time) the level needs to be very high to cause hearing damage.
Despite mixing (Loudly)for 20 + years I have no hearing damage!
I was always very careful to remove myself from the gig when not mixing, to avoid the usually loud distorted DJ music in beteween sets.
More hearing problems result from loud industrial envronments where repeated exposure to loud uncompressed transients can last all day. Exposure time is the key factor.
Few of the musos I worked with had hearing damage.
Some kinds of music just do not work well unless at a relatively high volume.
A classic example was Bob Marleys backing band The Wailers. I worked with them for a short tour once and they were incredibly loud, but mostly in the low bass area.
This produced a most extraordinary effect, of the whole airmass in the room moving back and forth at very low frequency, producing an incerdible groove in the music.(Having 8X dual 24" sub woofers helped too)
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, you will. Evidently 'flamebait' and 'troll' are the new 'I disagree with this person and am too lazy to write a good rebuttal' mods.
New? I think this has been happening since the mod system came out...
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Informative)
> Despite mixing (Loudly)for 20 + years I have no hearing damage!
Maybe you're tougher or more resilient. But have you actually had your hearing tested?
I know a musician who went to get tested and he found that there are some frequencies in the normal range that he totally cannot hear - I guess the relevant hair cells have been blasted to death. But his hearing is still reasonably functional (I'm sure he did notice some problems that's why he went to get tested).
It doesn't get better with age though (unless the technology improves a lot ;) ).
On my own self tests my hearing is crap. I don't think I have a 90dB dynamic range - I think it's more like 50-60dB :(. But at least I can still hear 18KHz though I'm in my 30s.
The hearing damage thing can be a vicious circle - you get damaged, so you turn up the volume on your headphones, then you get even more damaged.
Ears aren't as easily damaged by very loud and very low bass. Unless it gets to ridiculously loud levels, in which case there are also other risks e.g. ruptured lungs http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3614180.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Loud huh - go listen to My Bloody Valentine (Score:2, Informative)
Nope; lack of skills.
A drum stick isn't a boolean on/off device; you can choose to play at a whole range of loudness and if you want you can play less loud when playing faster.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Informative)
No.
I hope you get modded down. (Score:3, Informative)
Because people that do not learn from history, frankly deserve to be derided in any way possible.
You said "he big label records AREN'T there to fuck everyone over."
The reality:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2289224.stm [bbc.co.uk]
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/print.html [salon.com]
So they screw both artists and consumers.
And that is only for starters...
Please, get real.
Recoupable (Score:4, Informative)
The artist has to repay the label for the cost of recording an album. The labels charge artists for promotion, too. It's a universal practice to include a "breakage" fee, which means the artist only receives royalties on 90% of sales. Concert touring expenses are also recoupable, paid for by the artist. Royalties are calculated on wholesale prices, not retail prices, so deals with record clubs can be based on deeply discounted wholesale prices and lower royalties
The industry is geared to produce a few smash hit artists. Those who aren't given preferential treatment are generally stuck with big debt to the label. If the label decides not to release an artist's music, the artist can't release it on his own - and this happens quite a lot. The label can insist that the artist remain under contract for 7 years or more, while never releasing any recordings, so the artist is essentially silenced
There is no hope of getting a song on a commercial radio station without the influence of "independent promoters," who have a lock on what stations will play and only promote songs after receiving huge payments. Radio airtime has nothing to do with the merits of the music. No song gets played on commercial radio without a payment to an independent promoter
Most people who have very strong opinions against the music industry have little idea of exactly how bad the industry is. It's a rotten and corrupt industry.
Read what Janis Ian has to say [janisian.com]. Read The Truth about the Music Industry." [bombhiphop.com]
And they call themselves musicians? (Score:2, Informative)
A proper percussionist can play drums loud or soft, as required.
Re:Let it die. (Score:1, Informative)
Artist merely need to become employees of the publishers, like the rest of the world. They are not a special case, nor particularly highly skilled.
The reason the 90s music sales were so high was CDs were well and truly established and people were double/triple dipping to replace their cassettes and vinyl. Once that gravy train left town, it has always been clear old catalogues were going to be hit hard.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Informative)
Musicians, for a brief period of modern history, were able to make income beyond that they were given for their performances.
Correction, a very small number of musicians were able to make that income. The "lottery" mentality works very well when trying to manipulate young musicians into signing away ownership of their creations.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Informative)
But a government-run monopoly (like medicare) is far far worse.
Is that so? [commonwealthfund.org]
The government is at least potentially answerable to the people it serves. Corporations are only answerable to their share holders (and often not even that). Government run services are also run for the common good, whereas corporations are run for private profit. The two seldom intersect.
Re:Let it die. (Score:1, Informative)
I call BULLSHIT! There are very few musicians who make anything close to what a teacher, nurse, scientist, or construction worker make. That is with touring and merchandise sales combined. This includes most musicians that you would consider popular. As an example, U2 didn't make a penny off of record sales until after The Joshua Tree which was their 6th release. Most musicians don't have a major label release and for those that do, they rarely make it past 2 releases. In addition to that U2 did not make a lot of money off of touring up until that point. On top of that, teachers, nurses, scientists, and construction workers all work for a salary. There is no such guarantee for a musician. There has never been an era or brief period of modern history where musicians were guaranteed to make any income for or beyond their performances. So you can take your "struggling musician chestnut" and stuff it up your ass. FYI, IAASPM (I am a struggling professional musician).