What’s Going to Happen to the Music Business?
As if you didn’t already notice it, the record business is getting super-funky, and we don’t mean that in a James Brown, “Get on the Good Foot” kind of way.
Sales have been in a slump for quite some time, and they’re not picking up. If there’s one place to look for reasons, it’s the Internet, which some argue is well on its way to eliminating the compact disc from history.
Or is it? And how are we to know? It’s the subject of considerable debate, with opinions on the future course of the music industry falling all over the map. What is inarguable is this: The industry is undergoing a severe shake-up that will leave parts of it looking extremely different.
The Recording Industry Association of America, which certainly has a dog in the fight, estimates that computer users are illegally downloading approximately 3.6 billion songs every month. Even if the organization is off by half, that’s a ton of music changing hands for free. The impact on the industry has been overwhelming. Both wholesalers (record labels) and retailers (record stores) have been hit hard by the downloading; numerous labels and the big chain record stores have reported horrific sales over the last several years, and that has resulted in a contraction of the industry overall.
As for the illegal downloaders, attempts thus far to stop them have been severely limited, if not downright hapless, despite the arrests of a few particularly active file sharers. Toward these illegal downloaders, this newspaper feels both a sense of intellectual respect and a sense of deep frustration. We respect them for figuring out a way to swap music back and forth in such an efficient way as to knock the industry on its hindquarters. Thanks to the speed at which we now conduct business on the Internet, the practice of home recording has reached its technological zenith. And we admire that, if only because we’re impressed by the sheer ingenuity of it all.
But our frustration with the downloaders stems from their apparent lack of culpability. Illegal downloading is, for lack of a better word, stealing. Yes, it’s true that the music business has been ripping off consumers for years. But the fact remains: When people write and perform music, they should make money off of it, and some portion of record sales (though not enough, we’d argue) does in fact go to the artist. Musicians have created something of worth, and when someone downloads that piece of music without paying for it, the transaction is one-sided and, ultimately, immoral.
As if it weren’t already clear, we have our own beef with the big record labels. To them, we ask: Why have you stuck your heads in the proverbial sand for so long? Did you really get so bloated that you could no longer look down and see the shaky ground on which you stood? Only recently did the industry agree with Apple computers to establish a music purchasing system over the Internet, which appears to have developed into what will become the model for Internet music sales. For 99 cents, a purchaser can buy a song on Apple’s iTunes. It’s quick. It’s easy. And it ain’t stealing.
There’s only one problem with iTunes, as we see it. The only music for sale is of the popular hit variety. You can’t find the rare release. You can’t even find the Counting Crows’ cover of “Big Yellow Taxi.” Never mind trying to dig up a nugget by The Troggs or The Music Machine.
The question still remains: Will Internet music sales one day mean the end of the CD as we know it? Not likely, and certainly not entirely. The CD still hasn’t killed the vinyl record, and by the same token, we can envision a day and age when CD manufacturing will become a niche business: It’s cheap and easy, and it’s an ideal way for a struggling band to get their music out there. (Musicians also make considerably more money per disc if they put out the CDs themselves.) As for the consumer, there will always be music fans who want to buy albums—and by “album,” we mean a collection of music unified by an individual artist’s or producer’s sensibility, packaged with artwork and liner notes. Those same fans will always flock to mom-and-pop record retailers, because such stores don’t simply move product: They share tastes and ideas and, in the process, help to foster a genuine sense of community. (For a case in point, pay a visit to Grimey’s Records here in Nashville.)
In the meanwhile, we wish the major labels would figure out that the Internet is to their advantage, if they learn to harness it correctly. Should that happen, the business may be able to recover. One thing the record labels need to learn, though, is that the glory years of the music business are long gone. The era of great record labels truly revolutionizing popular culture—as Sam Phillips’ Sun Records did—is over. Like a heart patient, the music business went far too long indulging itself and getting fat; if it wants to get healthy again, it’s going to have to change its way of life.
Comments (0)