Record Industry
There's a radio station here in Chicago called Jack FM, 104.3, that boasts as its motto: "We play anything." Note that they don't play "everything" - this isn't a statement of mobility between genres, or lack of format. Any sense of freedom that they may be trying to claim comes across as a lack of cohesion, vision, and unity in their programming. They almost appear to be saying they're not even responsible for what goes on the air.
Yesterday I read this article from the New York Times entitled "Saving Radio in the Satellite Era." The author argues that the failures of terrestrial radio's consolidations should not give us much hope for the proposed XM-Sirius merger, and furthermore, that the only answer to our consolidation problem is more legislation - the very thing that got us into the mess to begin with. His proposal is:
"Fortunately, there is a solution: Require every station that wants to add to its holdings to broadcast a minimum level of original, live and local material. This proposal is based on one of the most successful broadcast policies in American history. In the 1960s, when the F.C.C. opened the FM dial, AM stations rushed to acquire licenses — but then simulcast the same shows they were already playing. This was not what regulators had in mind, so they ruled that FM stations had to play original content on at least half of their programming hours. Because radio companies didn’t want to invest much in FM, they ceded control of their studios to young people and amateur broadcasters. The result was the advent of free-form music radio, with programs so fresh and compelling that listeners flocked to FM and stayed there — at least until corporate broadcasters standardized it, too."
Unless I'm mistaken, and maybe Mr. Ryshpan can chime in here, Canada has a similar law regarding percentage of Canadian music played over the airways. Due to the volume of American music the local region would have to be defined more closely than the entire country to have the desired effect, but I do think it could happen. That is, if I had an inkling of faith left in our legislative bodies to do something for the benefit of the general and artistic public rather than for the mega corporations.
Tangentially, I've been involved in some discussions regarding the marketing of this music we like to call jazz in the United States. For the purposes of this discussion we'll define that genre as broadly as possible, not taking into consideration the various genres, subgenres, and splintered factions that exist, at least in some peoples' minds.
The basic questions are: 1) How do we effectively market this music? 2) Specifically, how do we market this music to a younger generation so that it continues to enjoy support as the baby boomers and older generations make their transitions? 3) Is it really a question of marketing?
I'd be really interested to hear from the blogosphere what they think about these questions, either in the form of your own entries or in the comments here. I think it's a discussion worth having, and your ideas might actually make an impact in the way jazz marketing happens in Chicago, a city that boasts a vibrant scene with intermittent support from the general public.
DiggWhile I was searching for the reason Frank Zappa's music was recently pulled from iTunes (actually not of particular interest to myself musically, but a friend had mentioned it to me and I was interested in the why of the situation), I came across this article written by Zappa in 1983.
In it, Zappa talks about the physical waste associated with the sale of music, and the associated waste of material in promoting these physical representations of music by the colorfully described "cocaine-tweezed A&R Brass." He mentions the advent of the compact disc as a smaller and possibly more efficient way to distribute the music (he doesn't mention any issues regarding sonic fidelity though, fwiw).
Zappa also notes that it is not the medium but the music itself that is of primary concern and interest: "MUSIC CONSUMERS LIKE TO CONSUME MUSIC . . . NOT PIECES OF VINYL WRAPPED IN PIECES OF CARDBOARD."
The next section is of particular interest today, as it relates directly to an attitude that I believe needs to be adopted regarding file sharing and digital music piracy. Zappa, however, was talking about home cassette recording as the issue of the day in 1983: "It is our proposal to take advantage of the POSITIVE ASPECTS of a NEGATIVE TREND afflicting the record industry today: HOME TAPING via cassette of material released on vinyl. "
All that is very interesting, but what is truly incredible is Zappa's proposal in the face of all of this:
"We propose to acquire the rights to digitally duplicate and store THE BEST of every record company's difficult-to-move Quality Catalog Items [Q.C.I.], store them in a central processing location, and have them accessible by phone or cable TV, directly patchable into the user's home taping appliances, with the option of direct digital-to-digital transfer to F-1 (SONY consumer level digital tape encoder), Beta Hi-Fi, or ordinary analog cassette (requiring the installation of a rentable D-A converter in the phone itself . . . the main chip is about $12).
All accounting for royalty payments, billing to the customer, etc. would be automatic, built into the initial software for the system.
The consumer has the option of subscribing to one or more Interest Categories, charged at a monthly rate, without regard for the quantity of music he or she decides to tape.
Providing material in such quantity at a reduced cost could actually diminish the desire to duplicate and store it, since it would be available any time day or night.
Monthly listings could be provided by catalog, reducing the on-line storage requirements of the computer. The entire service would be accessed by phone, even if the local reception is via TV cable. "
That's right, Zappa was touting a monthly fee based music system in 1983, such as the one Rhapsody currently offers (also, the added emphasis was his, not mine). Although Rhapsody still lacks a large base and is still behind the iTunes model of DRM based distribution in the online, landscape, I think the model will catch on with time. Bob Lefsetz explains part of the issue:
"When people tell you subscription is the future, they’re right. But it’s not rental. Not for a long long time. Yes, eventually people will have no need to own the product, but that’s closer to ten years out than five, and I’d say more like fifteen. Call it human nature, people want to OWN things, call them their own, have them forever.
Rhapsody IS an excellent service, it’s just that Real doesn’t have enough cash to market it properly. Most people have no idea how it works. If they did, it would make inroads."
Another related idea is to utilize existing illegal P2P networks and monetize them in the way YouTube has, with advertising and perhaps even a monthly access fee as well to pay the people who own the music. YouTube was built on the backs of copyrighted material and I think distributed music sharing networks could take a lesson from them. The problem is that they're all scared to death of the RIAA and record companies who haven't turned the corner and stopped fighting the inevitable rather than taking advantage of the existing infrastructure of people devouring large amounts of music. It seems to me that they've left money on the table by not trying to capitalize sooner, money that could have made it into the hands of the artists.
Apparently someone gets the message:
They've cut their pressing expenses to nothing, converted any distribution expenses into bandwidth expenses, and in doing so greatly increased the amount of music they can release. They're also speeding up the process of the music getting into the hands and ears of their audiences.
It makes sense for Rope-a-dope to go digital - they've got a young hip audience who I think will support their move. I know I will - I'll be happy to buy some of their online offerings if only to support their taking a chance amongst the astounding wussiness of the recording industry to go digital.
I'm also impressed that they've identified the talents of Josh Abrams, a Chicago based musician with incredible talent, whose release on the Eastern Developments label this year really impressed me.
They're doing it right - MP3s, no DRM. I hope they make a move to also offer a lossless format like FLAC in the future, but that's being picky.
What are the implications of going purely digital? I haven't had time to really let it sink in, but here are some preliminary thoughts:
The age of physical restrictions on the length of an album or collection of songs is over. No more EPs, LPs, CDs to determine how long a collection of songs can run.
One ramification of this is that it is no longer necessary for artists to create albums. They can just release songs if they want. They could release 4 songs at once as a cohesive musical statement if that fits their creative output better than 12-15 songs.
Because there is no more pressing and distribution to be done, it will be easier than ever to release music. Along with this comes increased responsibility on the part of artists and labels than we see currently. Responsibility to release only the best recordings, the best music.
If people get burned buying downloads, if they feel that the label or the artist is releasing everything just because they can, there's going to be a lack of trust, and that is why trust is important than ever.
Major labels burned those bridges long ago, but lots of smaller labels like Rope-a-dope still have that trust based relationship to build on. It's going to serve them well.
Congratulations Rope-a-dope, you deserve a pat on the back.
Another label that has been embracing the digital realm and deserves mention is Dave Douglas' GreenLeaf Music.
Chris Anderson over at The Long Tail has posted his analysis of 2006 music sales and boy does it look grim. The chart he posted is particularly interesting because it doesn't just graph total sales, but rather the number of hit albums, Gold, Platinum, Multi-Platinum, and Diamond. Overall, it's the worst year for hit album sales since 1983, and there has been a precipitous decline since 2001.
In Bob Lefsetz's predictions for 2007, his first prediction is that CD sales will continue to tank. He puts a positive spin on the situation by comparing the collapse of album sales and the rise of the digital music era to the collapse of the use film and the rise of digital cameras. The result of course is that people take many more pictures digitally than they ever did with film - Lefsetz argues that people will own far more music digitally than they ever did when they bought CDs.
Speaking from personal experience, this is certainly the case, but I think his analogy is a bit flawed. Music must be listened to and more is not always better - I have tons of music that I never get to listen to, although I like to have the option to do so if I should choose.
All of this runs parallel to the larger trend happening in media more generally, by the likes of blogs, YouTube, etc - power being redistributed to the many from the few. With the collapse of blockbusters and major label leverage, the power of independent artists, producers, and small record labels increases in comparison. We're experiencing a leveling of the playing field that represents a huge opportunity for many people to step up and stake their claim.
A big question mark still remains: how to monetize recorded music if you can't sell CDs and piracy is rampant. YouTube is apparently worth billions of dollars and it was built largely on the back of copyrighted material - so why can't file sharing be monetized in a similar fashion? There are a number of factors - one is that there is no big centralized place like YouTube to monetize with advertising, and the other is that RIAA and other old-school stalwarts are so stuck in the past that they can't see the fact that the future is already here.
I could be wrong, but I sincerely believe that people don't want to steal music from artists. Most people don't perceive file sharing and piracy as stealing from artists as much as stealing from record labels. And record labels have become "the man" in a bad sense, huge impersonal corporations with no soul and no commitment to the artistic development of their acts.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Plenty of independent artists and small record labels are hurt by file sharing as well, which is why it is important to find ways for musicians to get paid for what they do. I think if people had a sense that when they bought a CD or a file from Apple's store that MOST of the music was going to the artist, they'd be more inclined to do so than if they feel like they're supporting a corporate infrastructure.
Ultimately I think the people who completely demonize file sharing fail to see the ways it helps artists, and the people who are complete proponents fail to see the ways it sincerely hurts them by not supporting a key part of their artistic output. However, there is a middle ground that includes DRMless files sold for reasonable prices distributed in a manner that has low overhead, a system built to help the artists as much as possible.
It's time for artists to realize that the state of the recording industry is such that record sales are not going to be the cash cow they once were. Loyal fans and consistent touring are the ways to make money as a musician right now, a situation that jazz musicians had to face up to as a reality a long time ago.
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