Even the greatest of musicians through history have had to struggle to survive, it wasn't always about rock supergroups skipping across the world in private jets, screaming groupies ready to service their every desire.
I'm reminded of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, which are some of the greatest works by one of the greatest musicians that ever lived. These works were not a platinum hit at the top of Billboard's charts. Heck, Bach didn't even get paid for them! These compositions were sent on spec to the mayor of Brandenburg (hence the name) in the hope of stirring up some sponsorship so Bach could continue his work.
If you're like me, you picture the hopeful rock star as struggling along, trying to supplement his income by giving guitar lessons to locals. This also describes Beethoven - he was frequently hunting for commissions to keep himself afloat, and had to earn money by giving piano lessons.
The idea that musicians should somehow be above all this stuff is a modern invention. Most of the greatest works in history were not done by people enjoying easy financial prospects.
Open source and side projects don't exist in this world, of course.
The same can't be said about the type of jobs slaves used to get.
Claims that it isn't are false and misinformed.
What is ALWAYS missing from the "new solutions" is the investment in emerging artists.
Sure, you see companies like Live Nation/Roc Nation setting up these 360 deals. There is definitely some promise to these new approaches, but the investment money is WAY lower than what it was. I don't know the figures, I can't find the numbers online, but I will talk to people I know in music to see if I can track down some facts and write an article on the subject.
My point stands, however. The author of this article doesn't know what he's talking about and the data he presented is useless and doesn't contain enough information to come close to accurately representing the music industry.
BTW, there is a great opportunity for "music venture capitalists".
Perhaps you mean the phenomenon of popular artists that are so big that they are household names across all demographics across the globe/nation. If so then your probably right. Probably we will see less new justin timberlakes/drakes/britney spears level superstars, and more local/regional/niche stars.
as far as the investment, really labels/mangement companies will continue to invest in whatever makes them money... the size of the investments will probably diminish, but realistically the breakdown of record label investment is 90% marketing/promotion. And realistically if your projected to sell 50% less you should cut your marketing budget appropriately, that has very little to do with the music as an art form at all.
I'm not crying about this, BTW, I'm merely pointing out that the death has started. For fucks sake, I don't even really LIKE making records as much as I like writing and performing music with a group of people, so personally I'm enjoying these transformations.
The point I'm making is, is yes, the music industry is dying. Something else will come along and replace it. Music won't die, but whatever we've become accustomed to over the last 80 years is quickly disappearing.
Again, claims that this isn't happening are misinformed.
Please expand and explain, because Albums, 3 minute songs, radio play with commercial breaks and touring are all very very similar to 10 years ago from a consumer perspective despite the proliferation of other choices and the changing landscape.
Let me put it this way. Should I make my art in the form a 180 minute long atonal sound collage that can only be heard by buying a custom piece of machinery that is installed in your house OR should I make my art form 55 minutes of music that can fit on a Compact Disc?
Think of shipping containers. Should I make my own custom shipping container or should I go with the modern, modular standard?
The medium affects the kind of art that is made. The reason we even ended up with the three minute single and the LP have more to do with the physical limitations of vinyl than anything else. An entire industry and culture sprung up around this. It is prohibitively difficult for a musician to go outside of the well established path of the current industry to make and share their music.
Music isn't about 3 minute songs, it isn't about albums, or anything of the sort. It conforms to the momentum of culture and technology as much as it inspires the technology and culture.
It will survive, but the current culture and industry will of course go away, and with it, the entire art form.
Think about that phrase. ART FORM. Roll it around in your mouth, taste it on your tongue. Art will always be made, but it's shape is constantly in motion.
There are plenty of examples of the non-3 minute song and generally they've been done by masters of their art, the reason songs are 3 minutes long is because that's our attention span for average music.
Records, your plastic limiter, haven't been popular for decades, eons in pop music time, entire generations of teenagers have gone and past, and yet most songs are still 3 minutes long.
So there's your pet theory out of the window.
If you're interested in my "pet theory" of the medium being the message, I highly recommend you check out Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan.
That might be your attention span, as you have been conditioned into, all your life.
Plently of cultures cherish much larger popular music forms.
Piracy as the article talks about is non-commercial p2p kind of piracy. That means when a theater group want a song, or a company producing advertisements, or a movie, or a game, or a bar or any other commercial entity want a short song, they will have to buy one. With commercial interest, musicians will produce music to full fill said demand, and 3 minute songs get produced. It might be a smaller market than the one during the 80s, but a smaller market is still more than none at all.
> music as we know it...is dying
> the music industry is dying
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Both you and hacker news would be better off if you read this article and then commented to the parent with your rebuttal rather than what you think is a witty one liner with no substance.
That's what happens when new technology is introduced into an existing business model - the industry changes. Existing players may exit the market (some may even "die"), some struggle, some adapt to the change and thrive, and other new players enter.
> a dying art form > music as we know it...is dying > the music industry is dying
Music as an art form is largely unchanged, especially the more artistic, less "pop music"-focused forms.
The music industry is refocusing on live performance and the long tail, and less on retail sales of pre-recorded physical media.
Adapting, evolving, changing, transforming.
Maybe declining, shrinking, endangered, troubled.
Maybe broadening, renewing, refreshing.
"Dying" doesn't describe it well at all. I don't think it means what you think it means.
This is being parroted around here for a while, but that does not make it more true. Big artists are less affected than small labels. See also: http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/20/business/fi-cotown-i...
No, the big artists will only get bigger, because those are the artists that can afford to tour and have the backing of their labels. It'll just be harder for smaller acts to become bigger acts.
as far the local/niche artists, i should clarify i don't think they will be doing 'better' than they do today.
i am instead looking at it from a fans point of view, instead of 100 next gen justin fans, i think they will be say 40 gen justin fans, 10 next gen r&b fans, 10 next gen power ballad fans, 10 next gen lounge crooner, etc...
I dont think the amount of music listened to is going to change, the margins for the companies and artists income will probably go down... but 'quality' of music will be the same as it always was
10 years ago they would've remained in obscurity in South Africa unable to tour because nobody would've backed them. Now they are playing stadiums. Being successful has nothing to do with funding anymore. Radio is gone, no longer need to grease the palms of every radio DJ in the US to get popular or bribe MTV.
Extraordinary music does not require or benefit from commercial-scale budgets. It's always been made, and always will be, regardless of the economics.
edit: a quick example off hand, The Arcade Fire
There's no reason e.g. YouTube couldn't have music competitions and new huge stars every year.
The fact that there is no product left to monetize the music means that there will be fewer musicians being funded. Only a few musicians will be chosen to promote and this will selectively be done such that they have a huge reach.
The mass marketed products like JT, Kanye (barf), Miley, etc will continue to be a part of the music business, as they always have, But the Luna's, Feelies, Grizzly Bear's (http://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/features/grizzly-bear-2012-10...), and myriad of other, small appeal bands are going to have a hard time sustaining themselves for the longterm with out a product to keep them afloat.
The live performance is the product now, but the problem is, is that this is actually hard work. This is why you see EDM musicians having a good time in the new music economy (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/09/30/130930fa_fact_... - paywal) - they are able to put on a show with minimal effort, to large crowds (i.e. big $$$).
I've seen so many awesome musician friends throw in the towel after a few years because they can't keep justifying theier profession. It's sad, but unfortunately the way its going to be.
Edit - this was the Grizzly Bear link I meant to use: http://www.vulture.com/2012/09/grizzly-bear-shields.html
The real issue for most band is there is a huge catalog of great music out there so standing out is simply harder now than ever before.
How about rent? Also food, gas money to get to shows, merchandise (t-shirts/posters/hoodies/whatever), CDs (yes, you do still need to have these.. telling someone at a show who saw you for the first time ever and wants to hear more to "go look us up on facebook/soundcloud/twitter" isn't gonna cut it), gear (and gear repairs), advertising (including things like printing flyers out to promote shows), etc. Stepping it up a bit, if you're serious about touring, you'll need to bring additional crew besides the band itself, such as sound/lighting/merch people, roadies, etc. all of whom need to be paid, fed, and transported.
Even being able to practice as a band can get pretty expensive, if you consider that many neighborhoods/cities have really strict noise ordinance laws these days. So if you're trying to start even a moderately loud rock band, your options are a) try to practice in someone's house/garage and risk having to deal with $350+ noise violations on a weekly basis every time one of the neighbors gets cranky, or b) rent a practice space somewhere, which most places I know of start at $400/month upwards. Also note that in smaller towns where there isn't an abundance of unused commercial property, these spaces are either non-existent or have waitlists over a year and a half long.
Most musicians/bands out there don't have label support and get by paying for these things out of pocket (to a point, most bands are seriously skimping in one or more of these areas because they simply don't have the money or the manpower to make it happen). Not saying its impossible, but it certainly is extremely difficult to make it to the level of world-class musicians when the majority of your productive hours have to be spent in an unrelated field for the sole purpose of paying the bills.
Hm, then why did I start learning the piano at age 6? Music is a form of communication and expression, and humans just tend to gravitate to people who are good at stuff we like (which make for good mating displays).
A lot of musicians I know, would not hesitate to mention "the opposite sex" as a major reason.
Darwin argued that both human song and bird song evolved as mating displays [1]
[1] ftp://ftp.repec.org/RePEc/els/esrcls/draftfin.pdf
Humans do express themselves through cartwheeling, they aren't mutually exclusive.
Because your parents made you.
If you had made the decision to learn an instrument yourself, later in life, chances are "mating display" would play a huge role in that, and that the instrument would have been a guitar. Can't argue with statistics.
Kim Gordon had a fantastic quote: "People pay to see others believe in themselves." http://www.amazon.com/Lipstick-Traces-History-Twentieth-Anni...
Well, we care about "popular recorded music" as last century knew it and that's a dying art form.
I'm sure Gregorian Chants and Peruvian Flute Music will continue to be written.
That's not what people complain about dying. People want Elvis, Beatles, Iggy Pop, Talking Heads, Madonna, Beastie Boys, Metallica etc -- with all the externalities that the way of them producing and selling music had.
The music industry is at best a 100 year old historical anomaly compared to the at least 4000 year history of music. The life of musician has pretty much always been extremely unlikely to be financially rewarding. Even at the height of the modern music industry maybe 1 in 1000 aspiring musicians ended up being signed to a major label. Musicians by and large have always made the bulk of their income based on in person performances. The only difference now is music companies now are losing out on record sales and starting to design contracts where artists have to split show and endorsement money with the label as well as record sales.
Honestly its a moot point, the technology has changed, and the music industry has to change with it or die. The whole music industry was created by the technology of the record, and will change or die with the advent of easily copyable media.