Biggest reason for music biz crash???

matttheaxe said:
they caused it by buying cheap Chinese crap over the last 20 years.

Who's really to blame here?
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Anyone who shops at Wal-Mart, by that logic. Should be called China-Mart. But aren't the business owners who continue to send business to China to increase their profits just as guilty if not more so? Even traditionally US made - and still expensive - things are now made offshore. I saw a $200 Milwaukee (a bit ironic, no?) drill: Assembled in Mexico with parts made in the Philippines. But almost everything is now made in China. Our debt and trade imbalance with the Chinese is horrifying...and nobody is willing to change at all.

Even Japanese brands are made in China. If I had to throw away all the Chinese made goods in my studio, I'd have exactly three things left: A Langevin DVR Pre/Channel strip (made here in CA), which, BTW is the most expensive item by far in my studio, and two Rode mikes, made in Aus. At least they were 10 years ago when I bought them. Probably made in China today.
 
Mindset said:
Actually you'll be surprised. Despite illegal downloads, the music industry as a whole has been steadily increasing revenue. A pretty good chunk too. IE Lady Gaga sold over 40 million single downloads from 2 songs off her last album. Thats just 2 songs no printing/packaging.
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And how much does iTunes keep? Most of it.


Mindset said:
As for sounds for commodities, that does not necessary mean downfall in the arts. It really means, more outlets & clients. Before, there was not much of a need for music except for the entertainment so to speak. These days, you have elevator music, on hold music, little games at theme parks. Sound reproduction itself, is now used ever more in life.
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I almost completely disagree. I distinctly remember elevator music, theme park music, on hold music and pinball machine music in the 70's. Even Kmart had background music back then. These aren't new things at all. What is relatively new is how much of this stuff we carry around with us instead of having to go somewhere to experience it.
 
Farview said:
And how much does iTunes keep? Most of it.
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iTunes doesn't keep most of it.

I sell songs on iTunes and my understanding is that I, like Lady Gaga, keep 71% and iTunes gets 29%.

I remember reading back in the 80's that Hall and Oates got 25 cents off of each album they sold, and albums were going for around $8 back then. That's 1/32 versus near 3/4 nowadays for the artist.
 
In the end it doesn't make much difference because when they had LP records they actually sold tons and there was a lot of money flying around.

Hopefully after this economic chaos changes into the next thing there will be more realistic opportunities to make the 71% amount to something.
 
Farview said:
And how much does iTunes keep? Most of it.


I almost completely disagree. I distinctly remember elevator music, theme park music, on hold music and pinball machine music in the 70's. Even Kmart had background music back then. These aren't new things at all. What is relatively new is how much of this stuff we carry around with us instead of having to go somewhere to experience it.
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I should have reworded that, not trying to say these things are new. The guy was saying that music for commodities was because of the downfall of music. My point is that theres many outlets for music, and its not going away ever. Just as music has been around since we existed. And pretty much the business of music as well.
 
How about a little more basic:

EVERY band out there now is a copy of about 5-10 bands in various gendres.
Everything sounds the same and no one cares.
 
The record companies had it to good, too easy for too long. Now they are complaining. Well it's 2010 and the model has changed. Time they did as well.

Part of the problem is in trying to determine what music is worth. Itunes has decided it is 99 cents/song. Not bad. A lot of people are willing to pay that. But a whole lot more keep on downloading P2P.

I read an article that determined a song should cost 5 cents. This was a point where people would buy it, not illegally download it. The amount of money that would be made would then give every recording artist (not a few glorified superstars) enough to do their art full time and not have to sell burgers to supplement their career.

What I'm afraid of is Apple or Google or Microsoft decides to just buy all the music period. Record companies used to be the big companies and now Apple could write a cheque and buy them all! Take over the digital music realm and tell us what is good and what we should listen to. Just like the record companies used to do.
 
The previous replies do confirm the facts about the music biz in general.
There are still labels making Cd's and artists making millions.
There is also WAY more exposure for lesser known artists.
It's not dead, but rather alive, just in a newer, less romantic reality.

I call it a crash because of the cheapening of the musical product.
It follows many other sectors of our economy lately.
Gone it seems are the days when you sit back and listen to the big 12" record and stare at the cover wondering what it would be like to the in the band.

It's like an artist spending hours and hours producing a design for a website, only to find it lost within hundreds of pages of cheaply made (but incredibly good) layouts on endless websites.

If it wasn't for this nagging internal drive to do this, I swear I'd move on to golf or something.:rolleyes:
 
When long ago, there was nothing but live music, and then came the phonograph. Half of them were sitting there like aw we're going to shit because nobody will come and listen live. fast forward, then the gen when records were taken by tapes then cd's. :laughings::drunk:
 
We're programmed to respond to emergencies. If you spend a year making a beautiful painting and another person has a photograph of a gory car accident people will have to look at the car accident first.

You see that all the time. All the news channels want to shock you. The sky is falling. A lady throws a cat in a dumpster. It's pretty pathetic really that that stuff gets higher billing than actual good art.

But it's far from over. In many ways it's better than it has been at other times. Everything is fine except the money. If the money was there things couldn't be better. The whole problem is: if you can get the Beatles for free off of YouTube, then pro rated, what is your stuff worth? What percentage of zero? Sick but that's the problem. It has to make money because it costs money to make. :(
 
Maybe it's more just that the world has moved on.

Music's great and everything, but it's just a form of entertainment. 15 years ago, music, magazines, books and TV were the only things around, so music didn't have as much competition. Now, the internet (and by extension, Facebook, Youtube, MSN Messenger, etc) can occupy whole days single-handedly, videogames pick up what remains, movies are there for the quiet time, and music doesn't really have an entry other than that as background noise.
 
FYI guys, just got a huge placement. A production piece was sold to the teenage kiddo Justin Beiber. Will be his newest single on his next release :cool: How lucrative? $20K+ is all I will say.
 
I read the first page so maybe someone else already brought up this point.

Music totally sucks ass these days. I think music has lost most of it's artistic value. If you follow trends and marketing and you take a look at the biggest people in the music industry today they are all fake persona's and basically puppets going through the motion of acting like an artist for a pay check.

It's all assembly line bull shit. No one is trying to do anything new or creative. Music has lost it's soul. It's fake instruments and auto tuned vocals. It DOES NOT provoke thought. It does not inspire. The only influence music today has on people is to spend money on shit they don't need like fancy cars and designer clothes so they can live the pimp life.

I haven't heard anyone trying to do something a little different or pioneering new music. Everyone thinks their music is the shit and if you don't play their music or use the same equipment you don't know anything and you're stupid. Everyone is too opinionated, too cool and too scared to try something new...
 
OP, P2P sharing is NOT killing the music industry. That's complete bull. Think about it this way, usually people go on to P2P sites to download a single that they heard on the radio. They search up the artist, and get the song they want, but then they see their others songs and are like, "eh, what the hell?", and they download them. Then they hear the songs and like them a lot, then that artist becomes one of their favorite bands and they'll be willing to spend good money to go to their concerts, some people will actually buy the CDs, others will buy merchandise, etc...Honestly, they make money no matter what! A LOT of it.

You know all that mainstream music you hear on the radio? Ke$ha, and Taylor Swift and all that? Everyday, there must be at LEAST a million copies of their songs downloaded on the internet.

If you think in iTunes terms, that's 1 million dollars not gained every day. Yet, how do these celebrities still end up on the millionaires list basically overnight? Look at Justin Beiber, that kid is LOADED, and one of his songs was one of the highest "illegally" downloaded songs in 2010. Just the concerts, tours, merchandise, the album sales, iTunes sales, is more than enough to have turned this simple YouTube teen kid into a millionaire in less than 6 months. As an artist, i'd love to have people "buy" my CD, but if people are downloading it, that doesn't really tell me that they're stealing from me, as much as it is "They fucking love my music, and are breaking the law to even listen to it!

The music business is not really crashing. If anything, it's always growing. At least in terms of payout and money flow. As said before, so many of these young start ups are making millions in a short time just because of some stupid single that plays 20 times on the radio. Once they're done, they wash out. Nobody gives a damn about them, because they only hit the inspiration pot once. They made a song, it was popular, and then they can't think of anything else. It's so sad to see that you barely see real bands like Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin, and such. They had to work their asses off to even be given a chance.

Here's a tip to everyone: Go out and party, come home, get out Fruity Loops and write a song about how cool it was, upload to YouTube and watch the millions roll in. :p
 
Who is to blame? Here is my treatise on the subject:

When I was a teenager scraping dollars together from shit jobs, I was robbed by record companies, and paid $18 for a George Michael's CD. And I must have spent 1000 of $$ on CDs in high school and college. Let's face it as a young lad, music is your life cause you hate life.

Fast forward to my twenties, where I was determined to get into the music biz and started interning and temping at record labels like Capitol at NYC. Their offices were gratuitous and like 5 star hotels. Workers who did nothing, but send me on errands all day long to trade CDs with their buddies at other record labels or MTV. Yes, this was my job- take this Radiohead CD that I should use for promo to this friend at Epic and bring me back a Pearl Jam CD instead. Marketing money being wasted and passed on to the end consumer. So a CD that costs 50 cents to make and $5 to promote was being sold for $18.

At the A&R department, the picture was not much better- gratuitous expense accounts in the name of scouting talent.

I love it that record labels are crumbling now and all the fat has been cut. This is my revenge. And don't think of course that any of this luxury was passed on to the poor indentured artist, who ended up being shafted left and right. The record labels are themselves to blame for being greedy and mismanaging their business and exploiting everyone in the food chain. Kids, go on and download like crazy and spend your music money going to shows or creating music yourselves.

Music itself has now turned out to be the free promo sticker for artists. What will make money for artists (and any artist still tied to a label must be insane) are performances, merchandising, licensing, endorsements etc.

Artists need to think of themselves as any business should. You make an investment in the business by putting out music which costs XYZ to produce and promote. This is your investment and don't expect to actually sell your music (though if you do, that's great). On the back of your music, which is your calling card, you can generate other avenues for revenues such as from performances, merchandising etc.

Music biz is not dead for artists but it's dead for labels. Long gone are the fat days of cool parties and backstage passes, patting each other on the shoulder with a glass of wine and chatting to Thom Yorke thinking you are so cool and so great. Thom Yorke thought you were a dweeb back then and now he stuck it to you :D
 
Music isn't getting any better though. It's worse. Home recording and the whole indie stick-it-to-the-label youtube/myspace/facebook mentality has enabled millions of people that suck to have a "voice" and it has severely watered down the talent pool.
 
Agree. But on the other hand, the gate keepers are gone. People who used to be at the mercy of some A&R rep now can shine through if their stuff is good enough.
 
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