The Record Industry's Decline

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.

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).

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.

xpost OK, that makes sense, the 5-6 CD consumer.

Except the one intense dude who doens't dress like he's in an emo band.

SOULMATES

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

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.

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

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.

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

I run a library film & music department at a university.

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.

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.

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.

I run a library film & music department at a university.

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

or as Bowie said with some foresight "music will be like water, it will come out of a tap" (or something)

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.

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..."

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.

Even for me, a person who doesn't download illegally and rarely burns CDs, the net result of my having an eMusic subscription is that considerably less of my money goes to record labels.

I got rid of my emusic subscription this month cos I either wasn't using it or wasn't listening to what I did d/l.

and no way arctic monkeys are any kind of equivalent of bowie as a musical or cultural or generational force
That's kinda what I said ..... what I meant was, they're probably as popular, that's all.

Well, there were things in Bowie's heyday that were as popular as Bowie with far less surviving cultural significance too, but I see your point.

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

...and when you think about that isn't it just colossally stupid for used stores to do that? My God, I buy every capoeira, Honk Horn, Harry Partch and hot-rodded thumb piano CD that walks in my door. My God, it's just a few bucks, it's one copy and whoever comes in my shop to find stuff like that thinks "Whoa, here's a place to check in on from time to time." What's kept me in this ten-cent life is the attempt to give music fans that sense of ownership we all get from finding out about something strange, new, thrilling...there's no feeling like it for me and I love to pass it on. So do those who buy that stuff. I mean, I've been doing this for a long time and know some stuff but I have customers with more CDs than I carry in the shop--who am I to think I know everything the true freaks are gonna want? Lord, let the entire Sublime Frequencies, Buda Musique or Pressure Sounds catalog walk into my place used and I'm a delighted little retailer. Oops, got to go--here come more used Dave Matthews CDs :)

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.

Does this strike anybody else as being a funny kind of reversion to jazz-era models of music-making...? where musicians have to work and play live all the time to make any money, with recording as kind of a adjunct/promotional thing...?

I am going to hit up Ella Guru sometime soon

Lord, let the entire Sublime Frequencies, Buda Musique or Pressure Sounds catalog walk into my place used and I'm a delighted little retailer. Oops, got to go--here come more used Dave Matthews CDs :)

LOLZ - you give me hope man!

Featured in the eight-minute video is J0n "WIZ4RDISHUNGRY" Wms., a University of Rochester student sentenced earlier this year to six months home confinement as part of the federal music piracy crackdown “0peration F4stL1nk.” Available free of charge for use by colleges and universities beginning this fall, the video can be ordered from http://www.campusdownloading.com/.

wrong thread ;_;

On the counter at Target or friggin' QuikTrip, for God's sake! 99 cents, the cost of a candy bar.

OTM, pop songs as impulse buys. It's part of what makes downloading so much fun: you have a song in yr head? in two minutes you can crank it.

Does this strike anybody else as being a funny kind of reversion to jazz-era models of music-making...? where musicians have to work and play live all the time to make any money, with recording as kind of a adjunct/promotional thing...?

We're basically at a point where it's easier than ever to be a sort of *serious part-time musician*, i.e. work a day job, put out your stuff yourself (or on a small indie label), promote via the internet, and with hard work and talent maybe turn it into a secondary income stream. If you want more than that though, it seems like hardcore touring is pretty much the way to get it at this point. Course there's also licensing and all that, but with more competition for that money than ever it's probably not likely to become a reliable source of income for most.

I was struck by how a medium I really love and get a lot of enjoyment out of is basically being forced into extinction.

I was saddened to see this sort of sentiment reduced to "fetishism", I think it was in a recent thread.

Odd isn't it then, that while people are reluctant to pay even peanuts for recordings, they'll fork out huge monet for live tickets - when I was young, gigs were cheaper than records, now they're a multiple thereof.

eh, 'money'

We're basically at a point where it's easier than ever to be a sort of *serious part-time musician*, i.e. work a day job, put out your stuff yourself (or on a small indie label), promote via the internet, and with hard work and talent maybe turn it into a secondary income stream.

well this is basically what I do now (although "income stream" is perhaps an exaggeration - more like "break even stream")

I was saddened to see this sort of sentiment reduced to "fetishism", I think it was in a recent thread.

it isn't just fetishism tho - its not that I prize the object itself, I like that it contains additional information that supplements the listening experience. This is why those Funkadelic albums, for example, are so great to me, they're packed with stuff that amplifies and informs the music.

WTF is wrong with fetishism anyway?

And wtf is the ipod about anyway?

its the same with the Sgt Pepper sleeve, or anyhing written by Leonard Feather, or Big Black's hilarious "The Rich Man's 8-Track Tape" collection, or or or ad infinitum

x-post

Odd isn't it then, that while people are reluctant to pay even peanuts for recordings, they'll fork out huge monet for live tickets - when I was young, gigs were cheaper than records, now they're a multiple thereof.

The price people pay to stay in their comfort zone, mostly, in my opinion. Know so many people who wouldn't dream of seeing a group play a 300-seat club for 8 bucks who're setting the alarm to get up tomorrow morning to log on Ticketmaster to try and get Police tix for, what, a couple hundred? They're probably going to be good and all, so are the Eagles or Stones or wotever I guess but in the end it's an oldies show for classic rock fans. Although I don't think you'd have to sell one of your huge Monets for even Police Gold Circle brought to you by American Express tix :)

well my understanding is that fetishism implies an attachment to the object itself, the object is loved for what it represents and not for its function...? I dunno, its been a long time since I read up on my marxism...

x-post

THE POLICE
balc 1 - $80
mezz - $120
orch- $200
elite box - $WATER LILLIES

I'm just amazed/saddened that the majority of listeners want a less enveloping musical experience - they don't want MORE, they want LESS. so strange.

I'm just amazed/saddened that the majority of listeners want a less enveloping musical experience - they don't want MORE, they want LESS. so strange.

Except at live reunion shows in arenas, it appears. The peeps love them some explosions!

hey who doesn't

haha our next album will EXPLODE when you listen to it

I think one significant issue that no one ever mentions (i.e. anywhere I know of) is not that the labels were slow to adapt to filesharing (although obv they were and didn't remotely handle it correctly).

I can remember back to 1997 or so when I was basically into stuff like snatching up fonts and warez off of usenet and hotline that I first learned of the mp3 file format itself.

I called my one friend who worked at a major label to essentially warn him about it (so he could bring this to the label president's attention thus making him look like he was really on top of everything-- because he was actually my friend and I wanted him to look good so he could hold on to his as-it-turned-out-tenuous job, not because I wanted to help the majors out in any way).

Anyway, he basically said "ah, that's not gonna mean shit" and i was kinda like, ok, I am really trying to clue you into something that is really happening out there that your company should have a strategy for but whatev., I ain't getting paid for this level of "consulting" so fuck it.

Thing was, all of their technology consultants who were net-booming it up doing for the majors had no vested interest in bringing the issue to their attention (maybe because they wouldn't have known how to integrate a download store into the piss-simple html sites they were building at $250,000 a pop), or else it was just still a really underground (mainly Mac) thing.

I remember there used to be a document floating around the hotline servers called "mp3 wtf?" and i can remember DLing it and being thinking hmmmm, this is interesting. I remember it was quite a while before I actually found any mp3s I actually wanted though!

So Saxby, are you saying the labels were slow to adapt because they couldn't really feasibly adapt at the time? Because that's an interesting point.

Something I've found interesting, and I haven't seen much written about it, is how, now that people talk about brands and the importance of branding, major labels now have virtually no brand association whatsoever. I thought of this when Ahmet Ertegün died, how he built Atlantic records and what that name came to mean. And it was a big record label eventually (though not a major), with a lot of money and a huge acts, and to be on Atlantic was a very important things for bands like Zeppelin. Columbia too, with John Hammond. But now, Jesus -- Epic is still a label in some fashion, and what does it mean to be "on Epic"? Or to be on Sony? Warner Bros. has a little, b/c they took some changes w/ alternative music in the 90s.

it isn't just fetishism tho - its not that I prize the object itself, I like that it contains additional information that supplements the listening experience. This is why those Funkadelic albums, for example, are so great to me, they're packed with stuff that amplifies and informs the music.

Oh I knew you meant that. I was saying that I didn't like the idea that someone could get enjoyment out of the physical product in whatever manner could be reduced to the same level as someone who enjoys feet.

I'll never forget when I found that duffed up copy of America Eats Its Young on the wall at St. Mark's Sounds! It was $40 and I had to make the dude SWEAR that he wouldn't sell it to anyone else while I RAN to the nearest ATM to take out what I am almost sure would have been my last few $.

Wait no, I guess you're saying the tech people at labels just had no reason to alert their bosses. Which might be true. But I've also heard it pointed out that most labels just didn't really have enough tech people working for them at all.

the young people I know

Maybe you should hang out with cooler young people? :P

I feel like I am pretty constantly having conversations with young"er" people about music (admittedly I am also always having conversations with old"er" people about music, as still I wear a lot of band shirts and go to shows).

yeah admittedly my world of young people = relatives/coworkers and whatever young people are on here (which appears to be not a lot)

I have no idea how old anyone on here is, but I think this kind of message-board is not what "the youth of today" are using.

Well I guess I know how old you are haha, but I mean outside of the people I've met and folks who've posted pics/ages I don't really know.

I went for an interview once at WMG's offices in Burbank (it was for an internship in their HR department), and the
recruiter bemoaned the fact that MP3's had insidiously cut into the revenue that labels made from t-shirt sales(!)

in my experience young people who love music are most into shaking their fists at clouds

I have no idea how old anyone on here is, but I think this kind of message-board is not what "the youth of today" are using.

Some may. But then we are speaking of the increasing percentage of youth of today who aren't into the music of today. Pop music listening has become so fragmented these days that even the kids are increasingly fragmented in their listening habits.

While I agree with the author that iTunes is shit at providing context for recordings, the world wide web is pretty good.

Yeah that's the weirdest complaint ever. This is a golden time to learn anything you want about anything. AND BUY A T-SHIRT FOR IT TOO AND GET IT SHIPPED PAINLESS TO YOU WITH LOW CHANCE OF RIPOFF TAKE THAT WMG!

Geir is back!?

They summoned him using the Ask Geir thread.

Geir is the real story here.

I feel like there's a vague kernel of something interesting here, but suspect it may amount to little more than "omg neoliberalism fuXxored everything up and all anyone cares about is bottom line!" which may be true but seems reductive and not helpful.

There is always a vague kernel of truth in every shitty Medium thinkpiece.

"feeling" is itself really complex and has a lot (everything) to do with "mathematics, architecture, symbolism and philosophy"

but thanks for pulling those quotes out so i don't have to waste 30 minutes on another useless thinkpiece

but maybe itunes can give away free buildings with taylor swift albums and then *boom* problem solved