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.
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.