The sad thing is, in a society dominated by superficiality and soundbytes, music has become a byproduct imbedded between commercial spots, rather than the other way around. You're not going to find anything challenging in commercial radio. Since 1996, when the FCC lifted restrictions on the number of stations a single entity can own, radio has fallen into the hands of a few conglomerates such as Clear Channel, who mercilessly dictate popular taste based on what will sell advertising units. It doesn't matter what the particular format is--bland, inoffensive music sells ad blocks. And since airplay sells records, the labels sign people who are going to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
Before the Music Dies is a DVD documentary that brilliantly explores some of these issues, and how they are systematically destroying American music as we know it. Incorporating interviews with music notables like Branford Marsalis, Dave Matthews, Erykah Badu, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt and Eric Clapton, among others, it makes a compelling case for a radical restructuring of the the bloated, decaying entity that is the music industry. Some will decry it as one-sided and naive, but those people are the lackeys who have put the business into its current state of affairs. It centers on the deterioration of American music in the pop mindset, but the problems of the industry have global ramifications.In his report to Britain's Economic Research Council, titled "Creative Destruction in the Music Industry: The Way Ahead," Andrew Ian Dodge focuses on what he considers the UK market's failure to fully exploit its strengths in a rapidly changing global market dominated by American technologies. That, coupled with the BBC's virtual monopoly of the airwaves, has led to a stagnation in which Brit bands find it increasingly difficult to compete. While his premises focus on the British market, and are debatable, his paper reaches the same conclusion as Before the Music Dies: the music business is on a slidetrough to self-destruction.Both of these works look at the core problems confronting the industry from the musician's viewpoint, rightfully pitting them as potential casualties in a business that has turned a deaf ear to public desperately seeking something, anything that will hold its interest. The labels spoonfeed the consumer measured doses of fifteen minute fame, and, by and large, they lap it up. Given that the average music consumer has a short attention span, why would the labels invest in an unknown commodity? The answer is, of course, they wouldn't. It's much easier to retread last week's hit with a new hairstyle and a new prefab voice. What they've failed to figure into the equation, however, is that the seeds of a revolution are taking root just beneath their status quo model. The very foundation of the music business is shifting plates, and the execs refuse to admit the towers are about to fall.It's a revolution that's been a long time coming. When musicians and fans alike discovered the uncharted lands of cyberspace, the first shots finally rang across the world. Musicopolis viewed cyberspace as a threat to its sovereignity, and responded, as empires inevitably do, with all the considerable force at its disposal. Calling up its armies of attorneys and enlisting the aid of some mercenary musicians, the music empire crushed the early Napster Uprising, reducing it to little more than a corporate lackey before utterly destroying it. If anything, the downfall of Napster became a rallying cry for both sides, and legal filesharing was born.Here's the problem as it now exists, and the blame has to be borne not only by the industry, but by the consumer and, to a certain extent, the musician, as well. The industry, rather than accept the indisputable fact that the Internet has inexorably altered the face of popular music and how it is delivered, instead continues to wage battle against it. A certain segment of consumers unwittingly aid the industry by bemoaning what they perceive as the extinction of the CD (which, ironically, exterminated the 12" vinyl album) if downloads become the dominant delivery method. And a number of musicians still cling to the belief they have to be signed to a major label to prove their worth.None of this is true. What is true is this--by not embracing technologies that can't even be considered "new" at this point, the music industry as we know it has already committed suicide. Cyberspace provided the industry with what could have been the greatest promotional tool that could be imagined. But because it was new, and because it required a rethinking of how the industry would evolve, the new execs chose instead to attempt to bully it out of existence. It was a strategy doomed from the start. Revolutions are like that. The music business will not die--it's been evolving since our ancient forebears discovered sticks and stones can make for interesting sounds. This notion of music as industry will wither and rot away, however. Technology, ironically, has made the process of delivering music more organic than at any time in history. With an investment of less than 5000$US and a relatively decent Mac or PC, anybody can essentially have a full fledged recording studio in their den. Social networking sites like YouTube and MySpace offer invaluable promo space at no cost, and have been instrumental in launching the careers of new acts that would have been ignored via the industry's rubber stamp methods.
Article comments
1 - DJRadiohead
Well done, Ray. This was a pleasure to edit. While I might quibble with a small point here or there, so many of your insights ring sadly true. Well written piece, sir.
2 - ScooterBach
Music sounds better if you stop listening entirely for awhile. Then, when you listen you will have fresh ears and be more discriminating. You will return to being a listener instead of a mere consumer of music. When you resume listening it helps to choose music that you haven't listened to in a long while but that you remember liking.
Take a break!
3 - Joe Harris
So, you're saying that there's recent music out there that's actually good? Aside from Alice in Chains and "Twilight Zone," I find that any rock music released after 1980 is shit. You were goddamn right about "mediocrity."
Perhaps the Internet is worth another look. Sadly, the future is now and that includes downloading.
Scooter, music abstinence sounds like something that would cause a peculiar ache. What the Hell are you talking about? Nevermind.
4 - ScooterBach
Music abstinence is like any kind of fasting: it refreshes and rectifies the appetite. As opposed to constant indulgence which just gives vendors a channel to sell you increasingly fatter, saltier, fatter Bigger Macs.
5 - Mark Saleski
great article ray. funny, i got home last night, read this post, and then picked up the boston globe. in the arts section was an article about how cbs is resurrecting cbs records using a different model involving digital music and placement in television shows. (i linked to the 'printer friendly' version of the article, hoping it'll let you by the globe's (free) registration)
i'm not really sure how i feel about it, but it does show that they're doing something.
6 - Andrew Ian Dodge
Thanks for the kind words and what a great piece of writing mate. My editor was pleased with the write-up as well.
7 - Glen Boyd
Musicoplois huh? That's prety damn clever Ray, and this was also a really great article.
For the most part I agree with the gist of your point as well, in as much as the "music industry" has failed to mount an effective response to the changing technolgy of MP3's, downloads, and the like.
But as much as I applaud the forward march of progress, and agree that "the biz" has failed to recognize the writing on the wall, to me there are problems with this whole concept of the instant access offered via "music by computer".
The most obvious problem being one which you more or less acknowledge as being imminent, and I would suggest is already here. The instant access of music downloads has already moved music as an artform backwards towards a single, rather than an album driven commodity. Note I intentionally use the word "commodity". That meaning that instant access commoditizes the idea of music being an artform.
In other words, when you have people cherry picking individual songs in lieu of purchasing the complete work of art one has to assume the original artists intended, the work itself becomes somewhat lessened.
And while I wholeheartedly agree that many full length albums these days yield less than half a work containing actual memorable songs, consider this. When the delivery system of choice is a speaker sized no larger than your thumbnail in many cases, what is the artists motivation to create work as timeless, lasting, and artisticaly bold as something like "Sgt. Pepper" or even a single like "Good Vibrations" or "Born To Run"?
To my mind at least, the current delivery systems are moving music backwards as art, even as they move it forwards as an instantly accessible commercial commodity.
And having worked briefly as a "content editor" for a digital music provider, I can tell you that the mind-set of these folks has nothing at all to do with the music itself.
To them, it is just "content" when all is said and done. You might as well be talking about coffee pots.
-Glen
8 - Andrew Ian Dodge
Thought you lot might like a link to the piece I wrote. You can get it as a free download PDF.
Creative Destruction in the Music Business: a pamphlet for the Economic Resource Council
9 - Ray Ellis
Sorry I'm late for the party--I was otherwise engaged. Seriously, thanks for all the comments.
Even I would quibble with some of the smaller points, DJ--space limitations prevented me from fully exploring some of the issues raised in the post. I see it more as a springboard for discourse, and I think all of who you have commented here have borne that premise to fruition.
I think I sort of understand your "music fasting" premise, Scooter in an absense makes the heart grow fonder kind of way, but, personally, I'm not that Zen when it comes to music. And, Joe, trust me, in the 27 years since 1980, there has been a tankerload of good music--you just have to seek it out, but that's always been the case. The Internet makes it a bit simpler. We'll talk.
Thanks for the Globe link, Mark. I think the CBS Records biz model is one tiny step in the right direction. If nothing else, it gives the indies exposure they would not have gotten otherwise. I've long maintained that all pop culture is interrelated, and it's nice to see the mediums interract in a mutually beneficial way.
Marty Ian--what can I say? Your original paper pointed out the global ramifications of music business workings. It's now linked to this piece (albeit belatedly) and I suggest everybody read it--better yet, purchase it.
Glen, I do appreciate your point of view-- I really do. And I'm glad my little dog and pony show inspired you to write your own counterpoint article. After all, discourse is what it's all about. That being said, I have to say that pop music has never been an "artform" in and of itself-- it's always been designed as a disposable "commodity". The venerable Billboard charts bear that out. And it's alway been a business driven, with very rare exceptions, by the hit single. In that regard, the Internet serves the same purpose radio did before it was overrun by conglomerates.
I don't miss my 3500-plus collection of vinyl albums, any more than I miss my Cerwin Vega modified PA's or my TEAC reel to reel.I don't subscribe to the notion that vinyl has a warmer sound than CD's--it wouldn't matter if I did. The fact is that CDs trumped vinyl and cassettes.
.
Is digital delivery a threat to the music business? Absolutely not. People who want hard copies will still be able to get them, and those who don't have a viable option also.
If anything, this could be a rennaisance for music. Or it could be a death wail of a dinosaur.
You pays your money and you takes your chances.
10 - J.C.FARRELL
To All, It's 5:15 in the morning here in Southern California and I've been reading the comments above all night. I think I'm on my 17th. Google page
reading "Music Business".
This is the first time that I've voiced my opinion on
the current state of affairs in the music business/industry but first a little background.
I'm 54 and a "refugee from a garage band". For those of you who don't know what that is, we really did play
in garages and learned how to play our instruments. I
played a rock festival when I was a kid, other large
concerts, and did a single for years in Orange County.
The BUSINESS MODEL. The current buzz at present is of
course the internet and the trumoil in the "buz". After reading dozens of pages, comments, articles, and listening to interviews, it is clear that the "Studio
System" is dead. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, let me explain.
In the early days of Hollywood, the 20's,30's,40's and
into the 50's, major studios like MGM, RKO, United Artist and Paramount, controlled everything. They put
talent(actors, writers, directors) trades(set designers, carpenters) everyone under contract. From
beginning to end they ruled with an iron fist. With
the advent of television in the mid 1950s, their control of visual entertainment(movie theaters) began
to slip. By the end of that decade the system was dead. The major studios from there on in became shooting lots, pre and post production, and distrubution arms. Movies and their major players(actors, directors,etc...) became per-project
adventures. Does this sound vaguely familiar? TV
didn't kill the movie star as much as video killed the radio star.
Today the major labels that are owned by their corporate parent companies, comprise less than 25% of total assets. In other words, they are not the core(main) business of these entities. When they really realize that the "Studio System" is dead, they will merely wander off to count ballbearings or brooms or plastic blow-up dolls. Fine. They were tone deaf
anyway.
A CIVICS LESSON: Now hold on to yourself. Don't react,
get defensive - keep reading and hear me out. Remenber we belong to a civilization and this is only
the first part of the equation.
If you don't like the way that a business owner runs a car dealership or his cars, you don't have the right by mob rule to steal the cool rims and tires. This is nothing more than rationalized thievery. The act of thugs that beat up old ladies for their money because the can.
The second part of the equation is the most important and let me preface it first. This is an issue I have yet to hear from the pro or con side, the RIAA, or the PRO's, artist, no one.
Rome existed for more than a thousand years. Yet daily
life for the average person changed very little.
In the last 300 years, western civilization has lifted
humanity out of the dirt and squalor that it had been
in for tens of thousands of years. Julius Caesar would give up all of his fame and fortune to be where you are now. To look out on a world he could never see and drive that junker you own because it would still go faster than any horse he ever had.
At this very moment while you are reading this, everything around you, that is draped upon you, that
may be within you, has been or is intellectual property. It is the very foundation of the West.
It is our wealth. It is this that seperates us from those in the past.
Thousands over the years have worked in science, technology and the arts. The reward for success has
given us all that we have. Intellectual property rights have enabled us to progress to where we are
now.
Today we are faced with a far more profound question
than "free" music. Regardless of the past business model, are we willing to strip away our wealth?
Whatever you take now, you will miss in the future. "Free" music, TV programs, movies; if you rationalize
that the business model is bad so they deserve to get ripped off or rationalize that someone else will pay,
you are mistaken.
So goes "FREE" music, TV, Movies. At the present rate
and with the present beliefs, we could see the entire
distruction of the entertainment industry within the
next 10 years. Then you can get everything free thats
in the "Can" up to then and that's IT! You can listen and watch, for free, the same stuff for the rest of your life along with the Boob's on YouTube.
J.C.FARRELL