Rocketdog2000

Poor sales would be an excuse if an artist's album didn't do as well as the last - say there was a 10% or so difference in drop off. But when almost everyone's album sales drop by 60 to 80%, that's no longer poor sales. Something else is the culprit. Having the perspective of actually seeing this happen from the business end of things, and exactly around the same time as the insurgence of P2P sites taking off, it leaves little doubt as to what caused it.

I've heard conversations in stores many times, where two kids will be talking. One of them was going to buy a CD, and his friend says "Why pay for it, when you can get it free online?", and then nothing ends up being bought/sold. There's a whole generation of folks who grew up with more instant gratification wants than any before it, and access to an internet that easily enabled them. These same people thinking it was acceptable to just take stuff for free online, because it was made readily available, and because no one told them or really did anything to show them it was wrong. Kids who didn't see the outcome of the bigger picture, or the consequences of their actions - only giving a shit about pleasing themselves. The same kids who in past generations, without the same options, would have been purchasing the same albums they were now just stealing. That's where your major drop off in sales happened.

It's easy not to see or perceive it when you're not confronted with it on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. However, when you are, you understand it a whole lot differently.

GreenVulture

So basically, what you're saying is that the music industry is refusing to accept certain realities and adapt to current times.

bubba111

I know this is about music specifically, but many industries are facing contraction / game-changing business model shifts, including previously 'recession-proof' professions like lawyers. Financial regulation has the potential to even curb the excesses and shrink the financial banking industry. Bottom line is that today our world changes much faster than it did before, and industries / employees who are unwilling to adapt will be left behind.

No way do I condone illegal downloading -- I don't do it and am a fuddy duddy who still likes owning a physical product. I have 2000+ CDs (although Netflix has caused me to virtually stop buying DVDs/Blu-Rays and sell off most I did have). The reality is that downloading is here and music has become commoditized, is less important to today's generation who don't have the attention span to listen to a full album or relegate music solely to the background, must compete with video games / facebook, etc. etc.

EVERYONE is facing the difficulties of a depressed economic climate and the uncertainties of rapid and drastic changes in business climates and business models. If musicians and the industry don't adapt, no one will cry for their demise.

B5Erik

Well, adapting to current times means, what? Just giving their product away for free? Since those already stealing it will never pay for it there doesn't seem to be a business model that will allow the record industry to make money off their product as long as those people can steal it.

Really? I will. Not being able to buy new high quality music will be very depressing. Without a physical product to sell bands won't be able to make money - not the kind of money they need to survive. I will cry for the demise of the music industry and the musicians whose product they sold.

Giantrobo

Yep.

I work in Radio and I hear this almost every time we have our management meeting. If you don't change and adapt YOU GET YOUR ASS HANDED TO YOU AND THEN YOU DIE.

And no, no one is saying that they should give the product away for free; and no, I don't have the answer.

GreenVulture

Yeah see, whenever somebody brings this up, I have to call bullshit, since there's a) no real way to track how many times the album has been downloaded (most times they just pick a public torrent site and view the stats) and b) there's no way to gauge how many people had any intention of buying the album in the first place. I know A LOT of people who download just to download, and have a very small (if that) interest in the music they're grabbing. So I'm not even sure how that can be counted as a lost sale.

Some random ideas:

- Cease wasting money on making commercials and ads for TV/radio/print. I'd focus exclusively on promoting music videos as well as offer up any and all music free for fair use in videos for Youtube/Google/Vimeo, etc. and get extremely aggressive in licensing music for movies/TV/games.

- Price all albums in the $8 - $9 range for the physical CD, $5 for a download.

- Entice people to buy the physical album with extras, like posters, stickers, a code to download the album in MP3 format, maybe even a link offering ticket discounts to a future concert? Try to give each act a unique but uniform packaging look that targets collectors and OCD sufferers (a la the Criterion Collection).

- Push to offer consumers more downloading choices from iTunes/Amazon/whatever (ie, lossless audio).

- Lower the price of individual MP3s (50 cents per song or so).

- Give people a "try before you buy" option. None of this 30-second sample bullshit; I'm talking streaming the entire album (encrypted and at a low bitrate, of course).

- Offer discount/special MP3 or album deals on websites, on a regular basis. (AKA the Steam model)

- Pissed that we're offering a newly remastered/expanded version of an album you already have? Send us the old CD, and we'll send you the new one for a reduced fee. (AKA the DVD/HD2Blu model)

- Like Suprmallet said, really embrace the fanbase as opposed to treating them as people who give you money:
* Record all concerts from the soundboard, let them download it for a small fee
* Perhaps make contests for meet & greets, help design promotional material, have random drawings for backstage access at shows
* Try to work out deals with various sites that let you design & sell your own t-shirts, stickers, etc. and people who do fan posters and let everyone get a piece of the profit (the company, the artist, the act and the website) in return for not suing their asses for copyright infringement

- Pull a Gene Simmons and merchandise the shit out of acts, but at decent prices, and offer discounts for bulk purchases, both online and at shows: isn't the average cost of a concert t-shirt $30 or so? (Haven't been to a show in several years.) That is beyond absurd for some piece of cheaply stitched cotton made in a sweatshop.

Granted, a lot of what I'm posting is already being done, but it's only being done here and there, and mainly for the big acts, when it should be done across the board for everyone. I have no clue if any of this would work (I'm sure some business major can tell me why each of these ideas would fail) or help deter piracy, but the music industry has to realize that things are not going to go back to the glory days when Napster was just a gleam in Shawn Fanning's eye, that piracy is going nowhere, and the harder they try to get rid of it, the more people are going to push them away.

UAIOE

I have to admit that music has lost some perceived value. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but its value in the minds of the consumer has diminished.

I really do miss the days of radio listening and being excited when ____'s new song premiered on the radio and you had to wait for the album/single. The intertubes took that away, now the moment things like that drop, its right there instantly.

That being said, I think (as a music fan) the best use of the current era is more promotion for concerts and special albums than anything. I'm not asking for free albums, but a free song to promote an album certainly can't hurt.

And also: music labels need to quit taking down music videos off of Youtube and the lot. A prime source of promotion, and they kill it, doing nothing but pissing off fans.

Rocketdog2000

No. That would be dealing with a symptom of the cause, but not the actual cause, itself. The industry is adapting, but true, as I've previously stated, they should have done that as soon as it started happening, and maybe there wouldn't be the problem it's become. I would also hope you're being at least somewhat sarcastic, or else I can only conclude you're being as ignorant as the very people I described as being the problem.

I agree with the second part, but not the first. Actually some labels are making strides at setting album sales at $10 - which seems to be the magic number.

When was the last time you bought a CD? This has already been going on for years, not that it seems to be helping much.

Ok, all good ideas.

Amazon does this all the time, although many artists aren't necessarily fans of it, as they lose money.

Now that, I 100% agree with!

Dan

99% of artists are not business men/women. They don't know HOW to market themselves... that used to be the label's job.

rocket1312

The thing that rubs me the wrong way is the reverse is also true. People justify their illegal downloading by pointing out the wrongdoings and various missteps of the record industry.

Hokeyboy

I like what many artists are doing, which is basically releasing small batches of songs at regular intervals (Rush and "Weird" Al, for instance), rather than spend months or years in the studio to do a single 80 minute album, then a year or longer touring, then back into the studio, rinse lather repeat... It makes the music more immediate, spontaneous, and if you drop 3 tunes for $3 bucks or less, people are more inclined to buy it than $10-$15 on an album which for all intents and purposes could be a crapshoot. Unless you steal it. Then there's no risk.

Remove the risk, drop the cost, see how it turns out. Eventually you can do a proper album release or even maintain the album model (I wouldn't want to see it go away, just that there are alternatives).

The Bus

You're confusing "music" the art with the "music" as the current model of a marketing and distribution industry. The former is alive, the latter, as all business models, is changing.

Anyone that says there is no good music anymore has lost their taste (and just wants to hear more of what they heard in high school and college), or has no idea how to find good music.

This is the most insightful post you've ever written.

That argument again.

The "low-end" band I most recently saw live was Los Campesinos! I've downloaded one of their albums but I went to their first live show simply on the strength of one of their singles ("You! Me! Dancing!") that I could listen to, whenever I wanted to, on YouTube. This was about three years ago.

Since then, I've seen them live three times (never paying more than $15) and bought ~$50 of merchandise. I imagine the check they got for the use of their song in the new Bud Heavy commercials is substantial.

The "low-end" bands will do fine. Bands that expect to make millions from selling CDs and charging people $60 to go to an arena show will not. And the lampreys attached to these artists expecting to make millions on the ride are also in for a rude awakening.



I remember as late as 2000 still seeing a $19.99 CD (specifically, the Nutty Professor 2 soundtrack); this was at a mall-like store (Coconuts, Sam Goody, The Wall).

FYE has most CDs for $9 or so. Had they done this 15 years earlier, the music industry would be much different.

I used to spend, easily, $100 a month on CDs. I spend $40 a year now, if that.

But, I'm still spending a lot of money on music. My gut instinct tells me artists are getting more of my money now than they did 15 years ago.

Coral

This I really never understood.

The whole point to the music video was to promote the song/artist so people would buy the music and go to the concerts. Youtube/Internet is a great way to spread the word... and cheap. So they spend all this money on making a music video but don't want it up on Youtube. Where does one see a music video on TV nowadays? I can't remember the last time I saw a music video on TV... maybe in the early 90's? How am I supposed to see it if it's not on Youtube?

The music industry's worst enemy is the music industry.

Chrisedge

Most of my live videos of bands I shot, have ads next to them (band gets paid)...None have been taken down.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Chrisedge

orangecrush

I think they would do quite well to make their digital offerings much cheaper ($1-$3 for cataloge titles and no more than $5 for new releases). With rampent piracy, your product is now a comodity and should be priced as such. This is what movie companies have done with DVDs in China to combat piracy.

This won't stop the people who pirate music as a means of filling up a few TB externals, but it will greatly increase revenues. If one could get a record from Itunes for $2, they wouldn't bother pirating it. Make music impulse buy cheap and you will sell truckloads more.

Mikael79

Absolutely agree with you on all counts.

Giantrobo

Groucho

Along the same lines, what's up with movie studios taking down trailers for upcoming films from YouTube?

GreenVulture

That's why I said most of my ideas have already been implemented. But as I said, it should be done for everyone, not just the big acts.

I'm not buying that. Would you rather have 20 people buy your album at $10, or 100 people buy it at $5? Are you really going to tell me that with some money vs. no money, the label and the act would choose the latter?

Mabuse

The only thing that is "changing" about the music industry is that it used to be an industry where many, many people could make a living, even people with no musical ability. An industry of marketing, A&R, distribution, manufacturing, studio rent, accountants, managers, publicists, etc. The efforts (and careers) of all these people was directed toward selling millions of units in order to sustain a very expensive industry. New media chanels are making it possible for an artist to not utilize this giant industy. The artist sells fewer units, but pockets more money than if they had sold millions.

Pirates schmirates, the industry is changing. The only people complaining are the dinosaurs. The only people losing money are the people who don't know how to play the new game. Right now the music scene being pushed into the top 40 is of generally poor quality because the music industry is still operating under the old rules, and is only interested in acts that are willing to sign a contract to be promoted by the old rules. The really interesting music is being put out by alternative means. The change in the industry is making the music scene much more interesting.

There may not be the potential for an artist to be Madonna big, but a small band that would have never made a dime can be "comfortable" even if they don't sell big. If a band can pocket $4 per album sold, they only need to sell 200,000 units to earn as much as going platinum with a record industry contract that nets them $0.25 per unit. You can be relatively small time and still make good money.

Chrisedge

This is the truth...While I love big bands with multi-million dollar tours, I also love guys that sell cd's at shows, charge a fair amount for their shows, and I know they pocket most of it. I always try and support shows/artists like that that are doing on their own, and for the love of music...

Josh-da-man

Because they own the movie trailers and music videos, and they're only going to let you watch them when and how they want you to watch those promotional materials, goddammit!

Every time someone watches a twenty year old music video on Youtube, they're knocking food out of the mouths of some unemployed audio engineer's starving child. It doesn't matter if there's no other way to view the video clip, it's the principle of the whole thing.

UAIOE

I know you're being facetious, but I just can't understand how music videos can be taken down for "copyright infringement" and then the labels themselves don't even bother to post up the videos themselves.

Or worse, when the video remains, but the music is muted. Why would you shoot yourself in the foot like that?


There are no good guys in this game. You got the people making up iffy excuses to download tons of music, while you have music labels doing nothing but treating the ones who do buy music like criminals.

If I buy the goddamn CD, I don't need to hear some record label dipshit wiggle his/her finger & tell me I'm a terrible person because I make a copy to play in the car. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

Rocketdog2000

I'll agree with most of the first part, and wholeheartedly agree on the latter statement. To me, there's a big difference between actually buying the CD and making a copy for yourself, and just making a copy off a file you downloaded off the internet for free. Once you've actually paid for the CD, you should be able to make a copy for yourself. As long as you aren't selling the copies, or uploading them onto the net, so that everyone else can take it for free, then what you do with it after you pay for it should be up to you. Hell, even I make copies of CD's I've bought, so that I can keep the original in as mint shape as possible.

nodeerforamonth

I do it all the time too! I buy a lot of import CDs that I can get in the US. If I'm spending up to $30 for a single CD, you can be damn sure I'm going to make a backup copy!