advanced operators and the future of music
(l) Capitol Building L.A. — (r) Jay Z & Rick Rubun - Why so glum guys?.
So my buddy Justin Kistner who runs the Metafluence blog has posed some questions regarding the ‘Future of Music‘. As he rightly puts it - “While the profit models of the music world are in a frightful transition, the listener demand for music is stronger than ever. Music is still a cornerstone of an individuals identity. And, more people have more music than they ever have owned before.” He then asks - “Which brings me to my question to all of you, what do you think the future of music is? Some thoughts to consider:
a: Is the recording model still valid? If so, is it the bands that will be doing the recording and distribution?
b: If the money isn’t in a recording model, then what will the model of the future be?”
Readers of this blog know by now my position on the collapse of the existing system; in a nutshell the recording industry brought everything upon themselves because of their reluctance to embrace the new technilogies that their customers had already embraced. Always give your customers what they want. I wrote about this 18 months ago - The Broken Music Distribution System. And here’s another great article Rick Rubun tries to save Columbia Records, Rubin has some great insights in this piece - worth a read. Moose readers what do you have to say?
September 11th, 2007 at 10:09 am
I think the recording industry is responsible for putting out the most reprehensible overproduced bullshit in the history of music. I say they should just suck it.
I think I had too much tea this morning.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:53 am
The music will always prevail - profiteering must adapt… I believe Paul McCartney said it best:
“…But in this ever changing world in which we live in
Makes you give in and cry -
Say live and let die….”
September 11th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
The music industry will increasingly diverge between top-selling artists who succeed with the “recording model” and everyone else who has to diversify and market themselves within the “long tail” of the industry through touring and song placement and licensing.
The top of the pyramid will grow smaller, even as it occupies more marketshare. The big labels will put all their eggs in their few baskets (well-produced, groomed, and market-tested ‘artists’) who will go on to sell tens of millions of records at Walmart through huge marketing campaigns that make today’s Ipod crossover commercials look like flyers on a bathroom wall. The pyramid will also widen, as more unique artists are cut from the label rolls and go it alone or with smaller labels. As a whole, the industry will do great, but most artists will have even less of a chance of selling big. But the music will still be good.
Best case scenario, a “middle class” of musicianship emerges that artists can work and market themselves within.
September 11th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
PS - The “subscriber” model that Rick Rubin talks about would be a tragedy for most artists, as it would condemn them to a salaried serfdom to whichever company collects the monthly fees, and would afford artists less room to benefit from self-promotion.
September 11th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I think Rubin hit nail on the head. Eventually the pay-per-download model will give way to a subscription based “all you can eat” idea. A variety of home/car/portable devices will have access to a massive music database - available at any time. What this means for the musician is less revenue from song sales (this is already happening) which will force bands/artists to be more clever about how they sell merchandise, video footage, etc.
September 11th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
yes!!! it so god damn simple my head is going to explode waiting for it to happen!!!!!!! Apple will eventually be #1 in music sales create a telecommunications company and be take hold of the music industry.
September 11th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
@ Justin,
I think everything you say is spot on but the subscribe to all you can eat solution is not necessarily a tragedy - the EMusic and Real models seem to work. For musicians it would be one more digital quiver in their bow as an addition to their merchandise sales at shows. Let’s face it music retail stores are going the way of the Dodo and even iTunes won’t take up the slack. I agree that subscription services will favor the most popular artists at first but I am very optimistic that as the listeners/music users seek out better stuff then a service will spring up that gives them filtered, quality music and by that I mean the complete opposite of CD Baby for instance that just dumps CDs en masse into a web interface without a ‘trusted source’ pointing you to the good stuff. Also music blogs are on the front line in both offering filtered quality music to sample as a free download as well as the best place to discover new music. Even Pampelmoose (cough, cough) hopefully turns music fans on to new stuff….
September 11th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
My own two cents…I think that this whole thing smacks of 1997 with the Internet in general. Remember when people thought the net was “above” advertising? This is just all so new and crazy that it’s going to take time for the dust to settle. Make no mistake, there are vast opportunities for anyone on the ground floor of all this, the surface hasn’t even been scratched. Once Virgin, Tower, and other big-money names get a few consultants farmed from 20-something Web 2.0 kids it will start to resemble something that looks like commerce in the old-fashioned sense, except online. (remember Punk? Same shit happened. “Get one of those damned safety-pin wearing kids in here and tell them to tell us who to sign!”)
Let’s not forget that while advertising has taken some crazy twists and turns, on the internet now, it’s the same shit, different day. The delivery systems and general approaches have shifted, but if the content of these ads are different, I’ll be damned if I can tell. They are just…shorter.
What has not happened yet for music sales and delivery is an organized, consolidated approach by a vaguely cartel-ish lot of busines types who have decided on standards for the industry. But look at web advertising….there are now a whole set of aesthetics and standards now for “what works” and what don’t…everybody is hip to a particular set of numbers and stats that drive traffic, sales, and attention…and for Advertising, that standard is determined by a large degree by Google. Where is the music version of the Google “Gold Standard?” Keep watching….it’s coming one way or another. Give em five years.Maybe less.
September 12th, 2007 at 7:17 am
The ’subscriber model’ would not put another quiver in the bows of artists. If you can download essentially all the songs or albums you want for free, it completely eliminates the 10-20$ album as a product. It replaces an artist’s old quiver with what would essentially be a salary. Artists would sign to, say, Sony\BMG’s subscription service-oriented record label, and would be compensated according to how big a draw they are - more popular artists could demand higher pay for keeping their music catalogs available for download. Who would the highest-rated artists be? Same as today: the ones who are most heavily promoted, put up on the frontpage, and most hyped on MTV. The old winners will be the new winners.
As for the less famous artists, the only thing they can sell is merchandise, which isn’t horrible, but will never be as good as selling more music. In the end, their paycheck would come from their label\subscriber service license, not from selling their own product. With the glut of artists that will fill the vacuum created by the elimination of the need for packaging and distribution costs, it will be even harder to distinguish one’s music. “Trusted Sources” on the net will point people in the right direction, but it won’t result in more money in the artist’s pocket unless they become a big hit. There will be less incentive (and revenue) for artists to slog it out on tour for years while self-promoting, and more incentive to bow before the major labels (the future subscription services) for the best deal possible.
In short, I see this as creating more artists, less money to go around, and in a market more tightly controlled by major labels.
September 12th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Justin, Ok, let’s look at this from another POV. As a pro musician signed to Warner Bros and EMI with Gang of Four I never received a salary. I did receive a 25% share of advances on future sales, to be recouped of course along with all other expenses before we saw another cent. Most of G4’s income was earned on the road and I don’t think things have changed much since then. My point about subscriptions and artist getting paid as another ‘arrow in the quiver’ analogy was based around the fact that artists, signed or unsigned, are not going to see any significant income streams coming in from CD sales. Therefore, I’d say to them - please take advantage of all current opportunities for maximizing your income. As for the big labels controlling the subscription service (if it even was implemented) I’m not so sure about that. The answer iin my mind for the big labels to succeed is for them to take a deep collective breath and dive into uncharted waters, in other words make a complete break from signing bands, owning master rights and publishing rights. They should do what they do best - market and promote music to press, radio and MTV etc whilst charging their ‘music clients’ for the service. They could also continuing what they do today - basically working with producers who bring along tried and tested artists albums’ along with the marketing plan. i.e Beyoncé….
September 12th, 2007 at 10:42 am
You’re certainly right that many artists can expect to make more from touring than from album sales, so I may have overrated the importance of the album-as-product in that regard. The way I see it (correct me if I’m wrong) is that even if album sales don’t trickle down to the actual artist, they still stimulate their record label, which in turn will invest more in promoting the artist, who in turn can get better paying gigs, then sell more albums, etc… In other words, the album (or hit single) still seems to be the product that greases the machine which supports the artist. But I don’t want to overstate that case
I think you got at the heart of the issue when you mention that, in your opinion, labels would need to give up signing bands and retaining master rights. I didn’t even consider that, as it seems like the collective breath they would have to take might be a bit too much for them to swallow. If they did….. I suppose they would become some new-fangled mesh of marketing consultants and press agents. However, its hard for me to imagine the big companies doing so without taking a huge financial hit.
Then again, maybe thats where the small-to-medium size labels can adapt better than the big guys. If their artists volunteer to give out their music on a smaller subscription service (like maybe just Matador) and work out some deal with artists to split revenue from licensing, that could be a successful middle-class model. Hmmm…
September 12th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
[...] Dave Allen has an insider’s perspective on the changing music industry as the bassist for Gang of Four and the man behind the popular music blog, Pampelmoose. [...]
September 12th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
we’ve rejected corporate cd sales. done. kaput.
we’ll reject a subscription model with similar passion. now, its about exposing ourselves to a wider range of music than was ever possible before the internet. we email each other. we im each other. if something new is buzzing, a mp3 will find its way into our library.
a subscription model seems too simple. i like the adventure of finding out about new music. that doesn’t mean stealing. there are bound to be new advances to allow musicians to broadcast their setlist at shows for purchase and download on our mobile devices. (cough cough. wifi music store….cough…iph….cough)
i’m not ready to blindly subscribe to everything. we have too much already. i want ways to filter down and get higher quality music. not simply more music…..
September 13th, 2007 at 9:00 am
heres the thing …I think Joshk is on to something with that set list idea, I made that comment to someone yesterday. I think that we need as many opportunities to buy what we hear. This is all about volume. The more creative options we are exposed to the better, in a digitial and not in tangible form. Digital is cheap and eliminates physical waste. Keep throwing the ideas on the wall until they stick and then keep throwing more…we will soon be walking around with iphone like devices like we walk around with cell phones and those devices will connect us to a tremendous amounts of opportunities to purchase music.
September 13th, 2007 at 10:43 am
So here’s a thought about something I’m aware of but completely forgot as I jumped into this discussion - today’s younger music fans don’t want to own anything…I’ve noticed with my own teenagers that they will download as much as possible or rip tracks from their friends CDs and as soon as their hard drives are full they just start to delete the song files to make room for others…nothing tactile is ever required, and music is for the moment not something to be cherished and held on too…thoughts??
September 13th, 2007 at 10:51 am
hmmm. live in the moment? don’t wait until we’re ancient and alone surrounded by useless artifacts from our youth?
there might be something to that…..although i tend to backup files over deleting them. maybe a purge movement is coming. delete your digital shackles. be free!
September 13th, 2007 at 11:25 am
dave…sounds like my cd collection…spend 15 bucks and store them in the most abrasive compartment of my car, my version of delete.
well if we (the young ones) are trying to be as cutting edge as possible and it doesnt cost us much why not toss the old and bring in the new!! note to self…delete maroon 5 back catalog from mp3 collection.
September 13th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
If this listen-then-delete thing is really a trend among teens I think it could be a statement about the quality of today’s music. I still have a deep connection to so much of the music I discovered when I was 15. Although…I haven’t listened to my copy of Appetite for Destruction in quite some time. Hmmm…
September 14th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Roy Christopher has a good take on this subject from about 2 years ago.
September 16th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Here we go..the New York Times readers write - it’s backlash time..they know what they want. Read the letters
September 16th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
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