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How iTunes Destroyed The Music Business In 1 Simple Chart
The music industry was the first entertainment business to confront the digital transition, although it was not exactly a willing pioneer. Rather, it was thrust into this role as a matter of survival, as it grappled with the rapid rise of online piracy in the early 2000s.
The music industry was incredibly slow to respond to the digital transition. Napster, the original music piracy site, burst onto the scene in 1999, but it wasn’t until 2004 when Apple iTunes debuted that consumers grew more and more primed to free music.
This was a serious error and haunted the music industry for years thereafter, costing the industry multi-billions in annual sales. The rest of the entertainment industry has taken note and, as a result, all other entertainment sectors, including video, have been comparatively quick to embrace digital distribution.
The music industry, rather than focusing on a legal digital download service, initially focused all its effort on shutting down Napster by way of a copyright infringement lawsuit. Ultimately, the industry prevailed and the courts shut down Napster in mid-2001; however, this was a pyrrhic victory. By the time Napster was shut down, the pirates had moved on to the next new thing: decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing, led by Gnutella. Unlike Napster, these piracy sites were virtually impossible to shut down because there was no central server storing the files. Shutting down Gnutella would have been tantamount to shutting down the entire internet.
In addition to the failure to launch a legal alternative to the pirate sites, the music industry was, understandably, paralysed by its fear of album unbundling. Piracy had given consumers a taste for singles and there was no going back to albums.
Against this backdrop of piracy and absent a legal digital alternative, music sales plummeted. From a peak of nearly US$15 bn in 1999, US music sales declined cumulatively by 15% to US$12 bn in 2003 (previous exhibit). The decline in song units (assuming 10 songs per album) was even more dramatic, declining by 29% cumulatively to 7.7 bn over the same time. Little did the industry know that this was only the beginning of the decline. By 2004, the music industry was in dire straits. Physical sales were in free fall and its own efforts to launch a digital download service were failing.
Apple, with the dominant digital music player and superior software engineering skills, was a perfect partner (nay, savior) for the music industry, with Steve Jobs Achieving a very consumer-friendly retail price of US$0.99 per song and a wholesale price of US$0.70. This wholesale price was, in effect, a 30% price reduction from the implicit price per song on a physical album (i.e., US$10 album wholesale price, 10 songs per album).
After a small bump in sales in 2004 from the launch of iTunes, the declines resumed as the double whammy of album unbundling and a 30% wholesale price cut took its toll. From 2004 to 2014, US music unit and dollar sales declined cumulatively by another 50%, erasing US$5 bn in annual sales.
There is no rest for the weary, and the music industry is already confronting another digital transition, call it digital transition 2.0, in the form of online streaming. Song sales stabilised from 2010 to 2012, but have since resumed declining as music demand is now shifting from digital downloads (ownership) to online streaming (rentals), such as Pandora.
Source: Goldman Sachs
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Guess that's why most music today sucks
Make some real music and maybe I will pay for it.
There might be a chance for that now that a half dozen sleaze bags aren't in control, telling me that I want to listen to Brittany Spears just because she is willing to use her Mouseketeer charms on them. Now we get Miley but there is some chance that real music can see the light of day. Fingers crossed that Mr. iTunes won't act as the new filter for what I hear.
Record company greed ruined the music business.
There's no competition anymore, just like in news outlets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Records
The big corp's are nothing more than propaganda outlets for the tribe.
When you own the Central Bank, you can create trillions of dollars out of thin air, and loan them to your buddy "discount window" bankers for zero percent interest, and they can "invest" them by buying up ALL the propaganda, art, book, newspaper, magazine, radio, television, movie and music companies. Best game ever.
Of course, we don't know who owns the Federal Reserve. I have seen some charts showing that other privately-owned banks own it, and then other privately-owned banks own them, and on and on....
"Record company greed ruined the music business. "
Digital distributors tell you what they have sold and for how much; but, you cannot see their books or analyitics, so it's all about trust... At least with a cd or vinyl a company or artist could go and invenoty the music store and find out what had been sold and/or lifted -know their popularity by extrapolation on an ongoing basis by doing so -and charge the proprietor for each article of stock that could not be presented..
The Corporate Labels/Managers fucked up the business by fucking the Artists in the old days;but, today the Corporate Digital Distributors are pulling the very same shit on the Artists.
True and we know who runs/ran the record company business. Now if we can just destroy the hollywood propaganda machine.
The music business also got heavy competition from video games, the internet, social media and other such retardism.
Why should I listen to trash narcissistic trash like Miley when I can be a narcissist on Facebook, Friendster, and all the other shit sites using my Go Pro stick. I can post endless pictures and be a illiterate with nice abs or a boob job.
I set up my old turntable and got my vinyl LP's out of storage.
Nothing like it really; the sound is just better. Those old Beatles albums sound great, feel like I'm in the recording studio.
I did the same thing a while back. Dug out some of my old LPs and threw them on my old Radio Shack belt-driven turntable after zeroing in the speed on the side-mounted strobe. My amp is so old it still has jacks on the back to hook it up. It.... still works, though I probably stored the LPs in some non-climate-controlled places over the years. They were warped, a little dirty and everywhere they used to skip.... they still do.
My speakers are lightyears ahead of what I had back in the 80s, which improves the experience dramatically. I forgot why they used to rate turntables for various things including "wow and flutter", but it all came flooding back after throwing on the first platter.
Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of The Moon" was the first one I dropped the needle onto. It was like instant transportation to the 1980s (yes, I relaize the album came out in the 70s, but I "discovered" it in the 1980s, so deal with it). It's NOT digital. It's..... different. In a fun kind of way.
wish they'd do the same with cable television stations. i pay for 99 stations, i watch only three. what. a. ripoff.
uTorrent is your friend. I haven't paid for TV since 2010.
But that's like COMPLICATED and stuff. Couldn't I just petition government to force cable companies to give me exactly what I want and not pay for any of it?
Apple might have saved and/or killed music, but the government fixes evertying. Yeah, they fix it REAL FUCKING GOOD. They fix it to the point nobody wants anything to do with it any more.
horse manure...
I would happily pay for what I want.
what I don't want to do is pay for an entire album when all I want is the HIT SINGLE.
what I don't want to do is pay for 362 channels when I only want to watch about 7 of them.
read the article, ALBUM UNBUNDLING is what killed their income stream which means it was artificially high all along...
Fuck the RIAA and MPAA rent seekers hiding behind the guns of government and the idea that ideas can be owned. Fuck them and the idea of charging businesses for advertising a product.
Ever go into a restaurant and hear them singing a weird birthday song? It is because Warner Brothers owns the copyright and if the waitress sings it - they have to pay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You
Not only that, you actually paied Al Gore without knowing it.
That should make your day.
:)
Squid
Believe it or not. I had a big dish (8 ft diameter) satellite receiver for years(80's-90's). I could buy any single channel I wanted. Most were $10-12 a YEAR. Some, like Comedy Central, cost $6 a YEAR. HBO and porn channels, cost the most. They were more like $30-60 a YEAR. Then, Dish Network started buying up all the programmers in the late 90's. The FCC was 'bought off' to look the other way. Next thing I knew, there was only Dish, Direct TV or Cable. It turned into an oligopoly within a few short years. This is standard operating procedure for nearly all US businesses these days. The 'bought off' Feds allow it, to give the illusion of competition when there is none. I never bought TV off any of the Big 3 and never will. Luckily, TeeVee is soo bad, anymore, they'd have to pay me to watch their shit.
good news here
It's the sameness of the same shit that people refuse to buy.
I signed up with Rdio a few years ago. There is no need to buy any music as I have a huge music library avaiable to me for $5 each month.
Pretty sure rap destroyed the music biz....
Amen brother! It was pure sewer water - as the white kids got bad advice from their teachers and idols. could eath come soon enough for the rap artists? hardly. they deserved to die drug induced heart stopages. But the white kids with their pants below their a-holes mimicing the black and hispanic rappers deserved to get "no jobs." = poverty deserved.
In another few years, rap will be the "Golden Oldies".
They'll be in the grove yard of forgotten oldies like this gem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Yrg9xNSS0
Thanks to Rush for playing this one. Never heard it before. A remake of the Lesley Gore hit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QEqLTbEXy0
Guess what Klaus and Lesley had in common. If you already know, move to the front of the rainbow. The propaganda has been pumped out for decades!
Rush's last album, Clockwork Angels was fantastic. Their best album since Moving Pictures. If you are a fan of early Rush you will love Clockwork Angels! I don't buy much these days except independent artists that I wish to support. The last album I bought was Big Big World by Scott Miller. I have been a big fan of his ever since the V-Roys (which by the way, if you can find The V-Roys album Just Add Ice, buy it! You will not be disappointed!) and even though I can listen to his music on Rhapsody I purchased his new release to support him. His music is a folksy kind of southern rock. He is a brilliant songwriter in the vein of John Hiatt who is one of the best songwriters ever! (whose last album Terms of My Surrender is also brilliant!)
Rap is older than you are, no matter how old you are. Do a search for 'talking blues' if you don't believe me.
It's just that it took until the 1990s to raise a generation of people dumb enough to buy it for music, like buying a bag of salted peanuts for a Christmas dinner.
Balls. What destroyed the music biz was its unwillingness to adopt the new online format, and then attempting to sue into oblivion anyone who even dared play an mp3.
The biz set traps in the purchased CDs so trojans were installed, or what happened to me, the sound drivers on my pc were frakked up. What nefarious activity did I participate in? I pushed the CD into the CD tray and pressed play on Windows Media Player. Result? Those who had been interested in music, stopped going into stores and buying music.
The only part itunes played in any of this was it stopped the industry from releasing an album with only one or two decent songs on it.
Amen
The Lawyer cabals known as the RIAA and MPAA are a bunch of criminals, and simply believe that because they steal, so does everybody else.
Look at what they're doing to Kim Dotcom.
They've turned a civil matter of copyright infringemrnt into a war with the US Gov. It looks like he's going to lose it all to civil asset forfeiture.
I miss all those unnecessary trips to Tower Records. And if you don't want digital contagion, the good stuff is still available on vinyl. Some decent new stuff, too. Let's see those bastards at the NSA hide a virus on a vinyl record.
Sounds similar to Kodak inventing the digital camera and completely refusing to embrace it because they couldn't let go of their successful but declining traditional technology.
In 1993 as I was graduating law school I trademarked the name eMusic and I talked to the General Counsel of Philips Records in London about my idea that as music was digital that the whole business could be made better if these new cd recorders made by kodak coul dbe used in the stores to write cds. that way they could enjoy larger margins while actually reducing prices and so increasing unit sales. The guys in london in legal said that sounds awesome but i need to call the marketing guys in NYC. So I called those guys and they said why the fuck would they allow me to do that or why wouldnt they do that themselves. I tried to explain that they were only one record company, that consumers did not care what label a band was on and that they couldnt band together with the other majors or there would be a huge antitrust problem.
I said that we could program in controls which would track sales and that everyone would be a winner as the record stores would never again be out of stock the only losers would be the middlemen. I got a quote for a touchscreen system for searching and playing music on computers for like $1.5M in the store and imagined my mall based music empire. Later in the year IBM announced they were doing the asme thing but the record companies put the kaibosh on the hwole idea saying they wouldnbt license the content to be sold in that way to anyone.
Morons. Very unimaginative group and now their industiry is much smaller.
I have a homework project for you (though, I think you probably already know the story). Do a little history research on a company called Xerox. You think the music industry was the first one to be annihilated by the digital world? Ha! Not even close. The analog paper copy business came first. By a ton.
Content providers are stuck in the 70"s.
I've been looking for a digital download or a DVD of "James May at the Edge of Space". A few years ago, Top Gear (BBC) did a 30 minute episode of James May going for a ride to 70K feet in the U-2. It was spectactular.
I would think this valuable content would be available in HD as a download or DVD for purchase. No...that would be assuming too much. It can't be found.
Imagine the time and money the BBC invested producing a single 30-minute show that's now mothballed on a computer somewhere. Consider also the additional content/clips that have never been seen in the production of such an episode. If this episode and additional content from the cutting room floor were available online, millions could be generated in ad sales, DVD and digital downloads. Not to mention good will, brand recognition and promotional value.
So...I reached out to the BBC last week and asked them about buyng a DVD or digital download (and I also offered to purchase the worldwide distribution rights) and this was their response.
---
Thank you very much for taking the time to contact us.
I have looked into this for you and I can’t find ‘James May at the Edge of Space’ either. It doesn’t seem to be available online to watch or on DVD but as you insist about buying the rights etc, I would ask you to contact BBC Worldwide as they are the commercial arm of the BBC and will be able to help you.
http://www.bbcworldwide.com/contact-us.aspx
Thank you again for taking the time.
It was lovely to hear from you,
Kirsty Strain
BBC Enquiries Team
P.S. It’s not possible to reply to this email, but if you need to get in touch again about this enquiry, please use our webform – www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/forms – quoting the case number we provided in the subject of this email (or alternatively, if you’re in the UK, you can call us on 03704 101 060*). Many thanks!
http://720ptorrent.net/bbc-james-may-at-the-edge-of-space-pdtv-x-2x64-t4...
One copy of said programme. Enjoy.
Its amazing that the pirates can bloody offer it (for free), but the BBC cannot even sell you a copy.
Consider this a lesson on relative efficiencies and technological productivity (and "the future!")
So sad to see price fixing oligopolies destroyed...
People are perfectly willing to pay to see real musicians perform live. Distribute your stuff for free as advertising or die. The music "business" was mostly parasitic towards the artists. Good riddance.There's an interesting book on the history of copyright law as it pertains to the music business called "Democracy of Sound" - it's worth reading.
No they aren't and all but the most elite/well-knowna acts struggle to draw on the road and fill larger venues. Plus with the under 35+ crowd going to a concert especially if it is electronica or an alternative format is a radically different experience than just standing/sitting.
In the future, no one will know what music is because it will all be referred to and engineered as a sound environment.
It is already pretty much all you hear when you go into a club now.
Language is being destroyed as is reading by the smart devices dumbing the youth way down.
True, unfortunately too true. 2 year old kids in India putting smart phones in their mouths as parents goo about how cute they are...
The NEW new generation, them and new technology are already bound, the symbiosis has begun, and much much to our detriment.
It is no longer necessary to consider any reality save the gratification of immediate inane desire. This means the species will rapidly become more instantaneous until dissolving altogether in a blinding flash of banality.
That sounds like Kurse-a-while's wet dream....
transhuminism is going to be real interesting
Interesting for sure. Good? Not so sure...
pretty sure it wont be good
Transistor Radios.
We have been here before.
Rush 2112 come to life.
Just think about the average
What use have they for you?
Another toy that helped destroy
The elder race of man
Forget about your silly whim
It doesn't fit the plan
Only retards and lazy people actually pay for music onine.
We created some shitty music for some folks, blamed it on piracy.
Fugazi - Long Divisionhttp://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FBN2Z3yTKPo
When they stopped vinyl I stopped buying. I like ALL the music, not chopped up.
Of course, today, there's very little worth buying.
I suppose there a some diamonds in the rough worth purchasing....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bkt51J7VNo
Remember when the Music Tribe was suing single Moms for $50,000 worth of illegal downloads. Not so smart a move by the status quo parasites....don't think I bought any music since I read those stories. Fuck them.
It was probably the photo industry that was first to suffer from the onslaught of technology. The fact that the music industry execs didnt see it coming speaks volumes as to what a complete waste of space 99% of CEOs are. And the term "selfie" is probably one of the most recognizable words created in the naughties.
Now nothing is sacred. It really is optional as to whether you want to pay for music, books, movies tv shows etc. Chinese pop stars make more money from downloadable ringtones which people pay for than they do from album sales.
No. Paper analog copying went first. Ref: Xerox.
iTunes single feature
Korn - 'Y'all Want A Single' (Official Video Uncensored)http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AyFlW_bOg-Q
The music industry needs to unhinge from gay faggots, new haircut trends, and a line of bullshit progressive lyrics. Maybe you'll sell a gold album.
Bauhaus - Stigmata Martyr http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nnrG904talAAnd Grooveshark is gone.
Thirty-some comments and no one caught the dire straits pun from the article?
Maybe Golman Sachs has a sense of humor after all.
Here is the real reason!
Check the guitar sales in the USA.
Why would anybody pay to a music player, when he can play a love song to a lady himself?
Year Units
2006 1,648,595
2010 2,377,310
2014 2,630,950
Don't forget to add Les Paul, Explorer guitar wood the US Government seized.
Obama is a good guitar and gun salesman. /LOL.
http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/15/entertainment/la-et-ct-gibson-gu...
Last post on iTunes. Fuck the music industry. We saw this decades ago. Shove you head up your asses music industry. You created your own failures. Stop blaming the customers. If people don't like the music, sales go down. Look into the mirror
Bauhaus | Party of the First Part
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fc11wlSRC0U
kate bush sang a song
we where working secretly for the military.
experiments in sound tavistock
in tone
saturn sine waves original sounds
super sounds of saturn rings not so pop tones
listen to the lyrics sex.
many of are great song smiths are jewisher Phoenician cabalistick
templar to temper to modulate to tune an instrument abbey rd temple
templar to trim the sails to the wind make adjustments.
of the word
philosopher stone tone notes vibration sim phoney key templar temper
body frequency
pop star
star
latin stellio meaning lizard treacherous,deceitful person snake
shining one
shining star
stella
tune an instument change frequency
templar tunes
tuning keys
Tavistock is different than it was 25 years ago. In 2015, I have a love/hate relationship with organization. Back in the day, it taught us many things. Today's standards are below par.
what else ye expect?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97nAvTVeR6o
around 1:06 they edited out one of poor Mikey's words
take a guess what it was
I think you'll be pleasantly unsurprised.
they done killed that nigga, too.
I think all the good music got writ by 2003.
Even with American Idol and stuff like that selling millions of garbage songs every year the totals keep going down, that's bad. Well, it's sad anyway. Maybe there's just too much f'ing music available anymore. It's a maturing of an industry. The profit sags out even if consumption stays high.
Even the "alt" stations like KROQ in Los Angeles, can't find any new stuff to play. OK they haven't been cutting edge since about 1983 but even so, their stock songs now average twenty years old and more, and nearly all the new stuff sucks. I mean, banjos, seriously?
Been listening to SirusXM for about the past year. Mostly 80's and 90's stuff and some of the hip hop stuff. Tuned to KROQ and they were playing the same songs they have been for 10 years. At least the hip hop people put out new stuff (whether you like it or not).
I don't pay for music. I pay to not listen to commercials and stupid morning shows.
As a musician I'm looking forward to the day where any job (law, medical, plumbing, mid level management, carpentry, building houses, especially whatever the douchebags on here complaining how much music sucks today, do for a living) is either being done by robots, software and will either be free or can be stolen online like music.
It will be awesomely interesting to see how non-creative people adapt to a world where they actually have to think for themselves and learn how to sing for their supper.
"It will be awesomely interesting to see how non-creative people adapt to a world where they actually have to think for themselves and learn how to sing for their supper."
Music is the most overcrowded trade on the planet - worse even than law and accounting.
It amazes me how many people will pick up an instrument, learn some hackneyed riffs from a bygone era and actually believe they're being "creative."
So tell me, just exactly what is being created here?
What I don't get is how anyone makes money on music anymore. I downloaded Spotify and can stream almost every album I own, plus any one I want to own.
The basic service is free, if I want to pay $6 a month I can store the music on my computer and play it without an internet connection. For the free service it plays an ad every 6 songs or so. Ads I don't give a shit about and don't even listen to.
How is Spotify supposed to make money?
oh I forgot, they aren't supposed to make money but can still be worth billions and make the VC's that bought into it early massive amounts of money through the stock market.
We get free music, the industry gets destroyed, but a few people get filthy rich. Will the Tribe ever be happy or do they have to destroy everything.
Spotify is nothing more than free market capitalism. Spotify makes its money by commercials and user fees. I pay $10/month to skip the commercials. 3/4 of subscribers don't pay but get commercials, and the other 1/4 pay.
Secondly, the musicians willingly put their music on Spotify and get paid something like .88 cents for each play. It's not a lot, but if you put out good songs and market yourself you can make some money. Even Weird Al made $30k in one week from Spotify. He said he's done with record contracts, he doesn't need them anymore. He can self-promote on youtube, Spotify, etc.
Finally, why should I ever buy another album when for free/$10 month I have access to 20 million songs? It's win/win/win. As a musician, I realize it is time to give your music away. The reward is a larger fan base and bigger shows/touring, plus merchandise. To me, it's technology and no need to fight it. It's easier to swim downstream than upstream.
88 cents!? I wish.
More like .0088.
I spent $50k and a year of my life to produce a Grammy nominated various artists album with
some superstars from the 1960s.... got scores of glowing reviews from U.S, and U.K. Might have made 1/5 of my money back.
Spotify and the others want to stream it and really, I'd rather just give it away free than let them profit from it.
There are thousands of great musical artists, real artists, real musicians --
not the bubblegum, auto tuned, pop tart drivel that dominates today --
that are reduced to working for next to nothing ($150 per session), as the streaming companies profit for doing basically nothing but creating a platform for consumers to increasingly think all this musical creativity is
somehow their entitlement and it will just keep coming, like the newsfeeds on their Facebook.
Kill the golden goose and you end up with Muzak. Oops, too late.
Last artist out, turn out the lights.
It's not even .088 I hear and you are spot on. All counts.
This industry is dying in it's current form.
Live and touring is where it's at. In the digital world, everyone wants everything for free.
The old ways are done and dusted.
I know math can be hard but he wrote 0.88 cents which is less than a penny.
You should put a link up to your project Mr Squid!
In 2013, I put together a cd with what I thought were some excellent songs from 40 years of my writing. Spent about $35,000! You'd think it would get some attention. I paid $1500 for promo in Europe and got on the radio with The Stones, Dylan, & McCartney. I sold maybe 50 albums... Unless you pay big bucks for promotion, you do not get heard or written about.
Who can keep up that kind of investment in time and money?!.... Music will never again have the kind of talent putting itself out as was the case between 1920's - 1990's. So glad we have all those recordings!... Besides, soon, we'll only need call & response work songs in the FEMA camps...
My song that got played with the big boys: https://soundcloud.com/zanzone1/04-days-of-our-lives
Great song Zandalf...very unique sound....
Assuming we're not incinerated by WWIII, the singularity is coming boys and girls, and EVERY industry will be affected like the music, photography, copy, and journalism industries.
Unless you own the machines (robots), the digital networks, or are independently wealthy, we are all, everyone of us going the way of the musician. Everything will be free. But no one will have work and if we're allowed to live, our overlords (the owners of the machines and the networks) will give us just enough to survive.
Damn man, that is enough to make one pray for a massive cme,
I hadn't bought any music since the late 70s.
The entire industry is made up of nothing but crooks and theives.
"Everything will be free."
Communism, here we come...
I'm amazed there's so many sheep that actually pay Apple to download shit that is then locked down to the device.
The answer to that is Tunebite by Audials. Uses your soundcard to make a better than cd quality copy of whatever you play.
Had the music industry simply lowered prices on CDs instead of being so greedy, I honestly think they could have preserved their model. A music CD priced at $6-$7 would be PLENTY of profit, and very few people would have bothered with pirating.
Instead they thought they could conrol the internet and people would keep buying their $18 CDs at Tower Records. Oh well, they were sleazebags anyway.
Ridiculous and of course they would have given the alternative (free/no cost).
when i see indie bands putting out elaborate and complex CD boxes/covers (as well as good music)priced less than $10....then you know they skipped the middleman
Lots of great new music coming out of the electronic universe.
Like whom? I have not heard anything to even come close to Kraftwerk, Dep Mode, New Order, (old version) Ultravox and many others, Not this DJ crap like Shrillex or DeadMaus.
I like singer-songwriters. To me they offer an outlet for the purity of the art form of writing. Edgar Allen Poe said that songwriting, the combination of music and words, IS the highest art form. Of course, this is and can be a point of friendly and healthy discussion.
I have no problem supporting the new and old songwriters I like and I think it is truly disrespectful to avoid paying them for a song, especially if I like the artist. The pay-outs to songwriters has been diluted terribly over the past 50 years. The way artists make a real living is by performing live and they can suppliment their income with downloads, a lucky placement in a movie or TV show.... but, all in all, it is tough. The songwriters I know and love write because they love to do it....that is fine, I still think they should get paid.
David Crosby's producer, Stephen Barncard just produced a new album for a very interesting singer-songwriter. I like this guy.
Just he and a guitar for the most part.... http://chetnichols.bandcamp.com .... unique songs...
Look, it's easy to write your own music.
How about a youtube link to a super song that you have written and performed on guitar or piano.
My 16 year old daughter listens to the oldies station. She says the old songs are better than the new songs. Bless her heart.
maybe she just needs to expand her search, Gusher.
An Eala Bhàn - The White Swan by Julie Fowlis (with lyrics)Sorry, nope!
Can't touch Judy CollinsAmazing Grace, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5e6IN_YbwM
Obviously the entire music industry depends on teenagers lusting after the LATEST songs only.
Not sure I buyt that argument. A sufficiently noticeable chunk of traditional sales was people buying the same music they like in different medium. That simply stopped and you that's what you're seeing.
No matter where I go it appears every human under the age of 30 has at least one earphone in their ear...that's up about 10 million percent since I was that age so I'm not sure why MPAA thinks the industry is dying...
Resistance is futiile....
You will be assimilated.
Of course the fact that most people have way less disposable income to spend on music since the GFC is glossed over. It will only get worse as the inequality gap widens. Kids are too busy paying off the student loans to spend on music.
In my assessment, there are at least 4 niches of music listeners these days:
1) New pop music. I'm tempted to say this is on the decline due to the influence of the internet, but it's possible that I just don't know who the latest pop wonders are since I'm so far removed from them. These are the top celebrity singers, billboards songs, and new music played on the radio.
2) Old pop music. This includes stuff like classic rock and is heavily popular despite being a few decades old, largely because it's better than most new music. Most well-established genres basically have a core of classics that remain interesting.
3) Pop electronic music. Think of crappy "dubstep", "trap", and "trance" music made by talentless kids with VSTs.
4) Unpopular music. There many small niches of music out there. Many of them are interesting, some are utter crap. They are not known about by the masses, have a small audience, and are usually primarily sold directly by the musician/label, often bypassing things like iTunes altogether. A lot of experimental electronic music fits in this category these days.
As computer literacy is on the rise, so is ability to pirate music or find it for free. The kids who can't get it for free buy it from iTunes. They tend to listen to category #1, sometimes #2 or #3, although the latter are more heavily pirated. Category #4 is rather small and probably not included in any of the above charts since they it doesn't involve major labels. Few people buy CDs anymore, likely older folk, and only hipsters buy vinyl.
I don't feel sorry for the music industry oligarchs. Along with the decline in sales of various music formats has been a general decline in the quality of music itself to the point where today, much of it is little more than noise from pumped-up one-hit wonders to generate revenue. Add to that, there are only so many ways that a collection of notes can be arranged to produce a new sound.
Whether customers realise it or not, many people have always wanted "album unbundling" instead of paying large sums for a CD album - many of which are of dubious technical quality - that contains 2-3 good tracks with the rest being "filler". My own desire for this goes back to my teenage years.
Digital music made that possible but the industry has done its best to prevent that. So when I hear a song I want to add to my MP3 player collection, I track it down on the Internet for free although I'd willingly pay a small price for a HQ copy (FLAC or WAV etc) from an official site. But they've made that difficult or impossible to protect rip-off revenues, so the industry suffers the consequences of its own greed.
Who needs iTunes when we have had Bittorrent for years?
I have over 3 TB on external hard drives of virtually all music of the 40's, 50's.60's.until the present, althought the crap coming out now is not much ''music''. Except Jazz which is still played by real musicians and never goes out of style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyvN32fTbwQ
good dude, too.
Real music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huircINOI5w
I suppose... if you're ovulating...
but if not, try on some NOFX.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFvaN6RGnyU
umm I suspect they could show you lots of graphs from say paying tax to using cash as payment with a similar position in cycle.
old people seem to want things to stay just as they are but without change there would be no evolution.
I heard vinyl is making a come back. where's its graph? then again that was from the same MSM that often has its own agebda ...
I saw it on the radio
The picture was nice to see
I picked up inside a storyline
It was there for all to see
So I'm writing you this letter today
I'll set in the mail in the morning
You should be receiving it by Friday
If you don't then you'll just carry on
Catch it on the rerun next season
See it again next fall
Catch it on the rerun, the rerun
I hope my cable teevee don't stall
~Neil Coyote, 1992
who needs bittorrent with spotify?
storing files on your own drive is so 2010, yo.
Spotify [etc. ] just eliminates the need to buy or download music. unless you're into super rare stuff, maybe, but they seem to have some pretty obscure bands and such.
still, even stuff like this, on a record versus digital, is a remarkable difference.
I have beeen downloading music since 1998. First with Napster then Bittorrent.
I have over 30GB on the cloud but that costs data to listen to on the go.
I have 64GB micro card half full of some of my music I like the best.
What is use most is the Tune-In radio app Android. Radio stations from anywhere in the world and great fidelity.
I would never buy a iCrap device that has NO removable micro card or battery.
USA govt and TSA loves them though, because they can look at all your stuff. With microcard you just pop it out and put somewhere safe., in my case its behind my watch.,
Help me understand, please. Users don't pay for the music on those sites, right?
The Tune-In app gives you access to virtually every radio station on the planet. all genres.
If you spend 2 dollars to get the Tune-In Pro app, it allows you to record to your phone.
As for Google Play Music app. you can upload all your music and play it anytime you want via streaming from your phone or tablet. Of course that incurs 3G or 4G data, unless you are home on your wifi or at a Wifi hot spot.
Get the Tune-in App on your phone and see what I mean.
Check out this app. as good as Spotify
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tunein.player&hl=nl
article is total bullshit-the music industry has itself to blame and NOBODY else
The music industry seems to have outlived its usefulness. Musicians/bands can produce their own videos and upload them and invite listeners to pay for the music if they liked it and want to support new productions from the musician/band. They can even publish the names and amount of contributions from the supporters, if that encourages more people to contribute. They may even promise to send their next production to the current contributors by a private distribution channel, some days before allowing public downloads of them. Those who receive it privately are free to distribute it to their friends and acquaintances, but are unlikely to do so knowing their friends and acquaintances can do so in a few days anyway and no reason to give up the privileged position they are in. It may already be happening, but I wouldn't know because I don't pay attention to this music business.
They no longer produce music, just trash, and trash buys this faux music as well, made for the lowlifw twitchers.
You forgot the Eagles who told their fucking Jew agent to take a hike and did it ALL themselves.
Their previous model was always a losing proposition. It was only held into place by artificial barriers (i.e. cost of producing CDs and the difficulty of sharing music) that enabled middleman (i.e. music companies) to exploit artists for their own benefit. Once those barriers were gone and the artists started to wiseup, it's clear that the music business would need to transition to something else. The problem is that everyone from artists to music executives want to return to pre internet pricing models despite the fact that on the production side, costs have dropped massively in what's required to produce high quality music. As with many sectors of the "market", they need a refresher course in capitalism because there price points should be dropping along with their costs and they should be reaching a larger part of the population which should in the right combination increase their profits.
Hardly. Those were one-offs aimed mostly at individuals
as opposed to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPKaBhDPVRA
which was aimed at the entire industry, as was everything else they did
such as:
http://news.sky.com/gallery/1214022/the-brits-memorable-moments
Snarky puppy.
IMHO youtube has subsequently killed off music, itunes started it but now you just get a free APP that puts anything, and everything is on there, straight into your itunes folder, and at a better bitrate
lets talk about how automobiles destroyed horse and whimp sellers' business
Let's not leave out the concerted effort to destroy streetcars and light rail.
Digital Killed the Moneyo
Hold the fucking phone!......
......People still pay for music?!
People still pay for music, if only so they can call the dance.
Movies are joining the queue.
Haven't been in a theatre in 12 years. Thanks Bittorrent.
In my case thanks to Winter months A/C and ear piercing sound.
I just checked, 12 years ago was also my last time in a cinema as well. That is about the same time I also stopped watching the tube. Internet I only pop into every now and again to see news also. So no newspapers and that dinosaur media either.
Where I am they give it away for free anyway, no need to buy. Its all just full of propoganda in any case, problem is most people I used to speak to swallow it all up, they do not even question it ! Hence me speaking to less people as well, The majority are just dumbed down sheeo.
"This is the Club, and you are not in it !"
Music Industry to a musicians.
oh, geez, this article is full of nonsense and half-truths.
E.g. Apple's "$0.70 per song is a 30% cut from the old album price". Yes, and that old album/CD required physical plant, manufacturing, distribution, etc., whereas the iTunes is upload one digital copy to Apple, once. I bet the music companies love the simplicity of not having to do all that physical shit.
I don't think people object to paying for music, but many Boomers, like me, are pissed off beyond belief that the music industry forced us to pay full freight each time there was a manufacturing defect/problem with the medium they sold the music on, and then pay full freight again when they changed the format. For example, I bought Steely Dan's "Can't Buy a Thrill" twice on vinyl (after the first one warped so badly it wouldn't play - record store: "Tough. Gotta buy another"). Then I bought it on cassette (now lying somewhere in a mass of spaghetti between Montreal and Toronto on the 401), and finally on CD (lost). I think Becker and Fagen are incredibly talented, but do I have to buy the album FIVE times to get it on digital now? Uh, no, thanks, I "pirated" something I paid for four times already. Same is true of most of my downloaded music; I bought the album/tape/CD in the past, and now prefer to have it in a clean and multi-use format.
And it's easy to justify when you consider who loses the most when you download. Is it the artist? Hardly - they get about $0.14 of every dollar. It's BMG, Sony, etc. who are losing it all, and I for one don't give a rat's ass about their root-kitting, hidden trojan, flea-bitten hides.
SPotify?
The idea that online piracy destroyed the music industry is a myth. The truth is that the idiot execs made a bold decision to stop meeting customer desires and impose their own tastes instead. In 1990, music lovers were happy listening to Nirvana, Alice In Chains and other bands in the Grunge genre. Techno was gaining traction in the underground and kids were still installing lavish sound systems in their Civics so they could rattle whole neighborhoods with bass tracks. These were tthe things that music consumers wanted from record companies.
Starting in the mid-'90s, however, the execs decided that they weren't going to give us what we wanted anymore. Rather, they were going to force-feed us a steady diet of Gangsta rap, coupled with mindless Hip Hop for the less violently inclined. By the mid-2000s, every Rock station in the nation had been driven out of existence. Grunge was defanged and turned into Alternative Rock and then into so-called "New" Rock, which was nothing more than a lot of over-fed, spoiled, middle class brats whining about how bored they were (ala Green Day, Blink 182 and 311).
In addition, corporate consolidation of local radio stations by the likes of Clear Channel and others ensured that the suits would be oblivious to the rise of the next big thing in music. Real music that bubbles up from the frustrations of real people was suppressed by sanitized corporate music. There was little reason to buy albums or listen to the radio and people's tastes turned to other things.
Napster's rise was only a stepping stone on the path to the death of corporate music. The graphs above reflect a general decline in the purchases of ALL music, no matter the format, with the decline slowing only in recent years.
If the geniuses running record labels will listen to consumers again, they will find a ready market in music made by real people and not creepy corporate creations like Lady Gaga. They will also find a ready market among people who want music that sounds good and not the digitally destroyed compressed variety being served up by Steve Jobs and the hackers. Compressed music is an assault to the ears, but don't expect the suits to figure that out.
Sorry... "Grunge" was a fashion statement from the early 90s. "Alternative rock" was something you had to go to a shitty, run-down record store - not fucking WallyWorld or 'K Marked - to buy.... usually the place with the bootlegs out of view. "Alternative Rock" became a moniker akin to "limited edition" Happy Meal toys.
Don't say idiot suburban kids didn't want rap... we saw all these kids PAYING MONEY to learn to BREAKDANCE in the 80s.
One thing is clear about the 90s.... if you were on dope or addictced to buying shoes, you were controllable, and got signed.
My favorite Rock n' Roll story of the (later) 1990s is the story of the rise and demise of The Unband from Massachusetts/NYC. From a long line of destroyed house parties to opening for Def Leppard, then back to the gutter... a true love story.
Love this Parallels band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAAlDc-7W-o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-QYoK_R0Yk
Reminds me of the Cyber People of the 80's - the Golden 80's.
I created an account just to Thank You for this! What a great band. I'm 40 minutes from Toronto and have never heard of them
I always "love" those articles that decry the decrease of music sales, without ever putting that into perspective against record sales in the early 70s or the boost that came with the Audio CD.