I'm just reading a blog on the BBC website about the music industry, how it's been hit by the digital age and file sharing and what it can do to recover and embrace new technologies. It talks about Spotify and the possibility of subscription services rather than consumers buying music piece-meal. How can artists survive now the revenue isn't coming in quite the same? There's quite a debate. But hang on. Would the collapse of the music industry (as we know it) be a bad thing? Would music cease to be? Of course not. People have been making music for thousands of years, happy to do it purely for the love of what they do. Why does there need to be an "industry" cashing in on it? The very fact that online distribution and promotion are now easy and inexpensive means that we don't need the labels who were traditionally required to duplicate, distribute and promote an artist's output. Even the production costs are coming down. It's now perfectly possible to produce in the bedroom what traditionally required a state of the art studio. Sure the most popular artists would still make an enviable living and there's always going to be a demand for live performances. And notice also that most popular will be decided by public word of mouth and opinion, not what a record label is force feeding us. I'm sure there will be honest casualties in all this and I'd love to hear your opinions. I just find it very hard to feel sympathy for an industry that's tried to shamelessly rip us off so many times. We were always told we were paying for the rights of the song. Fine. Then CDs came out. Could we upgrade to CD at a discount if we'd already paid for the music on vinyl or cassette? No, of course not. In fact (and this is what smarts) we had to pay extra for a CD, despite them being cheaper to manufacture. Just because the industry knew we wanted them. They exploited the technology. Well now the shoe is on the other foot.
And thats why i feel no guilt at all for downloading just about everything i listen to lately. Apart from local/smaller bands who are hard to find online i hardly ever buy cds. However,i do go watch loads of bands and buy their merchandise if i see something i like which goes someway to putting money in their pocket and keep them going. From what i've been told from a lot of people in a lot of bands doing things that way makes sure the majority of money goes straight to them and not the label anyway. I feel lucky not to be into a lot of the bands that get spoon fed to joe public.never rated U2 and coldplay are stealing are living.Theres a hell of a lot of good bands makin a good living by touring alone thanks to the internet without their labels makin a fortune and thats how it should be.
Read this..... ...and you'll have less simpthy for the music moguls. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Vinyl-White-Powder-Napier-Bell/dp/0091880920
Sad thing about the music industry is that even when a band do take off these days, they make little compared to the Simon Cowell types who "discover" them. Even bands who simply get a record contract get a raw deal until they've sold thousands upon thousands of albums. Its the industry thats gone wrong- not the music. The way forward is probably like you say, bands who are good enough will release they're own stuff and make their money out of selling their music direct (via whatever means) and touring. Bands like the Cribs will never make millions from record sales but they're hardly ever not touring and always sell out- they put in proper graft. A lot of bands these days wanna write some songs and get famous quick so they can get their faces in the tabloids without actually doing any touring.
Its a vicious circle if I want to see my favourite band tour the tickets are jacked up because of the loss of revenue on record sales due to illegal downloading. So I get hit twice, once for buying the album and once for an over inflated concert ticket. Cowell and his cronies are killing the industry with plastic karaoke popstars. Take the girl who won the XFactor a very competent singer who "won a million pound recording contract", she didnt win a million she will make a million if she sells the required number of albums, big difference.
I've never seen a band put on a show like they do. Unbelievable. I couldn't listen to any of their albums twice but I could go see them every week & not get bored.
Even then she wont make a million The "prize" of the million pounds contract includes all the "costs" of producing the record making the video Cowells management costs etc etc She wont actually pocket all that much money directly Of course if she has the sucess of Will Young or Alexandea Burke she will do OK of course
RE: Even then she wont make a million You mean Leona Lewis right...? And if she has the same success as Steve Brookstein, Shayne Ward or Leon Jackson she wont.
