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Music Media

The Music Biz Is the New Book Industry 328

Posted by michael from the light-reading dept.
jonerik writes "The new issue of New York Magazine includes this intriguing article by Michael Wolff which makes the case that the music biz will soon be going the way of the book industry. Arguing that larger-than-life characters such as Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Dorothy Parker were the rock stars of their time, Wolff points out that 'where before you'd be happy only at gold and platinum levels, soon you'll be grateful if you have a release that sells 30,000 or 40,000 units -- that will be your bread and butter. You'll sweat every sale and dollar. Other aspects of the business will also contract -- most of the perks and largesse and extravagance will dry up completely. The glamour, the influence, the youth, the hipness, the hookers, the drugs -- gone. Instead, it will be a low-margin, consolidated, quaintly anachronistic business, catering to an aging clientele, without much impact on an otherwise thriving culture awash in music that only incidentally will come from the music industry.' Wolff also relates a recent lunch he had at Sony Music in which a sort of paralyzed acceptance had set in; 'The recent past was very bad; the future was likely to be worse. All money earned from here on in would be harder to earn. This felt like acceptance to me: We simply don't know what to do.'"
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The Music Biz Is the New Book Industry

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  • Well.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by EraseEraseMe ( 167638 )
    Their first mistake:
    Screwing the customer by over-charging, over-producing and under-acknowledging the hard work of real artists as opposed to hyping studio-created filler.

    Their second mistake:
    Ignoring people TELLING them this

    Their third mistake:
    Continuing this trend by assuming it's actually creating long-term solvency as opposed to an embittered and irritated audience who will be willing to search for bands not under 'Collective Control'

    • To quote:


      This glum (if also quite funny) fate is surely the result of compounded management errors -- the know-nothingness and foolishness and acting-out that, for instance, just recently resulted in what seems to be the final death of Napster.


      But it's way larger, too. Management solutions in the music business have, rightly, given way to a pure, no-exit kind of fatalism.

      It's all pain. It's all breakdown. Music-business people, heretofore among the most self-satisfied and self-absorbed people of the age, are suddenly interesting, informed, even ennobled, as they become fully engaged in the subject of their own demise. Producers, musicians, marketing people, agents . . . they'll talk you through what's happened to their business -- it's part B-school case study and part Pilgrim's Progress.

      Self absorbed people talking of their own death, realizing they've killed the golden goose. I'd really like to hear one of their stories to see exactly what they'd say: what part of the many things that pissed me off enough about RIAA to stop buying music have they actually realized?

    • Trying to assert gatekeeper control over the technology industry that gives them they tools they us to do their jobs. I know MPAA and RIAA are crying "tough times", but I don't see them bleeding employees the way the tech sector is. (I suspect they're bleeding artists, but I also suspect that they don't consider most artists to be people, let alone employees.)

  • Well, it'll either go that way.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Idimmu Xul ( 204345 ) on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:08PM (#3656055) Homepage Journal

    or all the large corporations will end up ruling the world and we will all be slaves serving under their tyranny listening to Nsync 24/7 with little advertising devices implanted into our eyes and ears.

    Personally, I can't wait for my own personal add implant! I love Nsync, and where's my coke?

    • or all the large corporations will end up ruling the world and we will all be slaves serving under their tyranny listening to Nsync 24/7 with little advertising devices implanted into our eyes and ears.

      Personally, I can't wait for my own personal add implant! I love Nsync, and where's my coke?

      ...or you could just stop listening to the radio altogether.

      I discovered the power of Frank, Patsy, Dean, Hank, Sammy, Tony and Bing about twelve years ago, and life's been groovy ever since. Do you know any radio stations where I can hear *that* 24/7? I didn't think so.

      Hell, I just found out about Aqua and Vengaboys!

      P.S. Who the hell is N'Sync?
    • "The IBM Stellar Sphere. The Philip Morris Galaxy... Planet Starbucks."

  • Music Live (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:09PM (#3656064)
    I've always wondered about the power of copyright to collect per-cd revenue.

    In Germany, where I've spent some time, local bands are more influential than US/International stars. Although there is some influence, it's "in" to know someone who plays in a band, and bands are hired for gigs often.

    I've always believed that the future of music was in Live music, i.e. performers must play to get paid. I think with internet distribution of music, this and the tone of the article, the future lies in performers doing actual work.

    Torsten

    • Re:Music Live (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BeBoxer ( 14448 ) on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:46PM (#3656315)
      I've always believed that the future of music was in Live music, i.e. performers must play to get paid.

      There's a radical idea. Getting paid for doing something. Rather than getting paid to do nothing. This whole notion that I should have to pay somebody again and again for work that they did once will eventually have to go away.

      At least in the case of buying a CD, the distributor did something for me personally. Sure, they didn't know I would be the one to buy that CD. But they had to expend both labor and materials to make that particular CD that I bought. So there is actually some exchange of real value in both directions.

      But if I download a song on a P2P, the copyright holders have done absolutely nothing for me personally. They didn't write the music for me. They didn't perform it for me. And they didn't even have to make the copy for me. They did jack shit. Why should they get paid?

      Musicians should get paid for providing a service just like everybody else. If you work hard, you can make good money as a live performer. Especially if you don't let the record labels steal it all. On the same note, programmers should get paid to write software. Not to just sit around and sell the same software over and over again.Personally, I have no problem with watching the entire shrink-wrap music and software business go away entirely. To anybody who insists that they should keep getting paid after they stop working, I say "Screw you. Get a real job."

      • Re:Music Live (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Zekk ( 411637 )
        But if I download a song on a P2P, the copyright holders have done absolutely nothing for me personally. They didn't write the music for me. They didn't perform it for me. And they didn't even have to make the copy for me. They did jack shit. Why should they get paid?

        Let me get this straight - rather than the musicians providing you a service, you stole their material; therefore, you don't have to pay for it because they didn't serve it up? I might pay less money per gallon when I pump my own gas, but I'm still paying for the fuel itself. I wouldn't blame musicians for not "providing a service" if you aren't going to pay for it anyways.

        If you work hard, you can make good money as a live performer. Especially if you don't let the record labels steal it all.

        Unless you allow the labels to do what they will, who's going to book the shows? Many groups tour precisely because that's the only way they can make money; but they can't get lucrative tour deals or promote the shows without a media titan (a la Clear Channel) pushing them through. The Internet has done some incredible things for indie artists, but I think it'll be a while yet before we see P2P technology booking summer concert tours to play sold-out arenas.

        On the same note, programmers should get paid to write software. Not to just sit around and sell the same software over and over again.

        So, let's say I write a piece of software and decide to sell it in the hope of making a profit. Everyone who pays me money is doing so to obtain the benefits of my product - regardless of how long ago I made it, how much money it's made me, or who else has bought it. I don't know how it would make sense to charge some people for a product but not others simply because "they did it once." It is a service, it was a one-time creative act; but if you want it, you have to pay like everyone else (ideally for copyright holders).

        I'm not trying to start a flamewar, but there are scores of artists/programmers out there who are have to stick to predetermined distribution methods, just because there's no other way. They don't wanna starve for justice, or fairness - they just want to make a living. If you want to assign blame, pin it on the realities of capitalism.

      • Re:Music Live (Score:3, Insightful)

        by fongsaiyuk ( 35015 )
        Without sounding too "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" I've two words for you, "Residual Income".

        You do realize that if you hold on to this concept of only being compensated for what you personally build/create/work you will be able to calculate your maximum income.

        (based on a US 40 hour work week)
        2080 hours a year X your hourly wage = your maximum earning potiental.

        so $20.00/hour gives you about $41600 Gross.

        While this is pretty good for a single person living an apartment, it's by no means what you could possibly be earning. Nor is it what you need to support a couple kids in daycare, college funds, a nice car (something above a beater, not a Lexus on a lease), a nice house, and a few extra toys.

        Personally, I think that dollar amount is way to low for my abilities.

        So, if for instance, you went about to become a consultant and managed to bill out 100% of your 2080 hours per year @ $100/hour. You would then be looking at about $208000 per year. Now we are talking about some serious cash. But, really, who's @ 100% billable?

        The bottom line is that there is no way that you can make quantum dollar income based *soley* on your personal effort. It is just not possible. You must find a way to make your money work for you as this will allow you the time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

        Now, before I'm slammed for having this disgustingly capitalistic view, let me set one thing straight. It's not the hording of money that I'm after, it's what money can buy--TIME. I know that money ain't everything, but having a lot sure sdoes make things easier.

        Because the more you gots the more it works for you, (Mutual Funds, Investments), and the more you can enjoy it.

        money = time = quality of life that *you* choose, not chosen by someone else.

        Are you working for someone else? Got a nice salaried job? Well, then you are contributing to someones compensation that is making a ton more than you by doing less. Not fair you say, well, I say take some time and originate a unique idea!

        Oh, one final thing, you should probably not be contributing to a 401k/IRA, because those financial vehicles are *designed* to pay you money after you stop working. I mean, you *do* want to stop working for "the man" someday, right?

        w3rd

      • Re:Music Live (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Benwick ( 203287 ) on Friday June 07, 2002 @10:20AM (#3659314) Journal
        Musicians should get paid for providing a service just like everybody else. If you work hard, you can make good money as a live performer. ... To anybody who insists that they should keep getting paid after they stop working, I say "Screw you. Get a real job."

        As a writer (and programmer), I have to argue here... extending the analogy to the [semi-defunct (or should I just say semi-funct)] book world, I guess the logical parallel for us 'wordsmiths' is that we should be on book tours (giving readings and signing autographs) all the time? Considering the phenomenal amount of effort required to write a decent novel--or for that matter, record an album, I believe--what you're saying is one of the most absurd rants I've seen on Slashdot in a long time. No offense. :) In fact I would have assumed it was satire, a smidgen more subtle than Swift.

        In the future I'm getting the Parker Brothers to personally MC every game of Monopoly I play--lazy bastards.
    • As the ability to copy, distribute, and consume art increases, the only value left will be in the types of art which are live. We already see this today. Who cares about the Mona Lisa, we all have seen pretty damn good pictures of it, who wants to own one? Who wants to put one up on their wall, who cares. Well, now If said Mona Lisa comes into town and is touring the local Art Museum here in Los Angeles. I'll be the first in line to pay the $30 bucks to go and see it. Classical music is the same way. My parents own one or two CD's of classical music (and perhaps 40 - 50 LP's) but they go every other weekend to see live concerts in the park, at the local Colleges and universities or whatever. They also attend the local plays. Screw Television, Screw the movies. It's the live performances of art which will only have value. Ted Tschopp www.tolkienonline.com

    • Composer gets nothing (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Gorimek ( 61128 )
      I've always believed that the future of music was in Live music, i.e. performers must play to get paid.

      Or to phrase it an other way: In the future, the composer of music will have very little ability to get paid.

      If the composer is also the performer, he will get paid, but only in his capacity as performer, not composer.

      the future lies in performers doing actual work

      Obviously, composing music is actual and difficult work, requiring talent, training and considerable effort.
      • "very little ability to get paid" my ass. That is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. Most business is not B2C (Business to Consumer) -- a ton of business is B2B (Business to Business). A simple thing will happen, the "preformer" will be unable to "make money" with crappy material, he will barter a deal with the "composer" (probably for a percentage of the take) and they will both be happy. Remember, if either one is crap it doesn't work. The idea that because someone can't sell something directly to the consumer, they can't make money. Hell, I would bet the "composer" would actually be better off, because he can sell his work to multiple artists and better he chances, and can simply choose to "ride the highest wave" once it gets to decision making time.
      • The role of a composer is an intersting economic problem. The history of the career goes something like this -
        1 play your composition and someone feeds you
        2 teach your composition to a musician who barters something of value.
        3 get room and board from a nobleman who shows off the compositions you make in his care.
        4 (where we are now) Own the right to make copies of and perform your composition, an entitlement to earn a certain sum from each person who learns your composition and for each public performance or audio reproduction of it.

        Composers, authors, and inventors are in a strange role in a labor economy, they do not simply get a fixed fee for a fixed time spent working or a fixed output. They are granted a reward for each time their work is appreciated (the only economic alternative it seems would be to set a *very* high one time price for the creator's contribution to humanity, if composers are to be rewarded economicly).
  • Unless someone has done something to eliminate all future teens and more importantly pre-teens... Please you don't think the crowd that supplied NKoTB, BB, N*Sync,etc etc etc won't keep forking over the cash? The rest of the industry? Yeah I could see that, but the pre-teen market springs eternal, literally.
    • Say, from about 1 decade ago?

      Music is about pop culture nowadays, and that what sells the most. The oldies buy the older, more thoughtful remasters and the releases from the older artists, while the teen generation buys the music thats in and happening.

      Parallel this to even one decade ago. Kids were buy the latest "Goosebumps" book, the latest pop fiction book, dealing with teen issues of love and friends (remarkably, like pop songs). The older people are buying the latest offering from the established authors.

      It sounds EXACTLY like the music industry of today. The young buy the pop books and culture, and older buy the remasters and the established artists.

      The only real reason that nysync are number 1, and not that latest michael crawford album is because of airplay. They both selling the same, but the airplay is a lot more for nsync, and billboards are 75% airplay (or marketing, if your prefer), and 25% sales.
  • Wolff points out that 'where before you'd be happy only at gold and platinum levels, soon you'll be grateful if you have a release that sells 30,000 or 40,000 units -- that will be your bread and butter. You'll sweat every sale and dollar.

    If I were an artist, I think I would be more than happy to sell 30,000 copies of an album... provided I got more than the $0.14 a copy or whatever the labels are paying their artists these days.

    • Exactly. Most artists would be be better off selling 30,000 records and making a buck or two per record. The problem is that doesn't leave the outrageous profit margins that the music industry has been used to for so long.

      The music industry is facing an increasingly consolidated radio business and the rise of a new distribution method that is in many ways superior to the current distribution channel that they control. In the end the artists, the radio stations, and the Internet are going to squeeze the fat right out of the record label middlemen.

  • as a refugee from the music 'biz'... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:13PM (#3656089)
    I'm delighted to be working with computers rather than coked up overpaid wankers pretending to be friends with musicians for no reason WHATSOEVER except that it might make them lots of money. The most evil people I've ever met, in person, were A&R. (and one of the nicest, too... but it's the Clive Gabriels of this world that stick in the memory.)(
    Oh and if this comment should happen to show up as a result from a search for Clive Gabriel of Chrysalis Music? He's pure scum. NEVER trust that man.)
    The "biz" is actually worse than the average /.er could ever imagine. It almost makes me want to get back into management, just so I could steer yougn acts away from teh traditional industry, encourage them to use viral marketing, free mp3s etc etc and then sit back and grow rich. (But not quite: Perl6 is too interesting... =)

  • This is surprsingly plausible (Score:3, Interesting)

    by seldolivaw ( 179178 ) <me@seldo.DALIcom minus painter> on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:13PM (#3656090) Homepage
    We used to have parents deploring their children's taste in books, or that they didn't read at all, something I've always found distressing: many of my friends at university never seem to read anything; I don't know what they fill that gap in their lives with. We are already well on the way to parents deploring their children's taste in music and children who, as with books now, listen only to the sensational mega-selling singles, with no real loyalty or continuing interest in any one author/musician. And eventually, we will have people who don't listen to music at all, and don't miss it either.

    I find that heartbreaking, but sadly plausible.

    • I'm not sure I'd describe it as heartbreaking. We're talking about the downfall of homoginized "best seller" media. Big deal. That's no loss to society. You think society would be worse off without Tom Clancy or Madonna?

      Somehow I doubt I'll see the end of Big Media's dominance though. There's always a market for its strained and drained product.
    • > We used to have parents deploring their
      > children's taste in books, or that they
      > didn't read at all, something I've always
      > found distressing: many of my friends at
      > university never seem to read anything; I
      > don't know what they fill that gap in
      > their lives with.

      Large amounts of homework, campus activities, SLEEP, and (for some people) alcohol.

      I wish I got around to reading more, but it was kind of a shock to think back and realize I hadn't read anything non-technical for the entire semester.

      -John
      • During term-time is another matter; I seldom get any serious reading done during term-time: I have too much to do, and too little time. I tend to read on vacations, and when I'm working 9-5 -- I can read while commuting, and when I'm at home, since jobs don't have homework :-)
        However, these friends of mine never read at *all*, ever. They have no books in their rooms, no favourite authors, no favourite book even. You miss out so much incidental knowledge by not reading novels, they open you up to new ideas and ways of thinking. I generally find people who don't read for pleasure are less interesting to talk to and certainly much less knowledgeable than those who do (with some exceptions).
    • ...many of my friends at university never seem to read anything; I don't know what they fill that gap in their lives with.

      Movies. Which, obviously, is an inferior subsitute: with a book you must use your imagination (and thus exercise your mind) while movies spoon feed you everything. Of course, I think that telling a tale yourself (perhaps via a roleplaying group) is better than either of these options for mental development, but that's a different issue.

      And eventually, we will have people who don't listen to music at all, and don't miss it either.

      Au contraire. I don't see music disappearing-- the early childhood influences factor coupled with the proven mood-altering effects will make music a perennial staple of life here on out (much as food is; disreguarding that food is physical while music is more conceptual in nature). It will, however, change in nature of distrubution and creation, back to the model of live concerts that the pre-recording era had. Just as home movies don't put theatres out of business, bands could (and currently do) support themselves easily by performing concerts.

      The real curiosity is going to be seeing how in a "Napsterized" world where the Internet allows for free, worldwide information dissemination, how concerts work. After all, we can't automatically assume that a [hypothetical] Texas-based garage band is going to be able to scrounge the funds to hold a tour in Belgium, if that's where most of their audience is.

  • Music's market share... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sammy.lost-angel.com ( 316593 ) on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:14PM (#3656091) Homepage
    Being a musician the thing I find most wonderful about music is that it can cross all genre's. Every CD that is made (with the exception of spoken word in some cases) can be enjoyed by anyone anywhere in the world. With book sales there is often language barriers or even literacy barriers. You don't have to know anything to enjoy music, and that will keep the music industry alive.

    That being said, I would have no problem with the "death of the rockstar." Have the musicians creating music out of passion, not out of greed. Maybe the only people to get hurt by this would be the big scary record companies.

    • Try pimping records of Tuvan throat singing... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by crovira ( 10242 ) on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:56PM (#3656379) Homepage
      Get Real!

      Music is a very individualistic art form. It isolates in a crowd.

      You very rarely find li'l ol' grannies rockin' with "The Cramps" and "They Might Be Giants".

      You rarely find bikers gassing on the latest "Conway Twitty" or "Boxcar Willy" CD.

      I'd ruin an evening trying to find Mexicans really geting into Susanne Vega. Nor will you find much salsa music in Norwegian taverns.

      Music is idiocyncratic and idiomatic.

      Just to help things along, most music is sold to and bought by people who don't like it and don't listen to it.

      Its everywhere at every fuckin' mall the planet over, in every bazzar, every souk, every gallery, "gallerie" and galleria. The people who shell out the bucks are merely shelling out for the "least unpleasant noise" to fill in the void between commercials.

      Your buying a couple of CDs every year is squat compared to what the commercial outfits shell out for canned muzak every single hour of every single day.

      That's what the media companies are protecting. They don't give a shir about you or your ears.

      Bruce Springstein's "Born In The USA" was not saying that you should be PROUD of being "Born In The USA."

      Nobody listen's to Marylin Manson's lyrics. Nor Trent Reznor's either. If they did. There's be nobody at the fuckin' shows.

  • other forces? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by simpl3x ( 238301 )
    perhaps, as with open source, the days of making large profits (value through scarcity) on a mass produced object are coming to a close. Is the service economy spreading to areas which were unanticipated in the past? and, does this mean that society at large will be wealthier for the fact? i imagine that the accounting for where (and by who) value is actually created will become more precise in the future, as a result of the network, and that the compensation will be redirected as a result. is value actually created by the music industry, or has it simply facilitated the manufacturing of rock-stars as opposed to music?
  • who the replacements will be.... the game producers of course! lets hope they don't do the money thing....

  • Can't totally agree (Score:4, Insightful)

    by spongebob ( 227503 ) on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:17PM (#3656114)
    I would say that the interesting thing that was overlooked in this article was the fundamental role that music has played during the existence of the human race.

    Music has an ability to reach places that words often fail. The book business of course fundamentally depends on earning it's money from a customer base that is at least educated to the point of having a base reading level. Music doesn't require this at all.

    Music finds a way to tap into the inner feelings that humans have and allows us to communicate direnctly if even for only a moment. We have grown up with music as a component of our daily lives, we will continue to consume it.

    What will change is the pricing for sure. Things will be more reasonable, which will allow for more and wider competition.

    All I can say for sure is that those kids hanging out at MTV during TRL are buying into an image and a way of life driven by the music ( no matter how misguided that may be)

    Saying that the music biz will be extinct is like saying that there will be no more kids who discover Dark Side of the Moon and imagine that they are the first people to discover this cool music. :)

    Music is just too important to humans. If the record industry knew this and took the time to drop the prices, I think they would make even more money and people wouldn't want to "borrow" the next Eminem record off the net...
    • If music is such an important part of being human (which I agree with), then the demise of an industry that has become successful at distributing music on physical media will not harm "music" in general. And the author says this, stating how their downfalle will be in a culture awash with music. Music has flourished for thousands of years without the Recording Industry. When the economies this industry exploited no longer exists, music will continue to flourish without them.

  • Showing the rest what NOT to do (Score:5, Interesting)

    by W2k ( 540424 ) on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:18PM (#3656119) Journal
    a) Screwing their customers by overcharging for stuff which doesn't hold up to the advertised quality in the first place. Think boy bands and CD's with 2 good songs and 18 filler tracks here...

    b) Labeling their customers criminals by introducing copy-protected formats which do more harm than good. The DMCA. The SSSCA.

    c) Failing to adapt to worldwide changes, such as the arrival of the Internet, home broadband, P2P technology. Attempts to fight the future rather than embrace it.

    d) Pathetically holding on to their old business model, despite telltale signs that it's already outdated.

    The list can go on for pages, and the four main points above can be split into several sub-points for those slow understanding the magnitude of this...
  • The last time I checked, there were hundreds of thousands of musicians out there doing commercial work, weddings, bar-mitvahs, etc, etc in order to eke out a living. Maybe Sony Music will go the way of Penguin Books but the reality for most of today's musicians is not unlike that of the rest of the novelists and artists out there.
    • IMO musicians actually have an edge in this regard.
      Music is a requirement at any kind of catered affair.
      Unless your art is ice sculpting, or face painting,
      there is no equivalent.

      I see a couple of problems with the "live performance" scenario.
      Firstly, from the consumers POV, people are used to music wherever they might be. In the car, at work, and so on. There are some environments where canned music is the only way to go.
      Second, from the artist perspective, it places a requirement of business saavy on the musicians. Now,
      for a classically trained musician it might not be a problem, but how many pop wannabees are even capable of reading a chart, much less have a desire to deal with the business end of things?
      "Get a manager" you say. Well, okay, sure. Now we have a controlling third party in the mix and I think we all know how that works out.

      The current system didn't just fall out of the sky.
      For ever one person who wants to be a professional,
      there are a thousand who want to win the pop star lotto and think they can get by without the essential skills.
      FWIW I used to earn my living as an audio engineer doing stage and studio, so I've seen both sides of the coin.

  • I'm sorry... (Score:3, Informative)

    by freakinPsycho ( 23459 ) <david@@@inducedreality...net> on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:22PM (#3656147) Homepage
    ... that's just not going to happen.

    Music has been a part of society for litereally thousands of years. People will continue to want to purchase music (even if that means digital format). If nothing else, concerts will continue to be the true source of income for performers.

    Look at how much classical music is still purchased, along with various music forms that range from decades to centuries old.

    I would venture to say that music is a part of human nature as a method of creative expression. Books are as well, but they don't have the portability and the quick and powerfull effects that music can have on people. Music's portability is its greatest advantage. Being able to listen to music as you do pretty much anything helps with its pervasiveness. Hell, there are a number of activities that are more enjoyable with proper musical accompanyment.

    I do believe the format in which music is aquired will continue to change and the type of music will continue to change, as it ever has. But it will always be a lucritive business.

  • Isn't that was it *used* to be like? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ShatnerTurbo2k ( 242013 ) on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:23PM (#3656154)
    Seems like the "bleak" future described was also a fairly accurate description of the music industry prior to 1950. No real pop-superstars or bazillion-dollar promotional campaigns.

    That's the way things were.. and we liked it!
    • Hmm.. No stars before 1950? Heard of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, or Benny Goodman? Charlie Parker? Dizzy Gillespie?

      At least these people could play music and worked hard to be heard (I mean they toured and played everywhere).

  • Wishful Thinking (Score:5, Informative)

    by Carnage4Life ( 106069 ) on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:24PM (#3656167) Homepage Journal
    Some bitter journalist forgot to factor in ticket sales which still bring in millions of dollars for artistes [eonline.com]. Here are last years numbers

    1. U2, $109.7 million
    2. 'N Sync, $86.8 million
    3. Backstreet Boys, $82.1 million
    4. Dave Matthews Band, $60.5 million
    5. Elton John and Billy Joel, $57.2 million
    6. Madonna, $54.7 million
    7. Aerosmith, $49.3 million
    8. Janet Jackson, $42.1 million
    9. Eric Clapton, $38.8 million
    10. Neil Diamond, $35.4 million
    11. Matchbox Twenty, $28.4 million
    12. Rod Stewart, $27.2 million
    13. Jimmy Buffett, $26.9 million
    14. Andrea Bocelli, $26.8 million
    15. Ozzfest 2001, $26.4 million
    16. Sade, $26.2 million
    17. Tim McGraw, $24.9 million
    18. Britney Spears, $23.7 million
    19. James Taylor, $23 million
    20. Tool, $20.4 million

    No more glamour, the influence, the youth, the hipness, the hookers, the drugs...Yeah right.

    Even without concert sales, people are still buying CDs anyway. After all the crap about Eminem's album being pirated before it was released [slashdot.org] he still managed to sell 1.32 million copies in his first week [yahoo.com]. I think the reports of the death of the music industry have been greatly exagerrated.

    Finally, innovative musicians can parlay their fame into dollars from other means. Just look at Ozzy Osbourne who's about to pull in 20 million for his reality-sitcom [eonline.com].

    • Re:Wishful Thinking (Score:5, Informative)

      by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:34PM (#3656247) Homepage
      Ticket sales are revenues. What are the profits? Many bands lose money while on tour.

      • Re:Wishful Thinking (Score:5, Informative)

        by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Thursday June 06, 2002 @11:41PM (#3657584) Journal

        Ticket sales are revenues. What are the profits? Many bands lose money while on tour.

        It varies, most bands more or less break even, some make money, some lose money.

        The really popular bands (i.e. the ones on the radio) tend to lose money on touring, but they and the labels who front the cash don't mind because it helps sell CDs.

        Other bands, however, see it exactly the opposite. They try to have just enough radio and CD-shelf presence to become able to attract large crowds to their concerts, and then make all of their money from tickets and sales of merchandise at the concerts (CDs, t-shirts, etc.). This is pretty much how all metal bands have made a living for the last twenty years.

        A lot of the difference in profitability comes from whether or not the band and label feel like they *need* to make a profit from touring. The really big bands can afford to view touring as a marketing exercise and so they can afford huge budgets for elaborate stages, lighting, laser shows, fireworks, etc. I don't know about the last couple of years, but U2 has historically been notorious for losing huge amounts of money on concerts, because they put on such an extravagant show. Their label never minded because whenever they went on tour their album sales went through the roof, far more than making up the concert losses (which record companies generally split with the bands).

        Lesser-known bands, without radio airplay to push CD sales and without the ability to sell out huge concert venues, have to settle for more modest shows because they need to turn a profit. And many of them are quite successful, particularly in genres that are a bit off the beaten path but still have a solid core audience with a concert-going tradition.

    • Those numbers are gross sales or profit to the performers?
      And as far as Ozzy goes, 20 mill from the TV show is celebrity pay, not musician pay. You seem to acknowledge that, but miss the point at the same time. WRT innovation, the last time the term could apply to OO musically was "Blizzard of Oz" which is
      20 some years ago, and in fact, his contributions were mainly lyrical.

  • Counterpoint (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Eddy Johnson ( 467614 )
    My case against this presented idea is that authors have been doing business less than the music industry.

    Case in point: In the 15th century, such composers such as Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel became huge as composers, the musical "rock stars" of the time and their names are still well known. However, how many of you can think of an author from the 1600's? Even the classical literature section of About.com (which says it includes the 15th century) [about.com] couldn't come up with any 15th century literature, much less well-known authors. Now check for 1600's composers/music at the same site here [about.com] and note it's in a much more constrained time period and doesn't even include such names as Vivaldi.

    So this might be a little far back to be considered a valid point. Then take, for instance, the fact that the newest Weezer album, Maladroit, is currently #3 on the Billboard chart even though every song on the album has been free to the public since two to three months before its release. And they're still becoming rich off of concert and album revenue.

    Just a few thoughts...

    • Re:Counterpoint (Score:3, Informative)

      by mjprobst ( 95305 )
      Remember that until fairly recent times (Beethoven is often mentioned as the first) most well-known composers were supported by a state (royalty) or church, both of them amounted to the same thing anyway in most places in Europe. They just about _belonged_ to the local noble or church official, and had to churn out lots of fill for the sake of parties, church services, and propaganda. They were used as pawns in a big prestige game.


      Yes, some of these composers became well-known, but there were hundreds and thousands of other composers who never lasted. In fact until the mid 1800s even these composers were mostly forgotten; the idea of a canon of time-honored masterpieces itself doesn't go much farther back than the 1840s or 1850s.


      Johannes Brahms was one of the first composers we remember that never accepted commissions for works. Even Beethoven the freelancer had to accept commissions to live. Brahms made his living teaching lessions, taking conducting posts here and there (and invariably getting frustrated and leaving), and being supported by friends and family.


      All these composers came up with lots of "fill" and a few masterpieces.

    • In the 15th century, such composers such as Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel became huge as composers, the musical "rock stars" of the time and their names are still well known. However, how many of you can think of an author from the 1600's?
      Check your facts :
      1605 Cervantès : Don Quijote de la Mancha
      1616 Death of Shakespeare
      1631 Calderón: La Vida es Sueño
      1637 Descartes : Discours de la Méthode
      1637 Corneille : Le Cid
      1667 Milton : Paradise Lost
      1667 Racine : Andromaque
      1668 La Fontaine : Fables
      1687 Newton : Principia mathematica

      These authors had a larger audience than Bach, Vivaldi or Haendel. For example in the middle of the 14th century, there was 120 bookshops for 30 000 inhabitants in the french city of Lyon.

      But you may be right if you compare the audience of theese autors to the number of people who where listening popular music of that time (most of which was disdained by history and is now lost.)

      • See, now here, we can make an analogy to the current state of affairs, because authors had a technology for reproduction and method for distribution of their work.

        There was no technology for reproducing a musical
        performance at the time. You could reproduce a peice of _music_, given a proper chart and trained performers (including a conductor), but not a performance. It's not the same thing.
      • This is rather depressing; there's only one bookshop in my city of 25000.

  • The good stuff (Score:2, Redundant)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 )
    Following are the quotes I find interesting:
    1. It is hard to think of a more profound business crisis. You've lost control of the means of distribution, promotion, and manufacturing. You've lost quality control -- in some sense, there's been a quality-control coup. You've lost your basic business model -- what you sell has become as free as oxygen.

    quality-control coup is great.

    2. And then there is the CD theory. This theory is widely accepted -- with great pride, in fact -- in the music industry. It represents the ultimate music-biz hustle. But its implications are seldom played out.

    The CD theory holds that the music business actually died about twenty years ago. It was revived without anyone knowing it had actually died because compact-disc technology came along and everybody had to replace what they'd bought for the twenty years prior to the advent of the CD.

    That one's good too. How many people do you know with hundreds if not thousands of CD's. How many had a tape/record collection before that?

    -Pete

    • That one's good too. How many people do you know with hundreds if not thousands of CD's. How many had a tape/record collection before that?


      Hell-o-o? Like *everybody*? I still have a shitload
      of vinyl that is pre CD era purchases. Why do you think most teenagers had a phonograph? Two reasons
      really. So they didn't break their parents hi-fi and
      so they could be in their room with the door shut to contain the noise.
      Hell, my dad had a jukebox and a shitload of 78's in
      the late 40's.

      I was gonna make a dinosaur joke till I remembered
      the Flintstones.
  • The article ends: "This is not so bad."

    Which sums the whole situation up perfectly. The public has been spoon fed the commercialy canned music for a very long time..To a point where many people hear a few seconds of a song they don't know, they automatically reach for the dial. This causes the "top 40" stations to play only the top 40, to keep the vicious cycle going.

    I too was such a blind music consumer as a teenager! Now I appreciate NPR, college radio stations, or any other radio station that tries to be original and bring unknown and independents in. There is so much good music out there, and most of it is not on the top 40 list.

  • Margins will shrink even more. Accordingly, costs will have to shrink. Spending a few million to launch an act will shortly be a thing of the past.

    This has been happening already in the digital recording industry, with hardware (and pro recording software) prices coming down dramatically. It's cheaper than ever now to record your own EP - and if costs continue to tighten, we'll start to see a lot of smaller artists sticking their heads into the limelight. And that can only be a good thing.

  • Got it exactly right (Score:5, Interesting)

    by letxa2000 ( 215841 ) on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:27PM (#3656195)
    The article got it exactly right and said what I've been saying for years.

    Music is Free. For better or for worse, legally or illegally, music is now free. Period. I would submit it should be free, think of it as an advertisement for the tours. But whether or not people (including RIAA) think it should be free, it is. Improving technology and an archaeic business model based on control and scarcity has guaranteed that.

    Famous musicians will earn less. Yes, Phil Collins and Celine Dion will probably earn much less than they do now. Instead of millions per year they might have to get used to earning incomes closer to what the rest of society does. Perhaps old Phil will have to scrape by on $200k a year... Then again, he sells out concerts which is where he make big bucks, anyway, so his income may be proportional to his desire to work (perform). I don't see a problem with that.

    There will be more musicians. Although the most famous musicians will earn less, there will be more musicians because the barrier to entry will be greatly reduced. Eventually it will be eliminated. Some say that we'll be "flooded" with a bunch of untalented musicians and we won't be able to find anything good, but I'd submit that's the case now anyway.

    The recording industry is obsolete. You used to need expensive recording equipment and studios to record quality music. A good studio is certainly still useful, but an amateur group can do a decent job at recording decent quality music that's definitely within their budget. They can burn CDs and sell them for $5/pop at concerts (pocketing $4.50 per CD), throw the music online (attracting more people to concerts). The recording industry is obsolete. Their legal attacks are, as the article mentions, a matter of squeezing the last dollar possible out of their business plan.

    I live in Mexico right now. My sister-in-law is a 20-year-old Mexican young lady. She used to use Napster. That got nuked and now she has like 3 different P2P programs on her home PC connected to DSL. She has P2P programs that *I* have never heard of.

    Last time I asked her she had downloaded 3200+ MP3s. That's more than 8 times what I, a techno-nerd, have downloaded. She doesn't listen to most of the music more than once, she just downloads everything she can because she likes to collect MP3s. She tells me her friends do too. She wants a larger hard drive for her birthday.

    Believe me, the "music industry" is history.

    • It doesn't help that the music industry neardly died in the 70's, and in a desparate attempt to avoid that disaster, they learned (from Bruce Springstein) the so-called 'art' of marketing. Build music that fits a formula that a good cross-segment of society likes, and you'll sell a lot of records.

      Unfortunately, like so many greedy people, they went too far. The honed, refined, and adhered to the formula to such an extent that now the vast majority of the music you hear today is drivel.

      The article would place some of the blame for this on radio, however the music industry embraced this soulless form of corp-o-rock.
    • Music is Free.

      Just like jwz [jwz.org] said about Linux, its free only if your time is worth nothing.

      I used to download a lot of songs(I never could bring myself to download a whole album, something about that just didn't seem right). Lately I've downloaded a lot less - and if I do its purely to sample the music.

      There are several very good reasons I gave up downloading MP3.

      Finding a song that is encoded at a high-quality rate and that is not purposely screwed up is getting harder to do. Someone out there is purposely seeding P2P networks with "songs" that aren't the real thing, contain 30 second loops played repeatedly, or that have large chunks of blank space.

      The value of the time I would spend downloading a whole album of high-quality MP3 and burning it to CD would pay for a new CD a few times over.

      I'm one of those people who can tell the difference between CD audio and MP3. I have a portable MP3 player, but generally I listen to CD's.

      Also, I've been a musician for many years and have long supported my favorite musicians and groups by buying their products and going to see their shows. You are mistaken when you say famous musicians will earn less - if anything broader distribution and "airplay" will make them earn more. Also, in reply to those who think bands earn money by playing live - very few of them do. Most bands tour to sell more CD's.

      There's nothing wrong with downloading something to try it out or to have technology to make backup copies of your media and to convert it into different forms. But to say its free is just plain wrong. If you listen to the same MP3s over and over again and you never support the band, and its against the bands wishes for you to do so - you're a thief, plain and simple. What gives you the right to take someone's blood sweat and tears and call it free? Only the right you gave yourself by grabbing without considering the wishes of the creator.

      • I completely and absolutely agree with you. In fact, during times of my misguided youth I was a fan of the "warez" scene, but lost all interest because the noise to signal ratio was just far too high: I would rather go to the store and spend $50 for the game than spend night after night grabbing incomplete copies with bizarro little errors that strangely made it past all of the error checks, etc. I know friends who tried to get the new Eminem album, only to encounter countless screwed up copies, looped copies, etc.

        I have no doubt, whatsoever, that this isn't the act of digital vandals, but rather is a concerted effort by publishers to discourage piracy (and personally I applaud them for a pretty brilliant move, though I'm sure some "GIVE ME EVERYTHING FOR FREE! IT'S MY RIGHT!" weenie will claim that this is a violation of some amendment or other). It's quite a brilliant stroke really: Put servers covertly on all the networks serving up bogus songs (which, because of laziness, will propagate to more and more servers as people download the flawed copy and don't audition and delete it) or bogus warez files (or servers that mysteriously disconnect/freeze at 98%), and you'll build such an inconvenience around it that the $15 price of a CD or $40 for a game becomes quite palatable.

        Of course there are technical solutions to piracy legitimacy, but all of them either centralize the data, or require you to explicitly become a part of the criminal process, and things like that are easy to crack by the strong arm of the law. The decentralized, everyone-is-an-equal aspect of the P2P networks is a curse as much as a benefit.

    • the legal nightmare (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bcrowell ( 177657 )
      Yes, your sister in law is probably the wave of the future, and the article is probably right about the dim prospects for the music industry.

      Here's the problem: the entertainment industry is extremely rich, and politically powerful. They won't go down without a fight. In case anybody hasn't noticed, the U.S. political system is still dominated by big business, through various mechanisms, such as a system of legalized bribery based on political contributions to the two ruling parties. So while they entertainment corporations are postponing the inevitable, they'll fight a rear-guard action that will make the law even worse than it is now. IP law will become even more unbalanced in favor of IP owners. Hardware copy protection will continue to be written into federal law, possibly with the eventual result of making free operating systems illegal. It's not going to be pretty.

  • problem with the 'catering to an aging clientele' comment is that writing a book is generally a pretty intellectual thing. Music, as we have it today, is chiefly emotional.

    That's not to say one or neither doesn't need talent or skills or feeling, but each one draws from it's own discrete base.

    Intellect is generally something reserved for the ages, and emotion is usually best witnessed in the younger crowd.

  • Quality counts? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fleeb_fantastique ( 208912 ) <{moc.beelf} {ta} {beelf}> on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:35PM (#3656248) Homepage
    The music industry could start earning more income, perhaps, by improving the quality of the music it generates.

    Sure, production value has improved, but today's music sounds much like a movie with great special effects but no plot; it lacks substance. The industry has concentrated so hard on vacuous marketing techniques aimed at various demographics, as well as absurd lobbying activities amongst politicians that it should truly come as no surprise that folks have become disgusted with today's music, by and large.

    Truly, look at what they're coming up with these days; the better tunes are rehashed oldies (where they've taken advantage of improved production techniques to bring you better sounding copies of old tunes that folks are familiar with). And even some of those are downright offensive with 'corporate appeal'.

    I could only think of two more possible solutions to their problems (although it may be too late).

    First, recognize that the Baby Boomers are getting older. You aren't going to see that kind of explosive buying power again (at least not until the next major disaster that wipes out a third of the population, making room for another baby boom). So don't even bother. Go with a wider range of musicians and spend a little less money on production (something that's getting easier these days). Quick little hint: scarcity of resources breeds artistic endeavor. Some of the most clever bits of music ever crafted came from truly small production budgets. No need to starve their resources, though, just force your talent to grow their techniques and composition skills before exposing them to the big production dollars.

    Second, instead of lobbying your congressman for these truly insulting and offensive abuses of law, put your money into the education system to improve the state of music education in our schools. If folks have no appreciation for music, what makes you think they're going to bother to listen to any of it? Branding? Today's youth barely grasps the concept of counterpoint (multiple melodies played on top of each other), can't appreciate a good groove (preferring an obnoxiously repetitive 'beat' instead), and do not have an iota of an appreciate for music without lyrics.
    • I think that while production value has increased this has somewhat hurt things as well. Bands used to sound different and have distinct sounds. As the production values increased, even bands that actually play instruments - as opposed to the pop stuff - started to sound too polished.

      Iron Maiden's "Piece of Mind" has a wonderful raw feel to it. Listen to Somewhere in Time, from 1986 - right around when the polished sound was perfected - and it just sounds too perfect. Same thing with Def Leppards Pyromania compared to Hysteria.

      It's not something easy to put into words. I don't know if it's the tone or the overdubs or what. Perhaps it is that they were established bands and could afford the studio time to get it right and perfect.

      As much as I love that old stuff, I've been finding myself seeking out bands that don't have the industry hooks in them yet. So far my fave is FreezePop (http://www.freezepop.net).

  • The closing comment of the article says:

    And best of all, our children -- all right, our grandchildren -- won't want to become rock stars.

    This leads me to ask the natural question, "so what's next?" I mean, our culture seems to demand creating these icons of rebellion. People who do something that most of us cannot do and most of us wish we could do. So what's next?

    Does this trend move into the film industry? That seems to be suffering the same problems as the music industry though. Too many people producing too much product and drowning out the chance to distinguish ones self.

    Celebrity Hackers perhaps? I think that's more of my own little geek fantasy that somehow people like Linus Torvalds could have popular celebrity. Though as computer technology becoems more a part of everybody's lives, maybe there's a possibility there.

    I wonder what happens if maybe we are just out of realms to spawn these cultural icons. When teenagers want to rebel, what's left for them to do?

  • It's actually a good thing (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't really get the huge problem here. The revolution they're experiencing is from a studio-based existence to a live performance existence. Live bands and performers will rule the music industry. Anybody who is talented enough to perform live and make their live shows interesting from show to show will still make plenty of money. I don't see any catastrophe here. Just a shift in focus. I totally welcome it.
  • Don't kid yourself. The same media pimps are pandering to the same dilutable tastes with the same pap.

    How the fuck else do you explain Harry Potter suddenly being every where?

    How about books spawning comic books spawning movies and TV shows until, in one last ditch efort to wring a buck from the whole mess, it winds up on Saturday morning comics. Superman, Batman, Spiderman, X-Men, Star-wars, Ghost Busters.

    They're making a "Scoobie Do" moo-vee.

    How fuckin' LAME can you get? We're talking the crap you watched on TV slackin' off from home-work, (the same two plots stretched out to 13 shows, year after year, that you eventually abandoned when you started playing with yourself, when slackin' off led to jackin'off,) made into a multi-million dollar production. Before it gets recycled into TV AD vehicles, back into comic-book form and back on Sa-turd-ay morning comics.

    The print-media stars are just as rich and lead lives that are just as depraved, drink sodden and drug induced as rock stars but its not as public because you can't hum the latest Gothic horror nover in the elevator.

    Stephen king's biography reads like a street-corner dealer's wet dream. Was that poor coke-addled man EVER straight?

    Fact is that print has a very different band-width requirement from music and video/cinema. That's why there are three orders of magniture of hype, cost and pay.

    The article is basically bogus.
  • Arguing that larger-than-life characters such as Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Dorothy Parker were the rock stars of their time, Wolff points out that 'where before you'd be happy only at gold and platinum levels, soon you'll be grateful if you have a release that sells 30,000 or 40,000 units -- that will be your bread and butter.

    And it's all because libraries let people share books at will, depriving book pub...er authors of their just rewards! Not to mention those people reading magazines in the bathroom! It's your moral obligation to buy books to read in the other "library"!

  • What's next? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Jordan Graf ( 4898 )
    The thing about Music is that nothing about it is _inherently_ expensive to produce. Sure, once you've thrown in the videos and the launch party and the services of the London Philharmonic it starts to get up there (Although I'd guess the services of the London Philharmonic are cheaper than you'd think) but the equipment, space and talent to just record music is generally within the range of every day people. Of course certain kinds of music are easier to record on the cheap than others (Moby can do it alone in his apartment because, well, he doesn't have any instruments) but with a nice Mac and $10K worth of extra hardware a talented bunch of people can put out some pretty respectable stuff. So music will live on, even if it's almost free. Same goes for books.

    But what about Movies? Movies are going to be subject to the very same dynamic, although perhaps timeshifted a few years to the right. If the shit start to hit the movie industry, the world is going to start to look pretty different because movies are _expensive_. I mean even once you throw out the union pay scales and the staffing and the rules, blowing shit up (which is a staple of a lot of movies) is expensive; As are sets and crowds and animations and all the other stuff we see in our movies. Sure, you can still make "Clerks" and "The Blair Witch Project" pretty cheaply, but those aren't the only kinds of movies out there - not even an appreciable percentage if you're looking at Hollywood output. So the big budget movie could be a thing of the (soon to be) past.

    Maybe movies will go all digital. Computing cycles will be so cheap and software so good that movies can be "filmed" at low cost by some Savant in his basement with the futuristic equivalent of an iMac and some Red Bull. But I wouldn't count on it.

  • Krugman Had It Figured Out (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mittermeyer ( 195358 ) on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:52PM (#3656360) Homepage
    In 1996 Paul Krugman, MIT economics professor and wirter of the Dismal Scientist column in Slate, wrote this column [mit.edu] about a look back at what happened to content providers from 2096. Krugman's overriding point is that in a digital environment content ends up being free, and people that actually make tangible non-digital things (blue-collar-type jobs) will get the benefits of the future.

    His model for music in a post-Napster environment is that music is delivered free to promote attendance at live concerts.

    I particularly enjoyed the part where he predicts the demise of economists' perk jobs and he's writing part-time from a vet clinic.

    I weep not for the end of Madonna and her ilk's excess. It's far more important what happens to the average plumber then it does for these pampered poodles.

  • I don't think so... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Eric Damron ( 553630 ) on Thursday June 06, 2002 @07:52PM (#3656362)
    "Here are the choices:
    If you're providing free entertainment, which is obviously what the music business is doing, then you have to figure out some way to sell advertising to the people who are paying attention to your free music. But nobody seems to have any idea how that might be done. Or you can provide stuff that's free, and use the free stuff to promote something else of more value that people, you hope, will buy -- now called the "legitimate alternative." (Putting video on the CD is one of those ideas -- though, of course, you can file-share video too.) Or sell the CD at a level that makes it cheap enough to compete with free (free, after all, has its own costs for the consumer)."

    Here's a more realistic choice:
    You're rich, powerful, influential and arrogant. Theft of your product is rampant. You buy a Senator, say Senator Hollings from SC, and you have him draft a bill that forces all hardware and operating systems to incorporate some form of anti-coping technology. It becomes impossible to copy music/video files without hacked hardware. You make it illegal to run hacked hardware and vigorously prosecute those who have the audacity not to bow to your will.

    Your sales remain high. Problem solved.

  • solvency... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Mars Hill ( 583512 )
    The cost of having one long lasting artist is lower than that of many produced teeny-bopers.
    Case in point: 5 x Britney Spears boom and bust = expensive.
    1 x Rolling Stones = less overhead and more profit. This is a human resources problem, just like the IT industry. It has everything to do with "Knowledge management" but on a talent level. As a studio owner and attempted rockstar, it hurts really bad when music is commodotized beyond an art form.
  • Wolff may have analyzed the current situation boldly, but I don't think he looked very far into our history before he made his statement. I feel Wolff is very ignorant when he states toward the end of the article that Rock music is a bubble that has burst. In the short history of Rock music, critics have made the same statement at least twice per decade. It seems to me that Wolff obviously hasn't learned from the mistakes of other critics.

    It is true that popularity in music is becoming more decentralized. Bands are content with lower record sales, and we haven't seen anything to rival the popularity of the Beatles. However, as the number of bands increases, so does the variety of music available to the listener. And so does the size of the audience; look at the world population in the 50's when rock started and compare those numbers with today's.

    Wolff also states that consumers look not only for music, but also technology when considering a music purchase. I agree with him to some point, but I believe his use of 'technology' is too strict. 'Technology' should be defined to include music videos and concert production. The influence of MTV on modern music is staggering; technologies like additional music channels and satellite radio will only increase the influence.
  • I see streaming concerts ala pay-per-view in the near future raking in big bucks.

    The biggest problem about concerts is their location oriented cash flow. once you decentralize concerts you will see artists performing more and gaining higher value in the marketplace. This won't stop attendance to concerts in the same way that boxing matches and other sporting events are still attended while an at home audience views at their convenience.

    Free recorded music, pay for live PERFORMED music.

  • When Rock Stars == Plumbers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xA40D ( 180522 ) on Thursday June 06, 2002 @08:16PM (#3656534) Homepage

    A while back I saw an interview with Lars wots-'is-name from Metallica stating that he didn't expect a plumber to come round to his place to fix his toilet for free, so why should people be able to download his music for free. And I thought that the day a plumber was able to give an interview, sitting beside his swimming pool, outside his huge mansion would the day that I'd give a toss about Lars's royalties.

    The music industry has been a cash cow for years. And in an effort to make even more money they've stopped listening to what we want and tried feeding us over-priced pre-digested pap. And now, thanks to the Internet and the ubiquitous MP3 we have the ability to bypass the latest creation of the marketing department, and listen to what we want. And the music industry is desperately trying to stop us. They've used the law; and lately they've started mucking around with the CD format too.

    The greed of the giant corporations has killed the goose which laid the golden egg. And I'm not at all sorry. So perhaps one-day rock-stars like Lars won't have huge mansions with swimming pools and they'll earn what I earn, and live like I live. And that will be the day that I will say copying music is morally wrong.

  • this reminds me of an oldie but goodie from salon [salon.com].

    love says that unlike books, the music industry wasn't always tied to distributed media. it wasn't dead then and doesn't have to be in the future. i think the glamour was always part of the performance of music, not the record contracts. i'm in a modest band and have friends in slightly more successful punk bands around pittsburgh... they hardly rake in the dough, but still get by, and with enough booze/sex/id to satisfy your American Dream.

    just because people are making 300 people scream at a local club instead of 3000 or 30000 at some massively promoted venue, does that mean rock stardom is dead? and didn't we figure out yet that when people start getting more limos, cocain, and fly company than they can possibly need, they just stop having that much to say to the rest of us? god, look what happened to Bono, over the years.

    just my 2 cents...

  • for most musicans and bands out there trying to make a living. Rather than huge advances, you'll see more people receive just what is needed to get the recording done, and some smaller promotion. If it takes off, the artist recoups faster, and then begins to get royalties.

    On the other hand, I've been told by many artists "Get as much as you can upfront, because you'll never see another cent from the labels". I've heard that from too many not to believe it.
  • celine dion is the new stephen king. can't argue with that.

    she scares the shit outa me.

  • How many people recognized Tom Clancey's name on the poll, how many people have read Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke? Lets not forget LOTR and Harry Potter. Although the stars arn't as big in the book industry the discrepency between the top and the bottom is roughly the same. In the future the sales might not be there for the big artists due to file sharing but music will still be as popular. The reason why books have lost their popularity is that they're a form of primary/active(?) entertainment, when you are reading you cannot do another activity. You cannot read and drive, work, jog, socialize, or anything else. The only time people read was sitting around at home and now TV has taken that niche. The fact is that people will always listen to music because it doesn't take effort and there is nothing else to take its place (so far). Rock stars and most of the perks associated will always be around because music will always be around.

  • Why not something greater? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Vegan Pagan ( 251984 ) <deanasNO@SPAMearthlink.net> on Thursday June 06, 2002 @10:12PM (#3657248)
    Many /.ers have said that technology is either going to hurt current business models, make them available to more people, or make artists rely more on live performances than any tech/recording based business. But after all this talk about business models, can't technology make the actual art of music better?

    Think of broadband. Right now it's used mainly for copying files and playing violent games. But imagine if it was used for music: Just as you can assemble a team of players online to go shoot up other teams, you could assemble a team of singers or instrument players. Once telephony goes CD-quality and grows from one-on-one chat to many-to-many chat, it could be used as a way of singing!

    There's also surround sound. Dolby is working on surround sound through headphones. Imagine putting a tilt sensor on your headphones so you could turn your head at any angle and the sound would seem to stay in place, rather than follow your head as it does with current headphones. This would require music to be stored in a MIDI- or MOD-like format with XYZ tags rather than as a waveform recording, but it would allow a lot of flexibility and interactivity. This could soon be used in games; imagine if it was used in the creation and listening of music.

    These are just two examples I can think of off the top of my head. You can probably think of much more enticing ways. But the main idea is that while everybody is talking about how technology affects the distribution process, the most important thing, in the long run, is how it'll enhance the actual art of music.

    After all, what was rock and roll before the electric guitar?

  • I Don't Know If I Follow The Logic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by krmt ( 91422 ) <therefrmhere@yah o o . com> on Thursday June 06, 2002 @10:48PM (#3657387) Homepage
    The link between books and music is confusing to me, and it doesn't seem like the author follows the logic. He opens and ends the article stating that musicians will become as modern authors, then moves on to say that the music industry is facing shrinking profits with the technological changes. Huh?

    I agree with both ideas. Today's titans of culture will become yesterday's classics of culture, and the music industry will surely figure out more novel and brutal ways to lose money. But how is this related?

    Most famous authors were not particularly rich, to my knowledge, unless they came from money or were complete and utter superstars (Lord Byron is an example of both). Faulkner, Poe, Keats, and most other authors you can think of did not die with a lot of money in their pockets from their works, even though they are remembered as literary giants today. Then there are those who are not discovered until after their death, such as Blake and Kafka, who really did not make money off of their writings.

    And then there's the idea that music replaced books as the driving force of popular culture. I would grant that only in part, but I would also say film and TV took equal parts of that massive share once held by books (and religion). Besides that, books still drive an incredible portion of culture. If you don't believe me, think about the sheer number of movies that are based off of books while you drive down to your local Barnes and Noble or Borders book superstore.

    The thing that really bothered me about the article though, was that the author does not present anything to take the place of music as a dominant cultural mover. There will be some cultural form to replace music if it truly falls by the wayside, but until something actually comes forward to replace it, music isn't really going anywhere. The industry will change, as the article asserts, but musicians will not become mediocritized until something else comes forward. Given that internet distribution is making artists more popular than they likely would have ever been (watch TRL for evidence) I find it doubtful that music will lose its cultural power with the advent of the internet. If anything, it'll be strengthened.

  • What about TV/Video/Publishing? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cryptochrome ( 303529 ) on Friday June 07, 2002 @10:36AM (#3659445) Journal
    So, the music industry is succumbing to the inevitable. It's not really a big deal - music will still be made, and musicians will still be able to make money by performing live.

    The bigger issue is that the same things that made the music industry unprofitable are already starting to make the TV and Video industries unprofitable. Ad-skipping PVRs are gutting television's revenue stream as fast as they are sold, and file-sharing is slowly making inroads on any recorded video. But unlike music, there is no "live performance" option, local content is largely irrelevant, and real costs are much higher.

    The situation for the withered book and publishing industry is even more dire. The inavailability of a screen comfortable to read off of is all that stands between it and its total collapse.

    The point is this - the notoriously rotten music industry may be down for now, but they are not alone in their troubles. Their ultimate fate will not be sealed until the greater "content" industry either gains control over the distribution of their works once and for all, or loses it entirely and is reduced to patronage and selling their content at costs comparable to copying it yourself.

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