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."
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Let it die. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Record Industry (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:The traditional music industry is a buggy whip (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Film at 11. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
You Only Rip Me Off Once (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Homemade music is best (Score:3, Interesting)
My wife can bang out old Beatles classics on her guitar all day, and it cheers me up a thousand times more than any of the crap on the radio or the Internet.
Sometimes I suggest a song to her that she doesn't know. She takes this as a challenge, learns the song, and then serenades me with it.
Life is good.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Streaming services (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Let it die. (Score:2, Interesting)
Hey kind of like General Motors and their hunch that everyone wants an SUV. Well then the solution is obvious.
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
For those wondering about music promotion (Score:3, Interesting)
LISTEN to a top 1000 and wonder about the many 1 time hits. Some of them were of course produced but a lot of them just happened by chance. Someone heard it, played it for some friends and it spread. Music promotion is overrated for a lot of artists, because either they never get it in the first place OR their big hit happens from word of mouth while they pay the record label for all the publicity that didn't work. Oh, you thought the record labels payed for promotion? How silly of you.
The record labels do a LOT less then a lot of people seem to think and still the best way to promote yourself is just to send your CD to every radio station and offer to perform live whenever you can to hope enough people hear your music to spread your music. And you do NOT need a billion dollar industry coming up with endless schemes to drive customers away to do that.
In fact, an old dutch project "One day fly" showed that you do not need the music industry at all to create a hit. A radio presenter and some friends made a crappy song, promoted it heavily on radio (themselves) and voila, instant hit. You need people who can play your music to others to get noticed. The record labels do precious little more then buy you some airtime and that only for the big sure fire hits.
Oh and for the small artists, all that promotion you end up paying yourself for, so that even when you score a big hit, most of the profits will be sucked up by the record label.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Interesting)
I had to buy the original Rush albums 3 times because I wore them out. I bought two copies of Dark side of the moon, one album and one cd. I think that was a very dumb profit model, but that's how the music industry lived for years. The boomers were teh generation that bought their collections on album, then cassette, then finally cd. That will never happen again.
Now we have a much smaller number of people in the "music buying age" who buy digital and never have to worry about it again.
It's not rocket science. Less people, the shit doesn't break anymore and you can find most of it for free on the internet. I think the music industry is finished. They may stop the last one... but they'll never stop the first 2 points.
I have cash to burn (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah, but the music industry has demonstrated its practices include replacing musicians who sell more with ones who sell less. Doubt it all you want, but really read up on the case of Prince - a proven seller, and the industry decided to enforce contract provisions that were so draconian that by their interpretation he couldn't use his own name to sign autographs, except on their schedule, at their formal events. Once you learn how his controllers made an attempt to break him that was like something out of the Prisoner TV show, all that business with the 'Artist formerly known as...' starts making much more sense from his point of view. And the industry's profits suffered right along with his, but what was important obviously wasn't the money but breaking a difficult artist.
Here's some cases you might also google:
1. the 5 original Planet of the Apes movies, each made for less budget than the last, each bringing in more money, while the studio involved put all the profits back into epic historical pictures that mostly never broke even.
2. Roger Corman, the director who always shot within his budget and time limits, and whose films always made a profit, but who was personally insulted in vile terms by some of the biggest Hollywood studio heads, not for his film's quality but explicitly for making them look bad to stockholders.
3. The Monkees, who made public appearances to prove they weren't lip syncing and faking all their instrument playing, and got undercut by their own management team for doing it.
4. EMI's requesting in the 70's that certain artists be taken off the nominations for awards such as Grammies, either so that other EMI artists could win, or supposedly to trade favors with other recording companies. (I really should claim it was the whole industry, but EMI's actions were the only ones settled in court. Even though they lost a claim that specified they had partners in the act at all of the other recording giants, none of the others had to face lawsuits over it, AFAIK.).
5. Disney and Pixar, up until after Monsters Inc. or so.
Once you realize that the music and film industries have a real history of making 100% control the real issue and not money, the corollary becomes: It's not that people like "kiddie-shit artists", it's that the industry likes artists that will sign contracts giving the industry massive amounts of control over their personal lives and creative processes, and those tend to be young and stupid.
Re:Streaming services (Score:2, Interesting)
How come 'the album' merits preserving as an ideal unit of quality music?
An album is based on the available bandwidth in a vinyl 12-inch record, not on the attention span of the listeners or on the creative urges of the artist(s). So how come it's sacrosant?
So much of this debate is riddled with "it's been that way since I started listening to music, so that's the way it MUST stay" points of view, mostly from people who are so heavily plugged in to the music scene they're almost incapable of stepping back and seeing all the other possibilities.
Music is about to emerge from the ultra-commercial cocoon it's been in for 50 years, and I can't wait to see what it turns into
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Let it die. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe you're right, but it's just a belief, not supported by conclusive fact. However, we may on the verge of having one important data point to help settle the argument: Michael Jackson's IP collection. As I understand it, he spent about $500 million to buy the rights to a bunch of Beatles's tunes and other music. Some of the "experts" in the media were saying after he died that it could be worth as much as $2 billion now. If that turns out to be true, either:
a) the music business is doing just fine; or
b) the music business used to produce popular stuff, but current sales of contemporary artists are way down.
If the second turns out to be true, the *IAA have only themselves to blame. If it's the first, then there's nothing to complain about. So, in my view, if the MJ collection has quadrupled in value, the *IAA members may have to learn to STFU. Me, I can't wait.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Interesting)
What mostly surprised me about the loudness war is that no artists seem to be pissed off enough about it to just include 2 CD's in the sleeve; a "compressed for airplay" and a "good" version of the same tracks.
As I understand it, compression only happens at the very end of the mixing process and pressing an additional disc is cheap.
Re:What do you get for the music fan who has it al (Score:3, Interesting)
(The previous two paragraphs are based on conjecture, anecdotes, and my own reasoning. I think my conclusions are fairly pedestrian, but if anyone has any statistics or studies as to the revenue generated by back catalog, I'd be interested to see them.)
Likewise.
When the CD was introduced, everyone who wanted the new format ended up having to upgrade their collections or continue to use their current LPs and casettes until they wore out. The CD was not recordable (and would not become recordable for another 8 years), so dubbing one's existing collection to CD was out of the question. Still, the promise of the new format was enough to finally kill off vinyl, as no doubt customers were sick of worn out records and eaten cassettes, and loved the idea of a format whose marketing promised a century of readability without analog degrading. The CD gobbles up vinyl's market first, then the cassette's after the introduction of anti-skip buffers. Eventually people's old collections are either worn out or become difficult to play due to inconvenience, and people start re-buying their old music on CD. Sales skyrocket, because the labels are not just selling their discs to new customers, but also to old customers who bought the same lineup of recordings years ago, and were replacing their recordings at a rate faster than the usual re-purchase due to destruction of the old medium.
But the CD, being a digital format, had an advantage over the previous formats of vinyl and cassette. Because the tracks are digital, they can be extracted and easily transferred to another medium. The labels knew about the transfer of recordings from a CD to another medium, but anticipated the process would be in the form of a conventional dub using analog means, much like what the casette tape allowed. Hence, the CD did not have DRM, and no attempt was made during the specification process to prevent digital extraction. Once digital music started becoming the norm, the prediction was that customers would dub their tracks using S/PDIF to MD or DAT, or to the new CD recorders. So the labels lobbied for the AHRA and SCMS.
Of course, what happened instead was that these new digital formats failed to gain traction, and a new more efficient method of digital transfer arose: the digital extraction of tracks to a hard drive using a computer. Unlike a dub, ripping did not require playback of the source medium. Despite the original rips of CDs taking a long time due to encoding and slow processors, the difficult task of ripping only had to be done once. Once done, the tracks can be copied to any writable medium with ease. If one wanted to copy a CD to another CD, a computer allowed for a verbatim copy from source to destination without the need for any dubbing. Suddenly, any future form of music storage, which would inevitably be some sort of digital file, could not be as successful as the CD. Even tape, which also had the ability to record from another source, would inevitably have made more money from back catalog updating due to the tediousness of dubbing, as opposed to the straightforward process of ripping.
Phillips and Sony outdid themselves with the CD, making it almost impossible to create a successor. Attempts to try (DVD-Audio and SACD) failed because their features catered only to a select few and due to low player and disc support. Digital distribution is successful because of the a la carte model of allowing the selection of individual tracks, and the convenience of having songs beamed directly to your hard drive, since a new CD would just end up there anyway. But it would be absurd to re-buy all of your music online if you already have a CD, as you can just get the track from your existing collection, leaving back catalog purchases to those who do not know about ripping.
So to compare the revenues of labels from their peak in 1999 is absurd, as much of that revenue no doubt came from back catalog purchases. Instead it would make far more sense to compare it to revenues from before 1981, before the CD came out (adjusted for inflation of course).
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Interesting)
Dont even start me on modern "Mastering" techniques because it seems there no such thing.
The modern method is compress evertything all the time, eliminating the dynamic range of the music.
Drummers definitely do set the volume, and to some extent the louder they play the better. When one is running 12-16 open mics, the accumulative noise from all of them becomes significant, so the louder the level coming from a given mic, the less noise in the mix.
A soft drummer does not get the same tones as a louder one. When gained up to reach the correct level more noise is induced to a mix.
Drums often have 6-8 mics so a significant increase in noise occours and another problem ,"spill" the unwanted sound from other nearby instruments is also increased.
Not to say there should be no dynamic though, good musicians and (-: can indeed play well both loudly and softly-at the relevant times.
Some musical styles do not really work at to quiet a volume. I have played in bands too, and I like a fairly loud stage volume myself.....
There is an impact to bass produced from huge ammounts of speaker cone that no smaller system can emulate.
Oh and BTW, Shhhh, civilians are not supposed to know about the pschycho acoustic thing....they might realise...the truth!!!
What was that about getting my shearing checked?
Re:Let it die. (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm fine with that.
As long as the same applies to software, films and books.
The product sucks... (Score:1, Interesting)
People are buying less music because the industry offers very little worth listening to. Seriously, have you heard any tunes recently you will find yourself humming along with ten or even two years from now?
There are reasons why there are so many "golden oldie" stations. Songs used to have melodies and hooks and sometimes even virtuosity by the players. No more, or at least no more for the pablum that is played on the radio or shows up on MTV/VHS.
Inefficient Industries need to Die (Score:1, Interesting)
Inefficient Industries need to Die.
Whether it is GM or the music propaganda industry. They need to make more of what we want and are willing to pay for, and less of what we don't want.
If you can't make a profit, then those industries aren't doing anyone a favor.
Seeing rap stars driving around in $500,000 cars wearing $150,000 chains makes me sick. I'd really like to see all that go towards helping others (or even something less flashy) and see those people become even more famous for helping less advantaged families.
Re:Let it die. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:The $250,000 economy car (Score:2, Interesting)
These "music industry" people want the equivalent of 250 thou for a 25 grand commuter car. nuts.
I am a music aficionado (who isn't) who has a massive CD collection nearing a thousand. There are three CDs that came out within the last 9 month that were released at a price of over $22 per disc. Brand new. Take note suffering industry, as this is what I did: 1) Got mad as hell. 2) Downloaded EACH album. Free. 3) Resigned for these acts to come to Toronto on tour, and buy the CD from them. Even if it is $22 at the door, I know the batsh!t insane markup goes into their pocket and not HMV. This is what happens when people care. They find solutions that work for them.