http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/15137581/the_record_industrys_decline/1 The Record Industry's Decline
For the music industry, it was a rare bit of good news: Linkin Park's new album sold 623,000 copies in its first week this May -- the strongest debut of the year. But it wasn't nearly enough. That same month, the band's record company, Warner Music Group, announced that it would lay off 400 people, and its stock price lingered at fifty-eight percent of its peak from last June.
Overall CD sales have plummeted sixteen percent for the year so far -- and that's after seven years of near-constant erosion. In the face of widespread piracy, consumers' growing preference for low-profit-margin digital singles over albums, and other woes, the record business has plunged into a historic decline.
The major labels are struggling to reinvent their business models, even as some wonder whether it's too late. "The record business is over," says music attorney Peter Paterno, who represents Metallica and Dr. Dre. "The labels have wonderful assets -- they just can't make any money off them." One senior music-industry source who requested anonymity went further: "Here we have a business that's dying. There won't be any major labels pretty soon."
In 2000, U.S. consumers bought 785.1 million albums; last year, they bought 588.2 million (a figure that includes both CDs and downloaded albums), according to Nielsen SoundScan. In 2000, the ten top-selling albums in the U.S. sold a combined 60 million copies; in 2006, the top ten sold just 25 million. Digital sales are growing -- fans bought 582 million digital singles last year, up sixty-five percent from 2005, and purchased $600 million worth of ringtones -- but the new revenue sources aren't making up for the shortfall.
More than 5,000 record-company employees have been laid off since 2000. The number of major labels dropped from five to four when Sony Music Entertainment and BMG Entertainment merged in 2004 -- and two of the remaining companies, EMI and Warner, have flirted with their own merger for years. About 2,700 record stores have closed across the country since 2003, according to the research group Almighty Institute of Music Retail. Last year the eighty-nine-store Tower Records chain, which represented 2.5 percent of overall retail sales, went out of business, and Musicland, which operated more than 800 stores under the Sam Goody brand, among others, filed for bankruptcy. Around sixty-five percent of all music sales now take place in big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy, which carry fewer titles than specialty stores and put less effort behind promoting new artists.
Just a few years ago, many industry executives thought their problems could be solved by bigger hits. "There wasn't anything a good hit couldn't fix for these guys," says a source who worked closely with top executives earlier this decade. "They felt like things were bad and getting worse, but I'm not sure they had the bandwidth to figure out how to fix it. Now, very few of those people are still heads of the companies."
More record executives now seem to understand that their problems are structural: The Internet appears to be the most consequential technological shift for the business of selling music since the 1920s, when phonograph records replaced sheet music as the industry's profit center. "We have to collectively understand that times have changed," says Lyor Cohen, CEO of Warner Music Group USA. In June, Warner announced a deal with the Web site Lala.com that will allow consumers to stream much of its catalog for free, in hopes that they will then pay for downloads. It's the latest of recent major-label moves that would have been unthinkable a few years back:
In May, one of the four majors, EMI, began allowing the iTunes Music Store to sell its catalog without the copy protection that labels have insisted upon for years.
When YouTube started showing music videos without permission, all four of the labels made licensing deals instead of suing for copyright violations.
To the dismay of some artists and managers, labels are insisting on deals for many artists in which the companies get a portion of touring, merchandising, product sponsorships and other non-recorded-music sources of income. So who killed the record industry as we knew it? "The record companies have created this situation themselves," says Simon Wright, CEO of Virgin Entertainment Group, which operates Virgin Megastores. While there are factors outside of the labels' control -- from the rise of the Internet to the popularity of video games and DVDs -- many in the industry see the last seven years as a series of botched opportunities. And among the biggest, they say, was the labels' failure to address online piracy at the beginning by making peace with the first file-sharing service, Napster. "They left billions and billions of dollars on the table by suing Napster -- that was the moment that the labels killed themselves," says Jeff Kwatinetz, CEO of management company the Firm. "The record business had an unbelievable opportunity there. They were all using the same service. It was as if everybody was listening to the same radio station. Then Napster shut down, and all those 30 or 40 million people went to other [file-sharing services]."
It all could have been different: Seven years ago, the music industry's top executives gathered for secret talks with Napster CEO Hank Barry. At a July 15th, 2000, meeting, the execs -- including the CEO of Universal's parent company, Edgar Bronfman Jr.; Sony Corp. head Nobuyuki Idei; and Bertelsmann chief Thomas Middelhof -- sat in a hotel in Sun Valley, Idaho, with Barry and told him that they wanted to strike licensing deals with Napster. "Mr. Idei started the meeting," recalls Barry, now a director in the law firm Howard Rice. "He was talking about how Napster was something the customers wanted."
The idea was to let Napster's 38 million users keep downloading for a monthly subscription fee -- roughly $10 -- with revenues split between the service and the labels. But ultimately, despite a public offer of $1 billion from Napster, the companies never reached a settlement. "The record companies needed to jump off a cliff, and they couldn't bring themselves to jump," says Hilary Rosen, who was then CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America. "A lot of people say, 'The labels were dinosaurs and idiots, and what was the matter with them?' But they had retailers telling them, 'You better not sell anything online cheaper than in a store,' and they had artists saying, 'Don't screw up my Wal-Mart sales.' " Adds Jim Guerinot, who manages Nine Inch Nails and Gwen Stefani, "Innovation meant cannibalizing their core business."
Even worse, the record companies waited almost two years after Napster's July 2nd, 2001, shutdown before licensing a user-friendly legal alternative to unauthorized file-sharing services: Apple's iTunes Music Store, which launched in the spring of 2003. Before that, labels started their own subscription services: PressPlay, which initially offered only Sony, Universal and EMI music, and MusicNet, which had only EMI, Warner and BMG music. The services failed. They were expensive, allowed little or no CD burning and didn't work with many MP3 players then on the market. Rosen and others see that 2001-03 period as disastrous for the business. "That's when we lost the users," Rosen says. "Peer-to-peer took hold. That's when we went from music having real value in people's minds to music having no economic value, just emotional value."
In the fall of 2003, the RIAA filed its first copyright-infringement lawsuits against file sharers. They've since sued more than 20,000 music fans. The RIAA maintains that the lawsuits are meant to spread the word that unauthorized downloading can have consequences. "It isn't being done on a punitive basis," says RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol. But file-sharing isn't going away -- there was a 4.4 percent increase in the number of peer-to-peer users in 2006, with about a billion tracks downloaded illegally per month, according to research group BigChampagne.
Despite the industry's woes, people are listening to at least as much music as ever. Consumers have bought more than 100 million iPods since their November 2001 introduction, and the touring business is thriving, earning a record $437 million last year. And according to research organization NPD Group, listenership to recorded music -- whether from CDs, downloads, video games, satellite radio, terrestrial radio, online streams or other sources -- has increased since 2002. The problem the business faces is how to turn that interest into money. "How is it that the people that make the product of music are going bankrupt, while the use of the product is skyrocketing?" asks the Firm's Kwatinetz. "The model is wrong."
Kwatinetz sees other, leaner kinds of companies -- from management firms like his own, which now doubles as a record label, to outsiders such as Starbucks -- stepping in. Paul McCartney recently abandoned his longtime relationship with EMI Records to sign with Starbucks' fledgling Hear Music. Video-game giant Electronic Arts also started a label, exploiting the promotional value of its games, and the newly revived CBS Records will sell music featured in CBS TV shows.
Licensing music to video games, movies, TV shows and online subscription services is becoming an increasing source of revenue."We expect to be a brand licensing organization," says Cohen of Warner, which in May started a new division, Den of Thieves, devoted to producing TV shows and other video content from its music properties. And the record companies are looking to increase their takes in the booming music publishing business, which collects songwriting royalties from radio play and other sources. The performance-rights organization ASCAP reported a record $785 million in revenue in 2006, a five percent increase from 2005. Revenues are up "across the board," according to Martin Bandier, CEO of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which controls the Beatles' publishing. "Music publishing will become a more important part of the business," he says. "If I worked for a record company, I'd be pulling my hair out. The recorded-music business is in total confusion, looking for a way out."
Nearly every corner of the record industry is feeling the pain. "A great American sector has been damaged enormously," says the RIAA's Bainwol, who blames piracy, "from songwriters to backup musicians to people who work at labels. The number of bands signed to labels has been compromised in a pretty severe fashion, roughly a third."
Times are hard for record-company employees. "People feel threatened," says Rosen. "Their friends are getting laid off left and right." Adam Shore, general manager of the then-Atlantic Records-affiliated Vice Records, told Rolling Stone in January that his colleagues are having an "existential crisis." "We have great records, but we're less sure than ever that people are going to buy them," he says. "There's a sense around here of losing faith."
Brian Hiatt and Evan Serpick
Next stop, Hollywood!
― Jeb, Thursday, 21 June 2007 16:21 (3 years ago) Permalink
Very good read. The past seven years or so have been pretty fascinating regarding all this stuff.
― matt2, Thursday, 21 June 2007 17:15 (3 years ago) Permalink
The Internet appears to be the most consequential technological shift for the business of selling music since the 1920s, when phonograph records replaced sheet music as the industry's profit center.
Well, that took a long time. Record sales didn't surpass sheet music sales until the 1950s. And in the early 1930s, the record industry was in just as much a jam as it is in now, maybe even worse.
The RIAA maintains that the lawsuits are meant to spread the word that unauthorized downloading can have consequences. "It isn't being done on a punitive basis," says RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol.
Yeah, and the consequence is...punishment!
Thanx for posting! Fascinating stuff.
― Kevin John Bozelka, Thursday, 21 June 2007 18:23 (3 years ago) Permalink
great article
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 21 June 2007 18:34 (3 years ago) Permalink
Very interesting but as always the labels are masters of misdirection. If nothing else many of the people downloading, file-sharing, etc. are MUSIC LOVERS. Not all download exclusively and to spread one's love of music used to be something record companies valued and promoted. We DO now have about 10 years worth of music listeners who didn't change from CD to digital--they were digital to begin with and that's got to be dealt with. I own a small used/new shop and if digital download of new hit releases happened tomorrow I'd welcome it. I can't make money selling new CDs, especially hits. They're usually available at "America's One-Stop", also known as Target, for two bucks less than I buy them from my wholesaler. I'd really just as soon not carry them. Downloading is a problem but I've always believed the majors's four biggest problems are price, price, price and bootlegging. Go to any flea market in a neighborhood where the locals don't have honkin' computers and DSL connections, see if you can't find any big hit CD, with no generation loss and color-copied artwork for 5 bucks. You can in Atlanta.
― ellaguru, Thursday, 21 June 2007 18:48 (3 years ago) Permalink
I own a small used/new shop and if digital download of new hit releases happened tomorrow I'd welcome it. I can't make money selling new CDs, especially hits.
My favorite local store eventually went this route, concentrating solely on used CDs and new and used vinyl. It wasn't enough for them to keep their head above water in the end but it kept them going for longer than other spots would have done.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 21 June 2007 18:49 (3 years ago) Permalink
Go to any flea market in a neighborhood where the locals don't have honkin' computers and DSL connections, see if you can't find any big hit CD, with no generation loss and color-copied artwork for 5 bucks. You can in Atlanta.
or ride marta & buy from dude carrying a garbage bag full of cd-rs
― and what, Thursday, 21 June 2007 18:51 (3 years ago) Permalink
what you need, man? what you like?? you like that t.i.??
― and what, Thursday, 21 June 2007 18:52 (3 years ago) Permalink
i got t.i., pimp c, tupac, maroon five...
I'm tryin' to do all used but there just aren't that many recent "indie" and hit major label CDs out there yet. Have to have the friggin' White Stripes even though you gotta pay 12 bucks to make 4 on those. Selling good used CDs that 12 bucks should make me at least another 12. I do get people selling me a big box of good ones from time to time but that's a one-time boon--the guy's decided to trust his music to hard drives and so he'll not be shopping here any more. Until maybe the drive crashes, heh.
― ellaguru, Thursday, 21 June 2007 18:59 (3 years ago) Permalink
what record store do you have??
― and what, Thursday, 21 June 2007 19:00 (3 years ago) Permalink
Same as my ILX name. In Toco Hills, if you live in ATL.
― ellaguru, Thursday, 21 June 2007 19:06 (3 years ago) Permalink
sometimes i wonder though...say they had totally done everything different....embraced downloaded, basically done every laundry list of things that everyone on the internet says they should have done different...reduced prices, etc etc etc....sometimes i wonder if things would even be that different....i mean, people like shit for free at the end of the day.
― M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, 21 June 2007 19:11 (3 years ago) Permalink
"We expect to be a brand licensing organization," says Cohen of Warner, which in May started a new division, Den of Thieves
arf
― Frogman Henry, Thursday, 21 June 2007 19:11 (3 years ago) Permalink
xp ppl currently pay subs to filesharing sites and rapidshare.
― Frogman Henry, Thursday, 21 June 2007 19:13 (3 years ago) Permalink
you do? no one i know pays for rapidshare and stuff...it seems like it's free.
― M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, 21 June 2007 19:15 (3 years ago) Permalink
-- and what, Thursday, June 21, 2007 1:51 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
^^^ otm
― Curt1s Stephens, Thursday, 21 June 2007 19:19 (3 years ago) Permalink
I would like 1 YYT CD and 1 bag of Skittles
― Curt1s Stephens, Thursday, 21 June 2007 19:20 (3 years ago) Permalink
Word. But what I'll always wonder is if just one person at Elektra Records had thought about what it really meant to have 300,000 (or whatever it was) working e-mail addresses of Metallica fans (and the hardest of the hard-core ones at that) during the whole Lars/Napster thing. I mean, direct mail is supposed to be successful with a 2% response, something like that. What if they'd have made some choice Metallica goodies available to those people in exchange for considerations regarding future "pirating", something like that. You'd have had a hell of a bigger success rate than 2%, for sure. You know, build a little customer loyalty, a little give and take.
But they sued 'em.
― ellaguru, Thursday, 21 June 2007 19:32 (3 years ago) Permalink
yeah i mean i don't doubt this could have been handled better. and that, if they would have done a lot of things differently they would probably be better off for it. but, somehow, i'm not sure if i buy the whole "people LOVE music and would pay for it if you would have done X, X, and X"....i don't even think it's the music nerds that download tons of shit that really hurts anyway...it's more casual fans that used to buy like 4-5 CDs a year that now have really zero invested in caring about music that are more than fine with just getting burns or DLs of stuff....
― M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, 21 June 2007 19:39 (3 years ago) Permalink
I think Matt's right on the money. It's the millions of 5-10 CD a year people buying nothing that are crippling the industry more than the hardcore music nerds who buy half/download half the music they hear.
― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Thursday, 21 June 2007 19:49 (3 years ago) Permalink
Agree that the casual downloader isn't often more than a Top 40 fan, listens to tracks, not albums, yada yada. But the majors have bet a lot of their chips on the idea that the superstar releases have to float the whole operation and incredibly when the new Kelly Clarkson sells 4 million instead of 10 the shit starts flowing downhill. And if the label frontloads the marketing of these records, all the budget blown to get that couple of weeks at the top of the Billboard chart (just like the movie business), then stops working the record after one or maybe two singles then Kelly C.'s artistic output has been devalued in the eyes of the music listener to, well, the price of one CD-R. It's not a new problem: I mean, not many of us bought the whole 1910 Fruitgum Company LP, we bought the single we couldn't get out of our heads, or radios.
Oh, wait. The labels say releasing CD singles cannibalizes CD sales. No singles. Idiots. There's a transactional cost to downloading (time, 'puter, DSL, CD-Rs): how many copies of, say, "Hey Ya" b/w "The Way You Move" as a $.99 single could they have sold to people who never intended to buy the CD but ripped and burned those tunes? I guarantee they'd have sold millions and not have lost 10% of that in CD sales. There it is! On the counter at Target or friggin' QuikTrip, for God's sake! 99 cents, the cost of a candy bar. Idiots.
― ellaguru, Thursday, 21 June 2007 19:55 (3 years ago) Permalink
music fans have preferred singles to albums from the dawn of time. a fact that record industry has hated from the dawn of time. one day, perhaps, the industry will discover that delivering the exact products its customers want will be a pretty nice way to make a profit.
― fact checking cuz, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:02 (3 years ago) Permalink
I dunno, you think people buying 4 or 5 CDs a year are downloading them illegally? Why go to all that trouble just for a few songs? Downloading from iTunes, perhaps. But I always pictured that crowd as being a bit older, and now they're buying those 4 or 5 from Starbucks or Target.
― Mark Rich@rdson, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:23 (3 years ago) Permalink
I'm just bummed that its been pretty firmly established now that the majority of music listeners prefer music in short, convenient bursts without any context or artwork or packaging or anything. Watching Ice Cube rhapsodize about how the comic books that came w/Funkadelic albums drew him in ("cuz now you had something else to do besides listen to the record"), I was struck by how a medium I really love and get a lot of enjoyment out of is basically being forced into extinction.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:42 (3 years ago) Permalink
<i>I dunno, you think people buying 4 or 5 CDs a year are downloading them illegally? Why go to all that trouble just for a few songs?</i>
i work with a lot of people as i described, all about mid to late 20s. they are very casual music fans, listen to their ipod but music isn't a huge deal to them - never go to concerts, etc etc....as far as i can tell they get 100 percent of their music through discs burned to them from friends - not downloading actually but same diff....one even said once "i mean, there's just no reason to buy anything now" - they all have ipods and know about itunes, but why buy stuff when it's free?
― M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:44 (3 years ago) Permalink
I know several people like that too.
― Scik Mouthy, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:44 (3 years ago) Permalink
the thing is - they don't go to the trouble of downloading for a few songs...they just hear something at a friends house and say 'hey burn that for me' and then that's it....they're not into searching out stuff...whatever comes to them that they like they listen to, but it's not a big deal either way. and they used to buy stuff too...they all have those black cd booklets and all the purchased CDs are from the mid/late 90s/early part of the 00s - then all burns.
― M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:45 (3 years ago) Permalink
M@tt OTM - that is pretty much everyone I know right now, barring my fellow musicians/record collector friends
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:45 (3 years ago) Permalink
its kinda the equivalent of trading taped copies like my friends and I used to in high school - except WAY faster and ridiculously more convenient.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:46 (3 years ago) Permalink
also, i guarantee that none of these people have ever bought a single - CD, vinyl, itunes, or otherwise - in their entire lives. i really doubt they ever would.
― M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:51 (3 years ago) Permalink
I know I've written about it loads but I really think the WAY people listen has affected how much music people buy; music for most people is just something to have on while you do something else, be it travel, cook, talk, take drugs, etcetera. Now I'm sure this has always been the case for an awful lot of people, but I think for people under, say, 30 now, it's even more of a peripheral to even more people than ever before. We're too busy, too fast, doing too much, to view music as an important thing worth spending money on in its own right. It's kinda the same with alcohol, perhaps; for everyone I know who really enjoys a good glass of wine or pint of ale, there are ten times that number of people chucking pink sweet booze bombs down their gullets as fast as they can, the point of the exercise being not enjoying drinking but the extreme release of being very, very drunk.
― Scik Mouthy, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:51 (3 years ago) Permalink
Now I'm sure this has always been the case for an awful lot of people, but I think for people under, say, 30 now, it's even more of a peripheral to even more people than ever before.
I am curious about this and wonder if its true - its ubiquity does seem to have decreased the value invested in it. I work with younger folks and have friends with teenaged children and none of 'em seem to invest the emotional intensity I used to associate with young music listeners... or maybe they do and I'm oblivious to it (entirely possible).
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:54 (3 years ago) Permalink
The kids (18-22) I work with at uni all dress like they're in emo bands but never show any interest in the 6,000 LPs and 2,000 CDs in my office. Except the one intense dude who doens't dress like he's in an emo band.
― Scik Mouthy, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:55 (3 years ago) Permalink
xpost OK, that makes sense, the 5-6 CD consumer.
― Mark Rich@rdson, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:56 (3 years ago) Permalink
Except the one intense dude who doens't dress like he's in an emo band.
SOULMATES
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:58 (3 years ago) Permalink
it's not just the casual fans anymore -- this is the first year my record spending took a small hit. it's two things -- the stock at certain local stores are going stale in my favorite sections, experimental / classical / electronic / world. perhaps the result of the flood of people selling off their entire CD collections is that stores can only afford to take the sure-fire CDs, and are passing on the overstock obscurities that lure in fanatics -- in any case, I'm just not finding cool stuff by browsing. and the second thing -- I never got into ptp or torrents, but now that album blogs have hit google, my iPod is filling up with albums I've been searching out for years that I've never even had the option to buy -- there's no competing with that.
but it's upsetting, because without major labels we're really going into the hall of mirrors -- the most pernicious words on ILM are 'overrated' and 'underrated' and they're increasingly applied to records that either almost no one has heard of or that are revered & treasured by tens of thousands respectively, but we're all just in our caves watching the shadows and griping about what we think the rest of the world is listening to
― Milton Parker, Thursday, 21 June 2007 20:59 (3 years ago) Permalink
I will say that as a musician this situation makes me not want to bother investing a lot of time and energy in making a physical product available to the public - making limited amounts of things I enjoy seems vastly preferable, and if people find it somehow or wanna hear it hey great, but why should I bother trying to reach them.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 21 June 2007 21:06 (3 years ago) Permalink
seriously
never been more schitzoid as a musician / music listener. serious fucking trauma is involved with realizing a physical edition, so many compromises, and no one even cares anymore, yet it's still a required step, you feel devalued by your audience. on the other hand as a listener I'm overflowing with more affection & gratitude for the music I'm getting into than ever before. at times, it even feels like more of a direct connection, especially when you're suddenly in a position to encounter things like this
― Milton Parker, Thursday, 21 June 2007 21:13 (3 years ago) Permalink
The small outfits like Time-Lag and Foxy Digitalis emphasize the physical release, but then again, they are small outfits and geared towards this approach.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 21 June 2007 21:19 (3 years ago) Permalink
The kids (18-22) I work with at uni all dress like they're in emo bands but never show any interest in the 6,000 LPs and 2,000 CDs in my office.
Why do you keep them in your office?
On the main point - I'm 46 and have thousands of Lps and a few hundred CDs and I still spend a fortune on records; though I haven't bought a new CD in a year - I also DL stuff, more than I get a chance to listen to. My daughter - just 18 - never buys any music but she's not 5-6 CD a year girl either; she 'has' lots of tunes and knows a fair bit, but neither she or any of her friends - even the nerdiest of boys -have the collector gene; music and its material instance have become entirely separated
― sonofstan, Thursday, 21 June 2007 21:20 (3 years ago) Permalink
I run a library film & music department at a university.
― Scik Mouthy, Thursday, 21 June 2007 21:22 (3 years ago) Permalink
it's not just the casual fans anymore -- this is the first year my record spending took a small hit. it's two things -- the stock at certain local stores are going stale in my favorite sections, experimental / classical / electronic / world.
Me too, that and because the local shops are all closing and I don't feel like CD-shopping online because I know I'll end up buying a big parcel full of stuff and I already have too many CDs and can't shift the ones I never listen to any more. (OK, I had a kickstart in this respect because I was unemployed starting last autumn and cut back on the spending and haven't really felt the need to get back into it yet.)
Though looking at my cd racks you could be forgiven for thinking I was one of those stopped-buying-in-2001 types, because for all that I kept buying a lot of stuff, most of it was used and old.
― a passing spacecadet, Thursday, 21 June 2007 21:24 (3 years ago) Permalink
It's worth remembering that the type of music which is downloaded illegally pretty much echoes what is on the charts, so you can still ascertain with some accuracy what the masses are into by browsing them. I think Scik Mouthy's drinking analogy is good: this is part of a general societal trend, and not something which is unique to the music industry.
― Jeb, Thursday, 21 June 2007 21:29 (3 years ago) Permalink
If I remember correctly, about 5 million people bought the Justin Timberlake album. Well, I would guess that about 50 million people have it -- or parts of it (like I do) -- on their computer.
― Jeb, Thursday, 21 June 2007 21:32 (3 years ago) Permalink
Thanks - I was thinking jealously that you must have such a huge collection that you had to keep some of it in work.
Was thinking this last weekend, as the Arctic Monkeys sold out two open air shows here in Dublin, that they are probably 'bigger' in terms of being heard and seen than - say - Bowie ever was, but with a tenth of the cultural weight, something which seems linked, in a way i can't quite figure out, with the fact that 'everybody' is into music now - when i was at school, being into music was a distinction; now its like television - another thing people resent paying for
― sonofstan, Thursday, 21 June 2007 21:37 (3 years ago) Permalink
or as Bowie said with some foresight "music will be like water, it will come out of a tap" (or something)
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 21 June 2007 21:42 (3 years ago) Permalink
no way bowie coined that one.
and no way arctic monkeys are any kind of equivalent of bowie as a musical or cultural or generational force. there are other musicians working today you could make the case for. arctic monkeys are not among them.
― fact checking cuz, Thursday, 21 June 2007 21:45 (3 years ago) Permalink
David Bowie, June 2002 New York Times article:
"The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within ten years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it's not going to happen. I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in ten years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing. Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. [...] So it's like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left. It's terribly exciting. But on the other hand it doesn't matter if you think it's exciting or not; it's what's going to happen..."
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 21 June 2007 21:51 (3 years ago) Permalink
Matt H. completely OTM.
We can all rattle off our favorite anecdotes and statistics and factoids about what the record industry did wrong and how they "brought this on themselves," and yeah, they fucked up in a lot of ways. And that makes us all feel a lot better.
But ultimately there was no way the labels could stop this, and they'd be hemorrhaging profits by now no matter what.
I mean $10 a month at 35 million subscribers sounds great - until you realize that a lot of them are going to wind up flocking to the other free platforms once you start charging, not to mention burning, downloading from blogs, etc.
I do, however, see a potential bright side, especially for smaller labels. The upside of downloading is that it's going to put the same music in a lot more peoples' hands - the way to take advantage of that is for the label to have more of a stake in the artists' touring (which makes sense on other levels anyway), since the promotional efficacy of downloading can help ticket sales. So I think hybrid labels that are also somehow involved with booking are the way forward.
― Hurting 2, Thursday, 21 June 2007 21:56 (3 years ago) Permalink
How are the proceeds from the Canadian blank media tax distributed?
― Mark Rich@rdson, Wednesday, 27 June 2007 20:07 (3 years ago) Permalink
Dished out to Canadian Artists/publishers etc based on sales if memory serves.
― everything, Wednesday, 27 June 2007 20:07 (3 years ago) Permalink
one question that hasn't really come up in this thread is...okay, so things have changed and the genie's never going back in the bottle...major labels and lots of indie labels are likely fucked in the long term, CDs we hardly knew ye, etc etc...
I'm wondering how people think this new environment effects the thing that likely everyone cares about on ILM - the creation of good music
do you think this new environment in more or less conducive to people creating/wanting to create great music, as compared to 10 years ago...or even, say, back in the 40s,50s,60s...
on the pro side:
1) musicians i guess will be more and more "free agents", figuring out how to reach their audience and getting them interested in the music and buying t-shirts or CDs or vinyl or ringtones, etc etc...This definitely is going to mean a lot less people are bound to A&R, and bad deals, and the old "We don't here a single" thing - Which is good for a lot of artists and being able to create - not all that different from, say, Fugazi and Dischord in a way, but in a "post material music" sort of way...
2) Obv. digital distribution (as well as really cheap and increasingly good home digital recording) makes it a lot cheaper to make music...more people have more access to making and distributing music over the net..hopefully, more people = more good ideas, more good music...
CONS:
1) more people making more music=more shit...harder and harder to sift thru it for the audience, esp. after the labels all die and you can't even hitch your boat to a label aesthetic
2) DIY is great and all, but at least one thing that the old bloated label situation did provide the really great (and frequently sort of addled, crazy, lazy, - but extremely talented artists) was sort of shielding them from the day-to-day realities of life - people pick you up in a limo, take you to the studio, fetch you things...which yeah they are pampered assholes but they were/are still allowed to concentrate on nothing but the music....thinking about examples like Brian Wilson or Ol' Dirty Bastard...I mean, shit neither one of those guys was going to exactly come up on their own self-releasing stuff and organizing stuff, right?
3) A lot of people I've seen make comments (esp. on more punkish boards I go to) that say things like "Who cares if people don't make money at music"...and there's great examples of pre-20th Century models for you know traveling bards or people that just created music for their little communities...obv. nothing wrong with that - I play in a band and devote a considerable amount of my time to a band that has never and will never even break even....That said, the idea or rock (or rap or country) stardom as a "way out" has been a powerful motivator for a lot of great artist...esp. in hip hop obv. I mean, do you think Jay-Z would have been a rapper if there was no promise of industry-funded stardom - like you know if you hustle really hard on myspace you might be able to be self-sufficient doing small club tours and selling cool t-shirts?? Same with, I don't know, a million examples...
anyway...sometimes I worry that - with all the good that's come of the internet music boom - that as music become devalued monetarily, it will inevitably devalued artistically....obv. in the US money is how we show what's important....if it's not worth anything dollarwise, won't it suffer on some end?
― M@tt He1ges0n, Wednesday, 27 June 2007 23:34 (3 years ago) Permalink
Well, trying to get yourself noticed solely via downloads isn't that much different from pressing up a small run of records and trying to sell them (apart from the lower overheads). It's all about promotion, and the big labels tend to outsource the promotion anyway don't they? As has been discussed already, it may mean that management companies will take over the financing role from labels (if they haven't already, I dunno).
― Matt #2, Wednesday, 27 June 2007 23:41 (3 years ago) Permalink
Seems like there will always be Jay-Zs. People love stars and celebrity pays even if record sales aren't the main source of income.
― Mark Rich@rdson, Wednesday, 27 June 2007 23:52 (3 years ago) Permalink
wait really? I think the point about the time it takes, about the necessarily higher level of involvement, is a decent one - sort of a manual-transmission-vs.-automatic-transmission divide
-- J0hn D., Tuesday, June 26, 2007 6:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link
haha but digital music is much more "manual" - at least in the sense that's being talked about here, as single downloadable tracks - you "shift gears" more often that way, while albums shift their own gears - "haha" because you'd think ye olde rockists would be in favor - morally, somehow - of both stickshifts and and physical albums
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 28 June 2007 00:20 (3 years ago) Permalink
note awesomely useful rockist strawman err
ii. very little of this thread has anything to do with dance music, which has built an economy for itself that doesn't depend on major labels or albums, and it's been developing this economy for decades.
iii. this is the third time i've read that interview with peter jenner - sorry for missing out an "A:" or two in my pasting of it by the way - and i don't understand a good third of what he's talking about! i can't tell if it's because he's been edited strangely or what.
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 28 June 2007 00:27 (3 years ago) Permalink
the dance music economy is fucked in the US. The dance market is probably the most turbulent market outside of hiphop. Every time it almost stabilizes the scene dies out and something new and fly by night arises in its wake.
Europe and Germany in particular are the only markets where dance music has been allowed to stabilize and build. They have had record production, manufacturing, distribution, touring, corporate sponsorship and promotion locked into a stable business model since at least 94-5. Japan also is a close second, but the small size of the market doesn't provide as many touring opportunities. The Japanese are fanatic record collectors and it is easier to get Detroit techno records in Tokyo than it is in Detroit.
The thing that fucked up dance music in the US is that the major labels threw their weight into rap and the liquor companies only sponsor rock and hip hop. Scion will sponsor all kinds of bullshit hip hop and disco punk in Austin, but they have never once supported underground electronic dance music. If the big companies would throw as little as 25k a month into underground dance events it would revolutionize the US scene. As it is, it just isn't economically viable to do multiple region tours in the US as a dance artist. You could do a lot with a few grand on a DIY scale if you just had a small subsidy.
If you think you are going to make any money as a recording artist in dance music, think again. Those days are over. Even the stars are only a little more than hobby musicians. The money is in touring.
― Display Name, Thursday, 28 June 2007 01:13 (3 years ago) Permalink
We need to come up with a replacement term for "discography."
Which again, points to the editing/filter problem.
Also, I can't think of the last time I heard of something discussion-provoking in Rolling Stone. About music at least. Even though most of this information has been out there, there's something oddly authoritative about this article.
― bendy, Thursday, 28 June 2007 01:56 (3 years ago) Permalink
Someone from "Illumina Records" made me some sort of offer the other day on MySpace. It's funny, they might even be some semi-big label, I don't know, but I didn't bother to read the whole offer. It might've been a great opportunity for somebody or some band, but I have zero interest. Being a public buffoon for a dying industry is in no way appealing to me. I make music for fun, not to prance around on stage and con dollars out of people.
If you're looking for evidence of music's devaluation, there it is.
There's a lot of great stuff out there already, much of it free (tons of free classical music online). I haven't heard many records worth keeping for the past 20-something years. I have hundreds I have kept, but I"m pretty sure I've only kept them because I like the packaging.
I think the avid music-geekiness of the past that people above are claiming seems to be missing from the iPod youth of today was sort of a self-induced, self-perpetuated fantasy of ours. We know it's all one big illusion, but pretending makes life more interesting, I guess. But, I think the fantasy was perpetuated by self-doubt and self-loathing and leads to a sort of music dependency, so I'm absolutely fine with the idea that kids currently growing up don't seem to identify with music nearly as much as we did.
Remember how musicians used to admit that they just picked up a guitar because they wanted to get laid? And the ugliest wimp could look sexy as long as he's up on a stage and straps a guitar? Creepy-looking ugly junkies became a "hot look." The Rolling Stones were always ugly and creepy. Wasn't Malcolm McLaren's whole vision based on the fact that people wanted a look they could buy into in order to fit in? That's some sad shit. Maybe it seems like some basic human need, but I have a feeling it is only a basic need in a society that is fucked up and dishonest (and, yes, maybe all societies are fucked up and dishonest).
Maybe this is all a good thing. Maybe more people will go back to making music that is actually good rather than empty posturing and envelope-pushing for the sake of it or because it's expected. There will always be Jay-Z's, as someone said above... but why??? "Jay-Z's back. Expect everything." Oh boy, does this mean I can look forward to Jay-Z enriching my life in every way possible? Or maybe he's just another cocky dickhead pretending he is the sun and the moon.
And I kind of like Jay-Z, too. I kind of like a lot of these dickheads who've made all this dickhead music piled up all around my house, but the older I get I realize it's mostly just dumb shit with a beat. Most of it isn't worth much of anything, to me, anyway. If classical masterpieces are given away for free, what is the value of a few chords or beats and some mostly jerky lyrical ideas?
Given the option, it seems most people agree with me. They'd rather get it absolutely free or pay hardly anything as eMusic's success proves. The more I download, the more I realize how impersonal, in a way, music should be. It's just about whether you like a song or not. If the artist is able to speak to you solely through the song, it's a keeper. And you no longer have to keep a whole album just because you like a couple songs. And kids don't have to risk their allowance on some crapshoot and then force themselves to like a disappointing album they spent all their money on to make themselves feel better, as I'm sure we all did at one time. And people don't have the same likelihood of getting unhealthily attached to 4 dudes in a band who'll be in rehab in a few years.
But, don't get me wrong! I LOVE music!
― dean ge, Thursday, 28 June 2007 13:45 (3 years ago) Permalink
And kids don't have to risk their allowance on some crapshoot and then force themselves to like a disappointing album they spent all their money on to make themselves feel better, as I'm sure we all did at one time.
I would never have gotten into Joy Division or Low by David Bowie if I had not been one of those kids...
― Display Name, Thursday, 28 June 2007 14:16 (3 years ago) Permalink
That's true. There is definitely something about iPods vs. patience / absorbing subtlety , both of which are good qualities.
― dean ge, Thursday, 28 June 2007 14:22 (3 years ago) Permalink
I haven't heard many records worth keeping for the past 20-something years. I have hundreds I have kept, but I"m pretty sure I've only kept them because I like the packaging...But, don't get me wrong! I LOVE music!
You sure about that?
― Fastnbulbous, Thursday, 28 June 2007 15:24 (3 years ago) Permalink
Not really.
― dean ge, Thursday, 28 June 2007 15:48 (3 years ago) Permalink
-- Tracer Hand, Thursday, 28 June 2007 00:20 (16 hours ago) Bookmark Link
I think what Jenner is getting at is that the process of picking a CD or a vinyl album, taking it out of it's case/sleeve, putting it on the deck/player is a process which by it's nature is more time consuming. It makes the choice more important, rather than just scrolling through a playlist or even just putting it on random play.
― Billy Dods, Thursday, 28 June 2007 17:21 (3 years ago) Permalink
we spend more time selecting music now. but once the selection is made, there's no further effort required (but this has been the case since CD's superceded tapes tho I guess). it's that amount of time spent searching for, obtaining, selecting and EDITING (tags etc. - I spend time making sure I have the correct year of first release for ALL my mp3s - it's sick and unnatural) that's really grown altho all that effort is not physical like it once was (travelling to stores, literally sifting through records etc.).
― blueski, Thursday, 28 June 2007 17:44 (3 years ago) Permalink
Prince to distribute new album via Sunday Newspaper
This reminds me of ten years ago, seeing the World Book Encyclopedia given away on CD-ROM, stuck to a block of American Cheese slices.
― bendy, Friday, 29 June 2007 16:18 (3 years ago) Permalink
But this post kind of makes you sound like a buffoon. No legit label would make you an "offer" over myspace.
― Hurting 2, Friday, 29 June 2007 16:32 (3 years ago) Permalink
you'd be surprised
― sexyDancer, Friday, 29 June 2007 16:39 (3 years ago) Permalink
I spend time making sure I have the correct year of first release for ALL my mp3s
I keep my tags immaculate - but not the year or genre, the only other two which might be somewhat useful. I started to go back and do this but the thought of having to check 20,000+ tags quickly made me bail. Some programs like Musicbrainz or something needs to be able to automatically do this for you on a selective basis (i.e. only update the year, leave the rest alone).
― Mr. Odd, Friday, 29 June 2007 18:17 (3 years ago) Permalink
musicmatch 7-8 made it so easy, you could pick only certain fields to update, forgot which server they used(i'm on vista with no musicmatch support, too lazy to figure out the dual boot but I want to load XP just to use musicmatch). You can do it in mediamonkey too but maybe just with the Amazon.com server which is rather poor. I hate having to use separate tagging progs just to do simple stuff and most of them are shit anyway.
― tremendoid, Friday, 29 June 2007 18:28 (3 years ago) Permalink
Try not to read too much into such a vague sentence. I think if a legit label really liked your music and had no idea of how to contact you, they would definitely contact you through MySpace. That doesn't mean I thought it was a great offer from a great company. It just means I didn't care what the offer was or who they were enough to even finish reading the proposal. If it was from Warner Bros. it would've been the same reaction.
But, here's their site. Looks like I missed an awesome opportunity. Not. http://www.illuminarecords.com/
― dean ge, Friday, 29 June 2007 20:31 (3 years ago) Permalink
No, unironically negating a statement using a single sentence "Not." in 2007 makes you look like a buffoon.
― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Friday, 29 June 2007 20:34 (3 years ago) Permalink
That sentence makes you look like a buffoon.
― dean ge, Friday, 29 June 2007 20:35 (3 years ago) Permalink
― M@tt He1ges0n, Friday, 29 June 2007 20:35 (3 years ago) Permalink
xpost
SYKE SYKE SUPER SYKE!! is the preferred 2007 nomenclature.
― The Macallan 18 Year, Friday, 29 June 2007 20:36 (3 years ago) Permalink
Scott Ian looks like a buffoon.
― dean ge, Friday, 29 June 2007 20:36 (3 years ago) Permalink
i'll let that pass, but i swear to god if you talk shit about charlie benate i will kill you.
― M@tt He1ges0n, Friday, 29 June 2007 20:38 (3 years ago) Permalink
Chuck does not have an egyptian beard dyed bright red and a pentagram tattoo.
― dean ge, Friday, 29 June 2007 20:39 (3 years ago) Permalink
Some interesting information here (with graphs!):
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005348&src=article2_newsltr
As a music fan, I think it is quite exciting that there are more music consumers than ever. The fact that the current state of music buying means that they are spending less per capita seems like a reasonable refinement that wasn't necessarily possible under the previously imposed model of The Industry.
― matt2, Thursday, 13 September 2007 16:33 (2 years ago) Permalink
I've bought more albums this year than any year I can remember, in addition to still sucking on that promo teat. In the last two months, I've filled out a lot of the things that I'd downloaded, but I've only been able to do this by a) buying things that I've already heard, and b) buying 'em used. I've found a spot where I can fill out my Kid Creole collection for a buck a piece, which makes me more willing to try new things. But these are albums, not downloads, and artists/labels/etc. aren't seening a dime off of these purchases.
― I eat cannibals, Thursday, 13 September 2007 17:24 (2 years ago) Permalink
http://www.futureofmusic.org/events/summit07/index.cfm
one of the panels
The New Deal: major label contracts revisited
Now that the majors are experiencing a dramatic shift in their business models, what do contracts look like? What clauses have been phased out and what is now standard? What are major labels asking from artists and what are they offering in return?
Bryan Calhoun Owner and Founder, Label Management Systems
Wayne Halper Attorney, Law Office of Wayne Halper
John P. Kellogg, Esq. Assistant Chair Music Business/Management, Berklee College of Music
Marcy Rauer Wagman CEO, MAD Dragon UNLTD, Drexel University
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 15 September 2007 02:18 (2 years ago) Permalink
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7974727.stm
― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Tuesday, 31 March 2009 18:23 (1 year ago) Permalink
― Adam Bruneau, Tuesday, 31 March 2009 19:12 (1 year ago) Permalink
Didn't Vvm Test Records finish off the music industry?
― djh, Tuesday, 31 March 2009 20:20 (1 year ago) Permalink
Aborigines, lowest in the scale of savagery on earth imo
― Whitney Hoosteen (The Reverend), Tuesday, 31 March 2009 20:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
Mike Batt, songwriter and owner of the Dramatico record label, which has signed Katie Melua and Marianne Faithfull, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he supported the industry stance."I run a small record label and I'm an artist, so I can speak for both," he said. "If a record company invests hundreds of thousands of pounds in selling my records, doesn't it earn a right to stand alongside me in the sharing of income?"Bragg responded that Batt's argument "defending the right of record companies to enjoy a further 45 years of income made my blood boil".
"I run a small record label and I'm an artist, so I can speak for both," he said. "If a record company invests hundreds of thousands of pounds in selling my records, doesn't it earn a right to stand alongside me in the sharing of income?"
Bragg responded that Batt's argument "defending the right of record companies to enjoy a further 45 years of income made my blood boil".
Batt makes a helluva lot more money through his record label than his 70s hits.
― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Tuesday, 31 March 2009 20:34 (1 year ago) Permalink
I'm excited about this small label! Who's this Marianne Faithfull girl does she have a myspace?
― Adam Bruneau, Tuesday, 31 March 2009 23:10 (1 year ago) Permalink
If aborigines are lowest in the scale of savagery, doesn't that make them less savage than everyone else? No matter - just show me where I can get one of these sharkskin drums.
― moley, Wednesday, 1 April 2009 02:37 (1 year ago) Permalink
BOSTON (AP) -- A Boston University student has been ordered to pay $675,000 to four record labels for illegally downloading and sharing music.
Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., admitted he downloaded and distributed 30 songs. The only issue for the jury to decide was how much in damages to award the record labels.
Under federal law, the recording companies were entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement. But the law allows as much as $150,000 per track if the jury finds the infringements were willful. The maximum jurors could have awarded in Tenenbaum's case was $4.5 million.
The case is only the nation's second music downloading case against an individual to go to trial.
Last month, a federal jury in Minneapolis ruled a Minnesota woman must pay nearly $2 million for copyright infringement.
― ARAGORN SON OF ARATHORN (Z S), Friday, 31 July 2009 23:06 (1 year ago) Permalink
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/31/business/AP-US-TEC-MusicDownload.html
― ARAGORN SON OF ARATHORN (Z S), Friday, 31 July 2009 23:07 (1 year ago) Permalink
should we start guessing what those 30 songs were
― girlish in the worst sense of that term (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 31 July 2009 23:08 (1 year ago) Permalink
$675,000 for 30 songs is $22,500 per song. I just figured out how to eliminate the deficit. If the record industry successfully sues everyone for the amount of illegal downloading over the past decade, that will add up to roughly....419 trillion dollars. If they can just donate 1% of that to the federal government we should be sitting pretty.
― ARAGORN SON OF ARATHORN (Z S), Friday, 31 July 2009 23:21 (1 year ago) Permalink
"But the law allows as much as $150,000 per track if the jury finds the infringements were willful."
How could they not be willful?
― He was only 21 years old when he 16 (Alex in SF), Friday, 31 July 2009 23:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
"Oh I just accidently download these 30 tracks. Sorry guys. Shit I owe you what!??!"
― He was only 21 years old when he 16 (Alex in SF), Friday, 31 July 2009 23:26 (1 year ago) Permalink
"I thought it was free porn!"
― girlish in the worst sense of that term (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 31 July 2009 23:30 (1 year ago) Permalink
when it comes to major label shit i really should just buy used from now on
― omar little, Friday, 31 July 2009 23:35 (1 year ago) Permalink
If each of the roughly 1 billion songs that are illegally downloaded each month carried the same $22,500 penalty, $270 trillion would be collected each year. Global GDP is around $69 trillion.
Did anyone throw that back of the envelope stat at the jury before they decided on a penalty?
― ARAGORN SON OF ARATHORN (Z S), Friday, 31 July 2009 23:39 (1 year ago) Permalink
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86724/uk-music-economist-says-music-industry-revenue-up-4-7/
Has the list of songs been made public or is that wishful thinking? Cos if I was one of the artists that recorded one of these 30 songs I would be expecting a good chunk of that 22k....
― Adam Bruneau, Saturday, 1 August 2009 04:31 (1 year ago) Permalink