Re:more like we-already-knew-that dept. (Score 1)

Well, yes, marketing hasn't changed all that much. You have to do it, always had to, and you generally use the same tricks. But the actual distribution I would say has changed pretty dramatically in the last 60 years. Snocap, iTunes, CDBaby, Discmakers et. al., selling your own CDs at gigs, home-burnt or not (not many people had cutting lathes for vinyl 50 years ago), sticking CDs into magazines (LPs just didn't work as well for that), physical copies of music in places like Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble or the corner deli, Starbucks et. al (the custom, in-house label spinoff concept), ringtones. Aaaiieee!! I actually remember when you just went to the record store, maybe the musical instrument store, and bought a record. And that was it, besides Columbia House.

So to me, on the one hand the industry has indeed solidified, calcified even... but on the other hand it seems to be liquefying - the ground keeps shifting beneath everyone's feet, throwing everybody off balance, and everyone's wondering what to do. It's the huge conglomerates who have the toughest time, like a huge steamship trying to turn on a dime to avoid the big glacier. Us guys in the small speedboats can zigzag around and back a lot easier, even though the waters are still treacherous.

So I leave you with one of my favorite quotes about our beloved industry. It pretty much accurately reflects the often brutal and sad process of "natural selection" that is at work. Not pretty, definitely not perfect or what I would like, but it's what we got. (sigh)

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic
hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.
There's also a negative side." -- Hunter S. Thompson

I'm off to revel now... have a Happy New Year!