The REAL Death of the Music Industry

February 20, 2011 3:31 PM

In his analysis The REAL Death of the Music Industry, BI author Michael DeGusta denounces inaccuracies in a recently circulating chart (source). A further analysis of the situation is provided: the music industry is actually doing much worse than the Bain chart implies.

From the analysis:

Wrong: The music industry is down around 40% from its peak in 1999
Correct: The music industry is down 64% from its peak.
Wrong: At least the music industry is almost 4 times better off than in 1973.
Correct: The music industry is actually down 45% from where it was in 1973.
Wrong: The CD era was the aberration. (Mr. Gruber’s reasonable take)
Correct: The CD peak was only 13% better than the vinyl peak, not over 250% better as the Bain chart implies.

posted by knz (79 comments total)

Oh, btw: Frank Zappa had the idea for digital music subscription services in 1983. His plan was you buy the subscription, then record audio to tape via the telephone or cable. Pretty crazy.
posted by delmoi at 3:36 PM on February 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

Good lord, the movie industry and the music industry both died on the same day on MetaFilter.

.
.
posted by tomswift at 3:36 PM on February 20, 2011 [5 favorites]

Adjusting the graph for inflation makes sense, but I don't think per-capita values are what we want for whatever conversation it is we're having here.
posted by Bokononist at 3:47 PM on February 20, 2011

Adjusting the graph for inflation makes sense, but I don't think per-capita values are what we want for whatever conversation it is we're having here.

Please elaborate.
posted by dubitable at 3:50 PM on February 20, 2011

Bokonomist has a point. When people on the news say the housing market grew by x% (not that they say that these days) they aren't saying x% per capita.
posted by snofoam at 3:53 PM on February 20, 2011

Is the death of the music industry the reason I'm going broke trying to afford all the awesome bands coming to Aus?
Serious question
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 3:58 PM on February 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Lovecraft, we certainly aren't living through the death of music. It may be more accurate to say the death of the recorded music industry, and this is certainly dying.
posted by snofoam at 4:02 PM on February 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

Please elaborate.

Per-capita spending just doesn't seem like the normal benchmark used in talking about these things. Companies don't report their profits on per-capita basis. An industry is fairly described as growing if it's profits are increasing, even if it's not "keeping up" with a projection that builds population growth into it.
posted by Bokononist at 4:03 PM on February 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Is the death of the music industry the reason I'm going broke trying to afford all the awesome bands coming to Aus?
Serious question

Arguably so. Time was, touring was a way to sell records. Now, it's where you make your money.

At least, as I understand it. And I'm no industry insider.
posted by IndigoJones at 4:04 PM on February 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

I wish he hadn't grouped the categories—I'd be curious to see how much momentum some of the minor/failed formats achieved before petering out (particularly the early tape formats and SACD/DVD-A). Not $25 curious though.
posted by Lazlo at 4:06 PM on February 20, 2011

I think bands make most of their money off merchandise. It's why I always buy shirts and CDs at shows
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:07 PM on February 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

A further analysis of the situation is provided: the music industry is actually doing much worse than the Bain chart implies.

Pardon me while I burst into tears and make frantic, incoherent calls to my therapist.
posted by jason's_planet at 4:07 PM on February 20, 2011 [6 favorites]

Good. I await the fascinating process of watching what replaces it.

(If China is any indication, product endorsements for big pop artists and concerts/merch for both large and small artists).
posted by jaduncan at 4:10 PM on February 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

And by "Music Industry", what is actually meant is "RIAA labels, instead of the indie artists that people actually listen to and buy from these days".

20 years of me buying albums from Warp Records does not add to that chart one penny.
posted by legion at 4:10 PM on February 20, 2011 [13 favorites]

Bokononist has it, The second to last graph in the first link is what we should be looking at
posted by Blasdelb at 4:13 PM on February 20, 2011

Bands should be paid the same way I am: by the hour.
posted by blue_beetle at 4:15 PM on February 20, 2011

Next up, the book industry, comic industry, film industry...

And compounding the problem, concert attendance is down among young people.
posted by bobo123 at 4:15 PM on February 20, 2011

I am also confused by the use of per capita values. The population is aging, with a much higher percentage of retirees now than in the '70s & '80s, so it seems to me that there should be no expectation at all that per capita music spending would remain constant. Just measure the revenues and adjust for inflation to get an apples to apples comparison of the size of the industry over time. The aging population might be one factor to explore when looking for answers, but for the purposes of the graph, I think it muddies the waters.
posted by gimli at 4:16 PM on February 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Given the all caps in the FPP, I was expecting the blame to fall to REALPlayer.

(p.s. the music industry has been dying ever since I can remember (which is about 1974). Same with the film industry. It was always better in the past. Fuck that shit.)
posted by chavenet at 4:16 PM on February 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

The first thing my friends and I said when we saw the Bain chart was that we wanted to see the numbers adjusted for inflation. And is anyone shocked that US recorded music revenue started going down after the dot.com boom broke and keeps taking more hits for things like war and entering into a recession?
posted by immlass at 4:17 PM on February 20, 2011

And by "Music Industry", what is actually meant is "RIAA labels, instead of the indie artists that people actually listen to and buy from these days".

Exactly. And a lot of the so-called "doing much worse" of the so-called "music industry" is because musicians no longer require their services. Any boo-hooing being done by the RIAA ostensibly on behalf of musicians is nothing but artificially baloney-flavoured crocodile tears.

Make a chart that removes all but the artists' share of the profits, and I'll bet it looks a lot less apocalyptic.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:21 PM on February 20, 2011 [7 favorites]

Could I please see a graph of revenues per year for hit songs vs. album filler songs?
posted by germdisco at 4:22 PM on February 20, 2011

As commenters to the original piece noted, these stats don't capture sync, touring, acting, endorsing, merchandising or the performance rights part of publishing -- and reckoning per capita is interesting, but now how any industry's growth is conventionally reckoned.

The industry will be fine.

Digital revenues will sharply increase through a combination of carrot (more and better services) and stick (better anti-piracy efforts, and possibly internet equivalents to blank-tape taxes).

There will be a big business model divide.

Labels will focus relentlessly on finding and grooming young superstars and use 360 degree deals to capture more of their non-track-sale revenue. They'll make plenty.

Higher-IQ-audience and established talent (of all flavors) will dispense with major labels and publishers and do quite nicely on 60%-70% of track revenues vs. the old 20% for those who wrote their own songs and recorded them for majors. They'll keep all their ancillaries, too.
posted by MattD at 4:25 PM on February 20, 2011

It may be semantics, but even if individual artists could all do well selling directly to fans the INDUSTRY is still dead. That's what the graphs are about.
posted by snofoam at 4:26 PM on February 20, 2011

the INDUSTRY is still dead

Ding, dong.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:29 PM on February 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

And a lot of the so-called "doing much worse" of the so-called "music industry" is because musicians no longer require their services.

There's a lot of truth in this. Or I think there is. I mean, out of the music that I listen to (admittedly probably pretty pedestrian tastes), four of the bands have left established labels and gone out on their own in the past couple of years. And that's just four bands that I can think of off the top of my head, out of my slice of the music-listening pie.

I'd love to see something more comprehensive which examines factors like this more thoroughly. I think that the gatekeeper seems to no longer be needed, to some extent, and that may indeed be impacting music industry sales figures.

I know I learned a while back that the best way to buy music and know that the band is getting a fair cut is to buy directly from the artist, either through their website (if it's not a resale portal) or at their shows. I've tried to stick to that as much as possible. I'm sure such things are not well-reflected in such charts as these.
posted by hippybear at 4:32 PM on February 20, 2011

I don't care when, how, or why the music industry is dying, I just want it to get done doing so.

I tried writing the RIAA a letter calling them evil rat bastards (but with more words). My letter bounced unopened. I got the address from their website (linked in the first article). It bounced. There's a metaphor in there somewhere. The address is still there, so don't believe me, write your own letter.
posted by cjorgensen at 4:32 PM on February 20, 2011

I would much rather see a profit chart vs. a revenue chart that takes into account all sources of profit. This includes actual audio sales to ad money made from videos to per-play royalties to movie & TV song licensing. There are many more sources of profit for the record companies today than there were 30 years ago so failing to encapsulate that seems like a fairly large omission.
posted by thorny at 4:32 PM on February 20, 2011

Did anyone else get the RIAA settlement check? I got one. I never cashed it and I had a plan to frame it or something, but, I forgot what I did with it. I guess it's sitting in a pile of old papers somewhere.
posted by delmoi at 4:48 PM on February 20, 2011

Digital revenues will sharply increase through a combination of carrot (more and better services) and stick (better anti-piracy efforts, and possibly internet equivalents to blank-tape taxes).

Unlikely. They're carrots are substandard compared to what is currently available free, partly because of your first stick. Taxes are probably their best hope, but they'd have to fight with every other disrupted industry for a piece.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:58 PM on February 20, 2011

I think if someone looked at record company revenues and profits these would also be declining. I also don't see any evidence for or reason to anticipate the rosy scenarios in this thread will come to pass. It would be cool, but I think it is optimistic conjecture at this point.
posted by snofoam at 4:59 PM on February 20, 2011

Yep. Stupid charts, because although they may reflect what The Music Industry measures, they do not have much bearing on what musicians make. (Besides music, that is.)

Pathetically little, is the answer, and touring/merchandise, as mentioned above, makes up a a huge part of the missing pie chart.

The intersection between art and commerce is uglier than is sausage-making or law-making. The music industry has degraded more rapidly than other art forms in this regard, I think.

Another thing missing in the "charts" is: working in clubs. Back in the Seventies, playing the hits, I would bring home fifty bucks a night. It seems like fifty bucks a night is not unusual today, either. But, back then, you could rent an apartment for a hundred bucks or so a month.
posted by kozad at 5:06 PM on February 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think that the gatekeeper seems to no longer be needed

I think this is applies pretty unevenly across bands, though, doesn't it? Big-name bands don't need the industry any more, they can strike off on their own (modulo Ticketmaster and suchlike). Tiny bands don't need the industry any more than they ever did; they can continue playing local bars and having day jobs. It's the big slice of pie in the middle that's crumbling: how does a band go from being essentially a hobby that makes a small amount of money, to a self-supporting career, without the investment of money, business acumen, etc., that the record industry supposedly supplies? Somebody's gotta take a risk on the new bands, right? Who?

(In Hattifattener Fantasy World, this could be done by established bands. They already do, kinda-sometimes, by having lesser-known bands tour with them and open for them. This is a form of sponsorship or patronage…)
posted by hattifattener at 5:09 PM on February 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

How many boy bands did they think it would take before the system broke?
Sure stealing music is bad...expecting people to buy bad music is another. I can't remember the last current music I bought--it was probably the William Shatner CD with Henry Rollins & Ben Folds.
posted by ironbob at 5:10 PM on February 20, 2011

Vinyl record sales are up.

Also, there is a lot of argument since this data is usually collected from major retailers, and does not take into effect independent record labels and stores.
posted by xtine at 5:17 PM on February 20, 2011

Bands should be paid the same way I am: by the hour.

By which hours? The ones they spend writing and rehearsing, or just the hours they're in front of you and others?

Not much of a fan of the music industry as it stands myself, and I'm sure music will survive just fine both both as art and enterprise of one kind or another, no matter what happens. But I think we will lose something if we don't have practices which let artists invest and potentially recoup.
posted by weston at 5:17 PM on February 20, 2011

Oh and I was going to say: A lot of bands make money licensing their music for commercials now. Vampire Weekend and The Black Keys were on Colbert having a 'who sold out the most' debate and each of them had 3 or so songs in commercials.
posted by delmoi at 5:18 PM on February 20, 2011

MattD: The industry will be fine.

Digital revenues will sharply increase through a combination of carrot (more and better services) and stick (better anti-piracy efforts, and possibly internet equivalents to blank-tape taxes).

This is just untrue. A little over 10 years ago, Nsynch had the #1 new release album. That album sold 22,000,000 copies in its first week. In January Cake had the #1 new release album. That album sold 44,000 copies in its first week. Cake actually set a new record for how poorly an album could sell and reach #1. Will future albums outsell Cake? Probably. Will future albums match No Strings Attached? No, they won't. The music industry can pretty safely say that its best days are behind it.

Is this a good thing or bad thing for artists? Is this a good thing or a bad thing for fans? Those questions are available for discussion. But for the apparatus of the Recording Industry things really are bad and getting worse all the time.
posted by paisley henosis at 5:20 PM on February 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

You know? I don't have any sympathy. Industries are born and industries die all the time. There's no rule that says that recorded music has to be big business in perpetuity.

Obviously this is bad news for the people who are in that industry, but it isn't necessarily even slightly important to most of those who are not.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 5:27 PM on February 20, 2011 [9 favorites]

There's a lot of it about, and in places you might not notice. For example, around 25 years ago, in London, a good freelance rate for writing for the trade mags was 25 pence a word. Now, a good freelance rate for writing for the trade mags is 25 pence a word. Depending on how you adjust for inflation, spending power, average wage, and what have you, the rate by now should be between 40p and 70p.

But it ain't, and it won't be, and the places still doing 25p a word are having problems keeping that up. Being a jobbing writer is harder.

I guess that being a jobbing muso is harder, too - but I still see a good number of good writers out there, and I hear a good number of good musicians out there too (whoever it was who said that the money they spend on Warp is totally ignored - salaam, brother. Now if you can find a way to stir RDJ and BoC out of their slumbers...). I see a lot of people still working hard, but I also see a notable decrease in the number of parasitic wankers. I don't know what it is they've gone into, but it doesn't impinge on me and for that, halleluia and kick off another torrent.

The 'music industry' is not music, like the 'publishing industry' is not publishing, and our culture needs neither industry. May well be better off without them, if it means the horrors of stardom are dialled back a tad. The technology of the time created empires in recorded music in the 20th century. It was fun for some people. The 21st century will create new empires, the money will be spread in different ways, and it will be fun, I think, for a lot more people.

I write for a living (kind of. Don't ask). If I can get a dollar a month from three thousand people, I can live, and live well. If I'm not worth a dollar a month to three thousand people, what sorta writer am I, fercrisakes? The rest: detail.)

There may be fewer yachts sold in the creative sector. Will trade fun and freedom for yachts.
posted by Devonian at 5:28 PM on February 20, 2011 [7 favorites]

PH - I don't think what is going on today is absolutely indicative of the future. If you believe the assertion of MattD's then yes, you could easily see revenues bounce back. What's going on today isn't really relevant. That isn't to say I agree with MattD's analysis, just that it is certainly plausible.

Some industries do manage to reinvent themselves and survive. The question is what value do the labels add?
posted by JPD at 5:29 PM on February 20, 2011

Can't say I've bought any brushware from travelling salesmen lately. I have bought a couple of albums, though. One from the band's saxophonist, one from my indie record shop, off an indie label, and one was a digital download.

The model is changing. It's been changing for a while.

Also, wtf, per capita? Who thought that was a good idea?
posted by Jilder at 5:29 PM on February 20, 2011

i feel so sorry for the riaa because nobody has been predicting this for almost 20 years and their business model is johnny on the spot with what consumers want
posted by DU at 5:39 PM on February 20, 2011 [6 favorites]

A few criticisms of the analysis. The first is we are looking at revenues and not profits; inspite of the fact that the cost model has changed substantially from 1973. Second we have no picture of the overall global music industry. Third we're looking at data from RIAA which may ignore a large chunk of the long tail effect; which is to say that consumers are buying music form more independent musicians and less "hits."

The other thing to think about is how to quantify the sales of the iPod/iPad/iPhone and other music players in the marketplace. We didn't replace our boom-box every year, like we do with the Apple gadgets and we certainly didn't pay a monthly subscription fee just to be able to roll into best buy and purchase things on demand. So if we factor in all those iPhone customers with their $x /month plans and broadband customers paying $100/month for cable and internet suddenly we can start to see what happened to the revenues.

In the short term hardware and bandwidth companies are squeezing content producers and taking a majority of the revenues. Look at Kindle which takes 70% of your subscription fees, vs. the 30% a traditional retailer took (if they arn't discounting to bring you into the store).

Finally the Bain capital report behind this analysis is really a much better work than DeGuesta gives credit for, looking at digital media across a number of sectors including eBooks, singles and other digital content.
posted by humanfont at 5:49 PM on February 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

Long tail FTW. I can't remember the last time I bought something the RIAA would count. Fuck em.
posted by unSane at 5:58 PM on February 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is just untrue. A little over 10 years ago, Nsynch had the #1 new release album. That album sold 22,000,000 copies in its first week. In January Cake had the #1 new release album. That album sold 44,000 copies in its first week.

How many releases were there total 10 years ago vs. today? The fact is, nobody has any idea about today because the music trade has become massively decentralized. So we talk about the music industry and look at statistics on big corporations whose business model still seems to be based on the idea that producing and selling a CD is incredibly difficult and requires an army of engineers, salesmen and fabulously wealthy executives.

I know people making pretty good money (for a part time job they're not super serious about) playing regional venues and selling their stuff off their own website or one of the digital services. Twenty years ago the recording industry wouldn't have touched them with a 10 foot pole, or, if they did, would have required them to sell 100,000 CDs or so before they'd have seen a cent.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:58 PM on February 20, 2011

I haven't yet read all of the comments in this thread, but the real solution for the music and film industries is to get involved with the public at a smaller, more local level and start producing films and music at a niche-level instead of trying to hit home-runs they once did with huge releases and barrelled audiences.

110 million units of 'Thriller' is not a possibility in 2010, the way it was a reality in 1982. Despite the fact that Thriller was designed to fit all tastes and sizes, that audience just doesn't exist anymore. Perhaps the music and film studios need to step back from their strip-mining approach to marketing and start making films for audiences that number in the thousands, rather than try to hit it out of the park with each and every release. Fewer people are listening to radio these days, just as people can't be bothered to go to theaters with sticky floors to see the latest hot rod movie with Vin Diesel.

Create more films with better writing and local interest and those films will do better than 'Gnomeo and Juliet', and at a quarter the price. The added plus is that this recalibration of the recording and film industries will create Renaissance communities across the nation, where writers, actors and technicians are suddenly getting PAID for something that they want to do, rather than hold down their shitty day-jobs, so they can do their thing after hours.

And get this, if they're REALLY good, they can go National, if not international. And the moovie and music companies will still get paid. They may have to work harder, but they'll still get paid.

This kind of creative investment has healed communities in the past, via the WPA. The RIAA and MPAA have but to adjust the way they think about their intakes and output.
posted by vhsiv at 5:59 PM on February 20, 2011 [6 favorites]

Irony sweat irony, they spent decades marketing albums by buying airplay for the best couple songs, so today the internet will only buy singles. <warm fuzzies>
posted by jeffburdges at 6:09 PM on February 20, 2011

And we'd all spend less tax money on wars in the middle east and bailing out bankers if our long term economic charts were adjusted for population like these. Inflation adjustment gives you the rich man's chart, but you must also adjust it per capita if you want the poor man's chart.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:13 PM on February 20, 2011

You can actually see—barely—the resurgence of vinyl in "the right chart". Hi! That's me!! Can you see me waving? Hiiii!
posted by tapesonthefloor at 6:34 PM on February 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

I didn't say that digital revenues will increase to the point that they fully replace CD sales on an inflation-adjusted basis. Piracy, and the loss of the habit of spending heavily on music, the way fans used to do, probably assures that. Profit margins quite possibly could recover, insofar as marginal unit costs for digital are near-zero; significant retail and distribution middlemen burdens are reduced or elminated; and promotion has become more cost-effective.

The market's fragmentation may well mean that individual artist's sales tallies won't be like they were before, but I do think that we'll be surprised from time to time by artists that really seize the zeitgeist of the mass market.
posted by MattD at 6:34 PM on February 20, 2011

Vinyl record sales are up.

Yeah, but like tapesonthefloor points out, the resurgence is from miniscule to ever-so-slightly-less-miniscule. Selling more $20 LP releases of new albums to folks who don't remember that LPs used to cost a lot less than CDs (which were way overpriced from the start) may be helping a lot of indie record stores stay afloat, including the one a few blocks from me, but as an overall percentage of music sales vinyl is still so tiny its resurgence barely makes a mark.
posted by mediareport at 6:53 PM on February 20, 2011

This is the most prolific case of the internet killing the middleman. "Hello, Middleman? Yeah, you're out of a job, suck it - go do a real day's work now thanks."

The economy is carried on the backs of hard working people, in every profession.

"Overhead" people - your reign of terror is over, goodbye record executives, hello digital online releases from artist directly to public, with minimal income sharing.

Bankers too, fuck you - it should be illegal to sell a fucking loan - make the loan and keep it - I have to keep my mortgage debt, why can my bank sell the loan? I have to keep my agreement, on my side of the loan, but now I have to keep an agreement with some other banking company - one that I may be morally against doing business with?

If the music industry is dead, I ain't cryin and that is a VERY good thing because artists are still making great music, and they are slowly starting to get paid what they deserve for it.

Arcade Fire FTW, Warner not involved.
posted by Monkey0nCrack at 7:15 PM on February 20, 2011

I liked this post in the comments to the article:

I was trying to explain to a kid why music was once important and I told him how 30 years ago there wasnt an internet, and kids connected to other kids through music. I told him how my older brother used to get that vinyl album and play it and it was sort of like news of the world for kids. It was how people connected. There is no comparison today - music is at best some background noise in peoples lives. Video games and Internet has taken the place held by recorded music. There is still music product out there, but no one is treating it like their one precious connection to a bigger world.

Imagine living in some podunk place with two channels of TV and scratchy radio and maybe a printed newspaper, and that's it, nothing else. Imagine that isolation. And then you get the latest Album, and play it, and suddenly you are connecting with the whole world of teens or people your age.

I went to an open mike the other day and no one was there but some old guy in his 50's playing Grateful Dead. Music is dead and gone. I logged not an online game tonight and some 300,000 people were online on the same game. That's the news of the world of today.
posted by Sebmojo at 7:16 PM on February 20, 2011 [5 favorites]

eh, that's an old person's point of view, and I speak as a semi-old person.

Nobody EVER went to open mics. It was always that guy, or his antecedent.

The are lots of bands making lots of music that makes lots of things to lots of people. That hasn't changed. What there isn't is a hundred artists getting ludicrously rich because DARK SIDE OF THE MOON is the only LP you can buy at the local record store which isn't the Beatles, John Denver or Perry Como.
posted by unSane at 7:36 PM on February 20, 2011 [6 favorites]

A new album has come out, offered for free through BitTorrent under a Creative Commons license, of the world's tiniest violin playing in honor of the recording industry
posted by Tabs at 7:41 PM on February 20, 2011 [7 favorites]

Imagine living in some podunk place with two channels of TV and scratchy radio and maybe a printed newspaper, and that's it, nothing else.

been there, done that

And then you get the latest Album, and play it, and suddenly you are connecting with the whole world of teens or people your age.

no, you connected with the music - that whole world of teens? - it was just in your head

I went to an open mike the other day and no one was there but some old guy in his 50's playing Grateful Dead.

and if there'd been a bunch of people there - most of them would be texting, or phoning, or on their laptops

people aren't where they're at any more
posted by pyramid termite at 8:12 PM on February 20, 2011

A little over 10 years ago, Nsynch had the #1 new release album. That album sold 22,000,000 copies in its first week. In January Cake had the #1 new release album. That album sold 44,000 copies in its first week.


The industry just needs Nsynch to record a new album.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 8:20 PM on February 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

no, you connected with the music - that whole world of teens? - it was just in your head

But music is all about connecting with the tribe. My opinion. Go ahead with the solipsism option, if that suits you better.
posted by kozad at 8:22 PM on February 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

And then you get the latest Album, and play it, and suddenly you are connecting with the whole world of teens or people your age.

no, you connected with the music - that whole world of teens? - it was just in your head

Actually, I don't think that's true.

How many friendships were started when person A discovered that person B also listened to the same music? How often was a lonely teenager's soul buoyed by seeing someone else wearing a t-shirt from that band that they love? I'm willing to bet quite a bit, on both counts. And I'm sure there are a lot more ways where connecting with the music helped people connect with others.

My partner told me a story about when he was in college, and The Beatles was just released. Someone went to the record store early in the day, and word soon spread that someone had a copy of the album. By the time the afternoon had rolled around that day, someone had arranged for a stereo system to be set up in a window of a room (dormroom, classroom, not sure which) high up in a building which made up the campus quadrangle. They played the album, and a good portion of the campus came out and sat on the grass and listened as a group to that album. Students and faculty alike. It had never been heard by any of them before, and I'm getting goosebumps just writing this comment about it.

Music did bring people together. The world of teens may not have been all in one place listening at the same time, but each of them that was listening to the same music was having the same experience. They went out, bought a new album, took it home, and listened to it. End to end. Probably more than once.

It's a bonding experience, alright. Or it was. I'm not sure how often such things can even happen anymore.
posted by hippybear at 8:29 PM on February 20, 2011 [7 favorites]

The industry just needs Nsynch to record a new album.

BEHOLD
posted by delmoi at 9:13 PM on February 20, 2011

Interestingly, there's not a single member of *Nsync in that entire pantheon of boy band members.
posted by hippybear at 9:17 PM on February 20, 2011

Hippybear:My partner told me a story about when he was in college, and The Beatles was just released. Someone went to the record store early in the day, and word soon spread that someone had a copy of the album. By the time the afternoon had rolled around that day, someone had arranged for a stereo system to be set up in a window of a room (dormroom, classroom, not sure which) high up in a building which made up the campus quadrangle. They played the album, and a good portion of the campus came out and sat on the grass and listened as a group to that album. Students and faculty alike. It had never been heard by any of them before, and I'm getting goosebumps just writing this comment about it.

"The closest Western Civilization has come to unity since the Congress of Vienna in 1815 was the week the Sgt. Pepper album was released." - Prof. Langdon Winner

posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 9:18 PM on February 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

It's only a matter of time before the industry recoups their initial investment and the price of CDs becomes more affordable, at which point sales will boom.
posted by mecran01 at 9:26 PM on February 20, 2011 [4 favorites]

"people aren't where they're at any more" Man, you got that right.
posted by carping demon at 10:07 PM on February 20, 2011

I wrote a long rant over at that site and I’m not going to do it again, but I’ll say this; the idea that musicians are fine because they get to keep more of the money without being on a major label sounds great in theory (I believed it) but it’s simply not true. Only people who don’t know musicians or how the music business works think this.

No one is making money. Most musicians, studios, engineers and producers simply can’t do it as more than a hobby. We’re never going to have many of the great albums we had in the past because the infrastructure isn’t there anymore.

We will have a lot of good attempts by talented amateurs though.

bb
posted by bongo_x at 10:21 PM on February 20, 2011

It's a bonding experience, alright. Or it was. I'm not sure how often such things can even happen anymore.

I'm an old fart so I don't know for sure, but based on the banter I see online, these days they bond because they play the same computer games. (Sometimes with each other.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:25 PM on February 20, 2011

And then you get the latest Album, and play it, and suddenly you are connecting with the whole world of teens or people your age.

I never got that with music but I did live in the middle of nowhere with crap radio stations. It did happen when I discovered BBSs and even more so when I got my first dial-up shell account and was introduced to talk, Usenet and irc.
posted by the_artificer at 12:06 AM on February 21, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm an old fart so I don't know for sure, but based on the banter I see online, these days they bond because they play the same computer games.

Some people still have that sort of communal experience through music.

In fact, come to think of it, there's a vast subculture of young people for whom a particular shared experience of music -- listening to certain artists, playing in bands, going to shows -- is a key defining element of the community they belong to. We call them hipsters.
posted by twirlip at 12:54 AM on February 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why all the skepticism about music? I'm 25. I've been lurking here 11 years. I joined to tell people about my favorite band
Kids still go to shows. People still connect to music. Bands are still forming. I'll talk to anyone with a Gaslight Anthem shirt. I meet people in mosh pits. I sing to strangers
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 1:34 AM on February 21, 2011 [2 favorites]

Here's why the middleman's business is tanking:

I go to the Australian iTunes store, and the first thing that pops up is an advertisement for The Beatles Sergeant Pepper's album at $17.99. 'Hmm, kinda pricey' I think, and go do a search for albums by Amon Tobin, because of filthy light thief's awesome post. And I find one lonely album, and not the one I was looking for.

But I maintain a backup plan for situations like these. I sign out of my Australian iTunes account and sign in to my US iTunes account. The first thing I see is the Sergeant Pepper's promo, advertising the album at $12.99. 'Huh?' I think. 'Did the Australian dollar tank again?' I check the exchange rates and, whaddya know, the Australian dollar is actually worth a fraction more than than the US dollar at the moment. So that extra $5 in the Australian iTunes store seems a bit weird. Also, the US iTunes store has a dozen Amon Tobin albums, compared to one in the Australian store.

So that's one reason why the record labels represented by the RIAA are going down. Because despite the fact that we're talking a purely digital commodity in this context, they still behave as if the bytes have to be physically duplicated and shipped between continents.
posted by Ritchie at 2:47 AM on February 21, 2011 [9 favorites]

You can find most classic albums on CD for $10, even in Aus
but yeah I hate trying to buy a physical CD and finding out it's not available here
Still, I don't like many bands and i support those j do like
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 2:51 AM on February 21, 2011

There are plenty of musicians out there who are able to support themselves with their music without record labels. The numbers will only increase. Are they getting rich? No way. Is it a difficult struggle? Yes. But are they able to connect with their fans in ways no one 15 years ago could have dreamed? Yes.

I just really don't think the death of the record industry is a bad thing for music. Difficult economic times have historically produced the best music.

Now excuse me, I have three new albums I bought this week to rip to my ipod.
posted by threeturtles at 5:59 AM on February 21, 2011

Old man your mop topped boy band from Liverpool, aka the Beatles was just a Buddy Holly tribute band who's singular contribution to modern music was to throw in a sitar. So instead of ripping of black people they could rip off the people of India At least the Moody Blues had cowbell. All your so called pop music did was sedate your boomer asses while your parents watch you sit on campus and your kids watched you smoke weed and borrow from China. The Beatles misogynistic lyrics such as Norweigian Wood were calls to action against feminism and progress masked with 6 strings and propaganda off girls being infantalized. I say good ridden e to the industrialized crap that was the Beatles. Yoko Ono should be given an international holiday for breaking up Lenon and McCartney.
posted by humanfont at 6:39 AM on February 21, 2011 [2 favorites]

I sign out of my Australian iTunes account and sign in to my US iTunes account.

I wish I could do that in reverse. There's a lot of awesome music coming out of Australia and the UK I'd love to buy in digital and not at import prices. Regional music pricing is one of the biggest ripoffs of the digital age. It's not a physical product; I pay with my credit card/paypal; just fucking sell me the music.
posted by immlass at 6:57 AM on February 21, 2011

So that extra $5 in the Australian iTunes store seems a bit weird.

I believe it was touring in Australia which put the final straws in place to break Trent Reznor free of his label. He went to a record store while there and saw that the exact same albums from his band that were selling for, say, $17 in the US were being sold for nearly $40 in Australia. All because, he was told, that's what the market would bear down there. People wanted his stuff, so they priced it higher to get more money. (Nevermind the fact that none of the extra was being passed along to the actual artist...)

He made speeches from the stage during his shows basically telling his Aussie fans that they should feel free to steal as much of his music as they want, because of this price gouging he saw going on.

It wasn't long after that I read his announcement that he was getting out of his record label contract.
posted by hippybear at 7:47 AM on February 21, 2011

Old man your mop topped boy band from Liverpool, aka the Beatles was just a Buddy Holly tribute band who's singular contribution to modern music was to throw in a sitar.

This is my unimpressed face:

-.-
posted by ersatz at 4:13 PM on February 22, 2011

At least the Moody Blues had cowbell.

they never had as much cowbell as "everybody's got something to hide except me and my monkey" - hell, no one's ever had that much cowbell - there was a world-wide cowbell shortage for 6 months after the beatles recorded that - it's the chuck norris of cowbell records - jimmy miller had to pay john lennon 100,000 quid just to get honky tonk women recorded because the beatles HOGGED ALL THE DAMN COWBELLS with that song

the moody blues? - i don't recall a cowbell in "go now" - did they do anything important after that song?
posted by pyramid termite at 10:52 PM on February 23, 2011

I think someone has the Moody Blues confused with Blue Oyster Cult.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:06 AM on February 24, 2011