The Music Business..... ahhhhhh!

In my music business survey class, we have began to discuss the future of the industry, where we are, where we are headed, and honestly most of it seems very scary to me. I'm not truly scared scared about my job situation, mostly because it is hard for me to grasp the concept that one day, a soon day, I will be independent from my parents and all my income will be directly related to my skills, networking, and jobs that I create within a constantly morphing industry. Below are some issues with the industry and feel free to leave your thoughts, answers, or questions.

-How do record labels stay relevant and make money in a time when over half of the music acquired is stolen? 

Times are hard for a major record label. They usually spend well over one million dollars per album release and even another million dollars just to develop an act. When an act can only sell say 200,000 records, the record label just breaks even and cannot recoup the hypothetical 2 million dollars spent on that artist's career. 

- The American Public is not the brightest. We buy more online music that is at a lower sonic quality, we constantly take what we are force fed, and overall listen mainly to some of the least talented artists on the block. Can we change our listening habits and move towards a personal discovery based indie system where major record labels are obsolete and all music is independently created, promoted and publicised? This would take away many of the costs of the music business, but the consumers would be relied on to discover their own music, rather than passively allow artists to be advertised to them as strongly as they are today.

-Should all music be free? Some of the music industry has suggested all music would be free to everyone and used as a public promotion tool. This angers others in the industry that see this as cutting of one major source of revenue for an artist, label, and publishers. It's certainly an amazingly progressive and liberal idea, but it could work if other sources of revenue could be found. Other suggestions include a "buffet style" of music consumption, where you pay a monthly fee to the industry and can download and listen to every song in a company's catalogue. 

Who knows really? I will be attending a Digital Summit for the music industry on Tuesday, April 22nd. It will be interesting to be sitting in the same room as many of the big industry players and wondering where our business will be taken. We will discuss, argue, and contemplate new, old, and fresh ideas. The CMT's (yes,the crappy country music television channel) Awards were at Belmont University Monday night. Every major star was here on campus from the country world, and even some unexpected ones like Robert Plant, Sisqo (HA), and Snoop Dog. I will also be at a major record label showcase for Steven Lee Olsen tonight. I hope to meet and mingle with some great people in the business tonight, while seeing how a true artist showcase. It is an interesting time to be at a music school such as Belmont, in a musical and aesthetic town such as Nashville in such a time. Belmont gives me so many opportunities to get insight into the industry, and as long as I take them and use them positively, I will be excited to where they take me. We are ever changing and people are constantly looking to follow the money trail. Hopefully graduating in 2011, I will enter the industry at a great time with new opportunities to succeed and fail as well. The new Thrice album is amazing and look forward to the review later this week. I bought it today at Best Buy in order to support the music industry and show my discontent for ITunes. But that discussion is for another time...

Freakonomics of the Music Industry