Issue #59
Last Update September 23, 2008
Arts The Content Issue by Gert Innsry June 8, 2007 The music industry has been reeling from the impact of new technologies, and is blaming its current downtrend on this issue. Frantically pursuing a technological solution that would boost its revenues, the industry has espoused punitive digital rights management schemes and enforced them ruthlessly, angering its customer base. Harboring the fantasy that every digital copy made by consumers or downloaded from the web is a lost sale, they dream of somehow recapturing these lost dollars. They are missing the major reason their revenues are down.
True, technology has an impact. Album sales, the mainstay of the industry since the LP replaced 45 and 78 rpm records, are way down. Consumers are now able to choose those songs they think are good, legally download them for a fee, and ignore the rest. The days of forcing a listener to buy twelve songs when he or she really only wants one or two are over. This is, in fact, a major clue to dropping sales figures: the public thinks that the product stinks.
Bands with the drawing power of the Beatles or the Rolling Stones don't exist today. Singer-songwriters with the power of a Dylan are not in evidence. The industry is finding it harder and harder to push unexciting music to the buyer. The only really important function of a music label is to locate and promote talent, and they are failing at this task.
Technology has made this obvious to the listener: the ability of a potential buyer to sample the music (for free) by downloading or listening to streaming audio on the internet (or by being given a copy by a friend) is far greater than in the old days of radio. The buyer is empowered to make an informed choice, for the first time in generations, and the purveyors of music don't like the results.
Has there been a drop in compositional and performance quality, or is it merely that the major labels aren't finding it? A little of the former, and a lot of the latter, I think. Music education in the schools has been all but eliminated; private music instruction has diminished; children spend their time watching TV, playing video and computer games, and listening to ipods. Without training, it's hard to be original. Similarly, the breadth of musical genres young audiences are typically exposed to is very narrow; originality often arises from cross fertilization between genres.
Nevertheless, there is plenty of good music out there, in all genres. Music labels need to be more active in finding it, or they will be left in the dust by musicians who have found other methods of distributing their work.
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