The future of the Music industry

This isn't a forum for specifically talking about production or posting your own music, but it is a place to talk about the music you are listening to.

Re: The future of the Music industry

Postby Applejinx » 18 Dec 2012 16:19

Also already exists in EDM- called 'sirens' and detroit techno :D
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Re: The future of the Music industry

Postby ph00tbag » 18 Dec 2012 21:47

I'm probably not going to be met with very positive reactions for saying this, but it could very well be something a lot of musicians and recording artists need to hear. What the explosive growth of music piracy has shown is not that people are inherently willing to steal music. What it has shown, instead, is that the value of a music recording is worth little more than the cost of uploading it, if not less. That is to say it's not worth much at all. Whining and complaining and demanding that there ought to be a law against it only serves to artificially boost the cost. Lower cost download services have moved in the right direction by allowing listeners to download single tracks, or save money by downloading a whole album, but even then people still pirate music, because ultimately, the free market has dictated that when all is said and done a single song isn't even worth a dollar. I'd estimate the value at somewhere between a dime and a quarter. Probably even lower.

Note that for the artist, this situation is still preferable to being signed to a big label, because the artist not only keeps all the profits (as opposed to being paid royalties after and only after recouping their advance), but also is guaranteed to retain their copyright. Simply put whatever path you go, being a recording artist is not a very lucrative path.

So what's a recording artist to do? Well, I hate to break it to you, but just being a recording artist is not going to cut it. You have to supplement your income with something people will pay for. Performing still pays well, so being a performer is one route. Another is if you are particularly adept at production, you can work for a label as a producer, or freelance as a sound engineer, and get paid on commission. Either that, or you get a shitty job in the service industry. Whatever you do, bills need to be paid, and recording's not going to cut it.

So what does this mean for the music industry? Well, any labels that are big enough will continue to operate, since they're able to lobby for laws that keep their outmoded business model on life support long enough for them to slowly crawl into the digital age and try to make selling records on the internet profitable. Their artists will actually be much longer term investments, since their records will not generate as much in royalties, so they'll be under contract for more album cycles.

Outside of that, there will be the soundclouds and the bandcamps and the other websites in the miasma of self-representing independent artists. These artists will be more accessible, but also necessarily much more insular from the music industry as a whole, each with a following of exiguous but loyal fans. Outside observers will note certain artists having multiple fans in common, with strong bonds between artists that make similar music, and weaker bonds where the more eclectic fans like a bunch of stuff related only by factors important to them. The stronger bonds will indicate artistic communities where sounds can thrive and play off themselves, and the weaker bonds will drive musical evolution as unique sounds enter communities through them.

Of course, the inability to reach broad audiences will make the independent recording artist less profitable in the long run, but once you've accepted that selling music recordings is bad business practice to begin with, it's hard to get mad about it.
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