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The Future of the Music Industry

These days, it is difficult to define what the Music Industry really is. Not too long ago, it was all about producing the record, and selling to the masses; that is what truly defined success in the Music Industry. You look around now, and it is no longer an industry about the production of music, but the creation of an identity, one that is shared amongst peers and fellow music fans. In this essay I hope to define these changes, and hopefully begin to address possible solutions to the biggest problem the Music Industry faces today: Tomorrow.

The changing of the Music Industry is very visible in some instances. For example, the growth of iTunes and iPods has changed the way media is distributed. The need for online marketing via MySpace, PureVolume, and similar sites has changed the way music is heard and discovered. But, the core of this change is less obvious. It has taken longer to grow, and draws less press. Business 101 teaches us that for a firm to be successful in an industry, they must allow themselves to change according to demand. This is true across the board, no matter where you work. 10 years ago, an electric car was developed and then tested around various parts of the United States. Successful by many means, the car had good range, impressive performance, and clear reliability. The market at the time thought, had little interest in purchasing electric cars, with the exception of the vast minority (much like the sale of vinyl records are today. They meet a specific target audience, but are in many ways, not profitable). But then, the big “Green Movement” began to take place. Al Gore released his movie, pollution in many cities continually break there own pollution level records, and the ice caps begin to show major changes. The point is, green became marketable. It seemed almost too coincidental that just at that time, the Honda Insight, the first hybrid car came out onto the market (which was then overwhelmed by the success of the Toyota Prius, a car that meet other consumer demands that the Honda Insight could just not meet by being extremely small). It seems like perfect timing, but it was all just based of consumer demand. Now, you see this movement being bigger than ever, and every car company offers these hybrid vehicles, and Chevy is announcing the release of the first ever electric vehicle (over 10 years after the first true electric vehicle was produced, but just not marketed). But, this isn’t an essay about car companies, it is about music companies. What this whole piece is meant to prove is that changing market is not one to fear. Rather, look at the changing market as a profitable opportunity. All I ever hear about is how the Music Industry is changing, and we must “adjust accordingly to survive”. I think the first step to success in the Music Industry would be to change that to “change effectively to win”.

So what are all these changes I keep talking about? At this point I am throwing the word change around so much I am starting to sound like Barack Obama. In most instances, when talking about a changing industry, it is better to identify all of the small details, and change each one individually. This again, works 90% of the time; and this is not where the Music Industry is. That other 10% of the time, demand calls for a drastic change, one that changes the entire flow and structure of an industry to be able to prepare for the future. The reason why this is necessary for the Music Industry, is because the demand has changed so slowly, almost under the radar, but still extremely significant. In my opinion, this change really started with the Beatles. They were in many ways the first group to really identify themselves with a particular audience, and they did a great job doing it. Not too say that this hasn’t bee done before the Beatles, but they really just took it to the next level. I feel like the Beatles style of popularity lasted well into the 70’s, and still does today. But it was in the 70’s that a new style of popularity began to emerge. It was the scene called the anti-scene, and it all started with Punk. Punk created another group that can be still be seen today, this anti-scene group had created its own scene, an identity. This seemed to have lasted throughout the 80’s and 90’s. The big labels made the big bands, the little guys made the little bands. Again, there were exceptions, but this held pretty standard across the board. In the late 90’s, you started to see this fade. The little guys were getting bigger and bigger, and dare I say it, making the Top 40 lists. I feel like in many ways, I would like to call this the Warped Tour generation. The anti-scene had grown to the point where they demanded their own music tour, something that has been done before, but never as successful over time as the Warped Tour has been. When this happened, the big guys found new competition, and the little guys saw wealth and success that had never been realized. Today, you can hear a Brittany Spears song followed by a song by Silversun Pickups on the same radio station. We have reached a point in time where success is no longer determined by the size of your backer, but whether or not the target audience is infiltrated and reached with the music. More than anything, more people are listening to more music. I came to this realization when started hearing some of the indie bands I used to promote being listened to by my friends that I thought only listened to radio rap. Now, it wasn’t that these bands had become big or successful, but they were being heard. The major labels have done things to try and meet this halfway, for example the company I used to work for was a distributer for many smaller labels, by using the large scale means the had available. While a great idea in theory, it holds one simple fallacy, something I will address shortly. Following this, another great invention began to disintegrate the grasp that the major labels had on the Music Industry: iTunes. Now, it seemed anyone could get there music sold to any person, anywhere in the world. This is great for everyone, everyone except the big guys. The problem is the big guys base business success off the number of sales. Big CD sales, huge concert tours, this was how the money was made. CD’s, still the number 1 means of sale for music, cost anywhere from 12-18 dollars. The profit made off of the one CD sale can be broken into the profit made per individual track. What iTunes does is allow the sale of just a single track, say the hit song off an album. Now, while the profit made on the sale of that 1 song through iTunes is greater than the profit made off the individual song through the CD, the total profit is greatly decreased. The big guy’s strength is in numbers, through their mass distribution capabilities, big budget promotion, and general song popularity. The little guy’s strength is producing music that more fits the need of specific audiences, an exact sound that one is looking for. Remember that fallacy I mentioned before? Well, that was it. If the little guy’s strength is the ability to meet a market niche, then how does the big guy’s capability of mass distribution and high volume sales really help? The answer is it doesn’t.