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Why the music industry is going in the toilet.Dec 17 '02 (Updated Jan 04 '03) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Here then, from my perspective, are the problems currently facing the music industry and what must be done to fix them.
As another year comes to an end, we will soon be looking back on the last one. That is not the purpose of this piece. I will be reflecting on the past year pretty soon in a write-off. What I plan to do here is explain what I hope to see done in the music industry over the next year. This year, the music industry has gone into a massive downward slump. While there were a few quality releases, overall record sales have declined. When the industry sees that they're having problems, they chose not to look at all the potential causes of the problems. Instead they go for an obvious scapegoat. In this case: file-sharing. Now file-sharing can be a problem if it gets out of hand and whole albums are being downloaded. However, evidence suggests that there are no such cases taking place. Instead, areas that they are probably aware of are causing many of the record industry’s problems; yet they don't want to do anything about them. Here then, from my perspective, are the problems currently facing the music industry and what must be done to fix them. 1: Hilary Rosen It's fairly obvious from her reactions to the decrease in sales that she is completely out of touch with what many music fans want. Yet she is clearly unable to see that. Unable to see it and unwilling to get off her litany of one-track thinking. Ms. Rosen may be a fine businesswoman. But as far as getting new ideas, she is clearly lacking and the music industry needs a visionary leading it, not someone who is just concerned with the bottom line. No, I am not implying that the bottom line isn't a concern here. What I am saying is that music should be treated as art, not commerce. Wilco's new album is one of the best I have heard this year and it's sold pretty well too, yet I bet that Ms. Rosen probably feels that it hasn't sold very well. So the bottom line here is that Hilary Rosen needs to either start opening up to new ideas or the record industry needs to move toward ousting her. 2: End Payola In a recent piece I wrote in response to the file sharing controversy I noted how ridiculous prices were part of the reason why file sharing has increased. A response to the article stated, "Music is a business". Yes, the music industry has always been about what sells. There's nothing inherently wrong with chasing the hits, yet the element of payola has never been stronger than it has in the past 4 years. The evidence in favor of this is fairly obvious: The ridiculous CD prices (which we will get to soon), the death of non-commercial radio, the cold shoulder reception to Internet based music, the whole "easily marketable plastic pop" thing and the open arms acceptance of it by the record industry. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Tom Petty noted that if him and his band were to come along today, they would never be signed. He also noted "Today it seems that if you don't have a hit -- or even if you do -- they have no use for you the next time. It's like, 'Well, why wait for these guys to come back with another hit when we can bring in somebody else?' It's an asinine way to conduct yourself. These people are looking at balance sheets, not music. Most people involved in putting this music on the air or bringing it to us aren't really listening to it."* So the bottom line here is this: Payola is real, it's destructive and it needs to come to an end if the music industry wants to get out of the ditch. 3: Lower Prices for CDs Walk into a chain record store such as Fye or Sam Goody. Pick up the new Audioslave CD. Look at the price. If the CD is not on sale, the price tag usually is about $18.95. Take that amount and factor in the sales tax. The final price for the CD is $20.00. You can use the word business all you want. But there are only two words that can describe charging $20.00 for a CD and those words are Highway Robbery. Another form of stealing, yet one that is legally supported. The record industry will doubtlessly try to use the famous Clinton line of "It's the economy stupid" as an excuse for charging ridiculous prices. Fine, except for one thing. The CD prices started going as high as $20.00 back in 1998 when the economy was still going through the boom cycle. And if you note the year, you will also remember that that was the time when the whole plastic pop thing began. Which brings us back to payola. The bottom line is that there is no valid reason for charging $20.00 for a CD. A single CD should at the maximum be priced at $12 and a double should be priced at about $20.00. Ideally all single CDs would be about $8.98. The record industry can complain all they want about the evils of file sharing. But there is no escaping the fact that they are committing their own legally permitted form of theft. 4: Admit that the war on file sharing is Vietnam 3.0 and you've lost. (Note: I use the Vietnam 3.0 designation because commentator Larry Elder to describe the war on drugs has already used the Vietnam II one.) One fact that the record industry has not been able to grasp is that they have lost the war on file sharing. The Pandora's box has been opened; there is no way to control it. What the war on file sharing is doing is hurting the record industry by taking the focus away from finding new ways to use the new technology. Instead of trying to eliminate or minimize the drawbacks and keep the good aspects of MP3s and file trading, they keep trying to stamp out the technology. That plan is not working and it is only pushing the record industry further toward the ditch. 5: Stop using MTV as an indicator of what's popular The first reason for this is obvious. MTV hardly shows music nowadays, so it cannot be accurately called a barometer of popular viewpoints on music. The second reason is that the majority of the music they do show is directed at a very minor segment of the population. So from looking at what's popular on MTV, the industry only gets an idea of what that segment wants and ends up leaving the rest of the populace out in the cold. 6: Stop treating artists like flops if they don't sell in Britney Spears numbers What I am calling for here is for the record industry to return to the days of considering quality as well as quantity. I'm sure most people reading this know the details of the fight Wilco had to go through to release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. (For those who do not, read any of the reviews of the album available at http://www.epinions.com/musc_mu-446691/display_~reviews). Battles like that should not happen in the record industry. The record industry should remember art not commerce and not toss aside something just because it's not designed for the TRL market. 7: Open up to new ideas. This is an opportune time for that as the Nu-metal and boy band phenomenon are finally fading out. Now is the time to start looking for new music and trying to find out what listeners want. In other words, look elsewhere than the bottom line for a change. Conclusion I know that this article will probably make absolutely no difference whatsoever in getting the record industry to fix what is wrong. However, I do hold out some hope that they will take a closer look at what's wrong and make some moves to repair it before the world of music turns into a McDonald's. *To read the whole Tom Petty article go to http://www.rollingstone.com/news/newsarticle.asp?nid=16913. I always liked Petty's music. But I like him even more as a person now that I see where he stands on many of these issues. My hat's off to you Tom.  |
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