Now it's twitter. And facebook. It's always been facebook, I guess. Wow, it's 2011 now. I joined facebook in 2003, when there were but a handful of Boston schools in its roster. At that time there were no 'status updates'. No 'news feed'. Was there a 'wall'? I can't remember. There were profiles. And the most important details were your college major and your relationship status. Thefacebook, we called it.
A few big things happened in my head today.
Radiohead put their new album out. It's called "King of Limbs" and it was released one day before its official release date (which is tomorrow). I've never been entirely into Radiohead music, but it's one of those bands that you just have to follow if you're into creating art. They're just so damn artistic it's almost depressing. They are brilliant.
I stumbled upon some statistics, regarding the so-called or proverbial 'death' of the music industry. There were a couple of articles depicting the rise and fall of different mediums over the past 3-4 decades. First it was the LP, and the 8-track, and then cassette tapes, CDs and finally digital downloads. It's staggering how successful the CD was as a medium. Truly remarkable.
We're settled firmly in the digital era now. A second graph showed the rise and fall of album sales over a similar span of time. The year 2000 (when CD was still king) was right around the apex. It's all about the single now, forget the album. You hear a song in a show or a stupid YouTube clip. You download it. Your iTunes library is a verifiable mess of singles, some of which you wonder how you'd ever come across...
I don't know what came over me, why I decided to write in this blog today. I suppose I was inspired by something a friend said, and by the Lefsetz Letter -- another blog which I have been reading a lot lately.
In any case, what ultimately spurred the decision to write was the latest blog post I had written. From September 2008. All of what happened today, I had basically observed and written about in my post two and a half years ago. Sure, it's not a great length of time. But in the music industry two and a half years is an eternity. Things change so quickly! And I'm not going to pretend I'm a prophet. Many people were making the same observations back then.
But seriously. We're all freaking out, because music sales are down. The way to make money from music has been clear for ages. But bands and labels are still being bought, sold, traded, and A&R people are still fucking up art and making lives miserable day after day to try and sell music as a commodity in itself. We are over it. The CD was the last vestige of music as something one physically owned. When Napster came it changed our perception about the value of music. We just don't want to deal with the responsibility of collecting anymore. We want to be mobile and fluid. We want an easy way to listen to whatever we want, whenever we want it.
Licensing is now and forever. The cloud is the future.
Spotify seems to be the buzz word when it comes to streaming music services. They just inked a deal with EMI, which leaves only 2 more big labels to hop on board before Spotify becomes fully operational in the US. Sony is already signed and sealed. This is the way to save the music industry as we know it. The labels are making virtually no money from music sales. Licensing their artists' music to a subscription service like Spotify would guarantee income from music listeners.
People still love music and will continue to listen to it. In 2008, I used to think that peer-to-peer sharing was the future. And it kind of was. I mean, it's clear now that more music is being 'stolen' or 'shared' than bought. But still, when you download music, it becomes a physical asset that you as a listener are responsible for. You have to keep it in your computer. Or on your iPhone. We're lazy these days, because we can be. Pandora is a much more appealing way to access music.
Now, give me Pandora without ads and with complete control over music selection and we have a deal!
Apple is rumored to be amping up its MobileMe service to include a feature that would allow users to put their collection of music, pictures, perhaps even video in 'the cloud' to be accessed anywhere. But that would require so much work on the part of the consumer! I don't want to have to manage everything. And I don't want to be limited to the property that I 'own'. I want my music service to be similar to that of Netflix 'Watch Instantly'. I hear about a new song while on Facebook at work. So I type it in, and there it is in high quality streaming format. Instantly. No syncing, no hassle.
The wonderful and terrible thing about Apple is its influence on everybody and everything. In personal technology, what Apple says goes. If Apple decides that we are going to continue to 'own' our music, then that is exactly what will happen. We will happily adopt their version of the cloud, and we will continue to 'steal' or 'share' our music ad infinitum...
And the music industry will continue to disintegrate until it is no more. Yes, artists make art. And money-makers make money. But an artist has to make money to survive. And music does not sell itself anymore. Ads do. Videos do. Radio always has. Streaming is the answer. And if money-makers want to keep doing what they do, they'll get smart right quick.
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