Record Industry crashes, dies

[KJ]

Are people concerned? Really interesting article in Rolling Stone here:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/15137581/the_record_industrys_decline/1

For the music industry, it was a rare bit of good news: Linkin Park's new album sold 623,000 copies in its first week this May -- the strongest debut of the year. But it wasn't nearly enough. That same month, the band's record company, Warner Music Group, announced that it would lay off 400 people, and its stock price lingered at fifty-eight percent of its peak from last June.

Overall CD sales have plummeted sixteen percent for the year so far -- and that's after seven years of near-constant erosion. In the face of widespread piracy, consumers' growing preference for low-profit-margin digital singles over albums, and other woes, the record business has plunged into a historic decline.

...

Thoughts? The really interesting statistic for me is that 65% of record sales in America now take place in your Wall-Marts and Best Buys. Evil.

[KJ]

The other attention-grabbing factoid is that it's only CD/record sales that have been negatviely effected, touring and lisencing revenues are the highest they've rever been.

[joseph scott]

Thanks for linking this. I plan to read it a little later.

I saw an editorial in Sunday's NYT that had me thinking about this too. It was cheekily looking back at the summer of 1997 (since everyone else was obsessed with 1967), calling it the year all the seeds of the decline were planted. (or some mixed metaphor like that.)

Anyway, my reaction: good fucking riddance. Anything I can do to help the record industry die, let me know. Music has never been better nor more accessible, and the majors' woes are compleltely their own fault. They haven't cared about actual music for decades. They've cared about converting plastic discs into cash, and people don't want plastic discs anymore. If they'd done anything for foster creativity in their artists, maybe I'd feel different.

At the end of this supposedly long dark tunnel, the only people that are going to come out the other side are going to be people who love music. Whether making it, promoting it, or selling it, the only people still in the business are going to be the ones with passion. Good riddance to the rest.

[elpollodiablo]

Anyway, my reaction: good fucking riddance.

QFMFT

It's not even worth getting upset about; the only thing that would allow the music industry/commercial musicians in general to continue as they have been for the past century or so would be if we all willfully renounced all technological advances of the past decade. You can make all the ethical arguments you like, you can proselytize and prophesy until you're blue in the face, but it's just shoveling shit against the tide. When people can get something for free, they will, as a rule, not pay for it.

[SPACERACE]

js, i more or less agree until that last paragraph, which is utter crap.

[KJ]

Maaaaaaybe...

I do hope you're right, but the whole MO of the downloading movement- however much it can be dressed it up as fighting the power- is more or less "we won't pay for what we can get for free". Long before any major label gets run out of business a whole bunch of small record stores will be dead. Case in point: a really cool, tiny CD store that runs a few doors down from my grnadmother's house in Cornwall is routinely charging £13-18 pounds for an album, and much as I like the place my goodwill simply doesn't extend far enough, often enough. The way things are going we might eventually see physical recordings disappear from the high street altogether, which seems very grim to me.

Digitisation warps the listening process even if you don't fileshare. In the year or so I've been without a personal computer I've been pay more attention to each album I buy, which is nice, and spent time going over the albums I already have, but my interests have splintered wildly. Partly, I think, because I'm still buying Cds on the basis of whatever bits and pieces of info I pick up off the net and partly because prices are pretty hard to predict (anything to new/old/rare is usually beyond me, wheteher it be in street stores or online sellers). I feel like I'm only ever half in touch now.

EDIT: double x-post

[elpollodiablo]

Well... yeah. I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying that the changes are irreversible, so while it sucks that there are a lot of little record stores going out of business and people don't connect with albums as much and artists are having to find other ways of supplementing their income, there's absolutely nothing to be done about it. I mean, there will always be analog fetishists and those that feel morally obligated to pay for everything they listen to, but they're vastly outnumbered by the hordes with iPods feasting on unlimited free digital content. I'm just kinda interested to see where the technology takes us next.

[joseph scott]

js, i more or less agree until that last paragraph, which is utter crap.

because... ?

What do you think is going to happen? Every record store on earth will go out of business and therefore there will be no more music? Because people can't make millions, they will not make music at all? I doubt it.

I've watched the recording industry (and radio, and music retail) shift from many small companies into a tiny handful of behemoth companies - and everyone wishes for the good old days when those small companies brought real personality and flavor to music. Now the behemoth is breaking apart and people think the whole damn ship is going down. No - it's going back to the way it once was. Sure, it's happening in cyberspace, but so what?

I'm just saying that the changes are irreversible, so while it sucks that there are a lot of little record stores going out of business and people don't connect with albums as much and artists are having to find other ways of supplementing their income, there's absolutely nothing to be done about it.

While I don't think filesharing will ever be stamped out (it's just the 21st century version of bootlegging), I also don't think it's the end of everything. iTunes has been around for what, three years? And it's the #3 music retailer in the world now. Of the top five music retailers (Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Amazon, and... I think Target?), it's the only one that is a MUSIC retailer, so I think it's pretty encouraging, both as a sign that music can exist on the internet and artists can get paid for it. People will pay for music if they know where to get it and feel a certain loyalty to the supplier. Apple has worked extremely hard to create loyalty to its brand and it's paying off for them. Meanwhile the record industry is more concerned about Wal Mart. So the record industry can fuck off.

Seriously, I love indie record stores and I wish for nothing but their success, but they are so far out of view as far The Music Industry is concerned. They're not even entering into the equation except in the minds of the bona fide music lovers... which just brings me back to my original post.

[elpollodiablo]

I'm not saying it's the end of everything. I'm saying it's the end of everything as we've come to know it. The sooner the record companies and artists reconcile themselves to the fact that things ain't never gonna be what they were again, the sooner everyone can start figuring out new ways of doing things.

And as far as iTunes goes: I've neither the time nor the inclination to look up the exact numbers, but I'm pretty sure that the percentage of downloaded digital music that's paid for is a very, very small bit of the whole.

[SPACERACE]

js, i more or less agree until that last paragraph, which is utter crap.

because... ?

What do you think is going to happen? Every record store on earth will go out of business and therefore there will be no more music? Because people can't make millions, they will not make music at all? I doubt it.

I've watched the recording industry (and radio, and music retail) shift from many small companies into a tiny handful of behemoth companies - and everyone wishes for the good old days when those small companies brought real personality and flavor to music. Now the behemoth is breaking apart and people think the whole damn ship is going down. No - it's going back to the way it once was. Sure, it's happening in cyberspace, but so what?

because without a music buisness there is no such thing as a professional musician who can devote their life to music, nor money to send people to or run a professional studio. basically there's the potential for music to shift more and more towards home recording- which would be fucking terrible- because passion alone cannot pay salaries.

and things are not going back to anything they've ever been. before the behemoths it was the little stores, but all the behemoths do is what the little guys did on a massive scale. it's the same business, selling the same product. what's happening is completely unprecedented, because what they sell is now available for free, and it's easier to get it that way than to buy it. people are only obligated to actually buy the album for ethical reasons or because they want tangential tangibles. this has never happened before, and i don't think anyone knows what's going to happen.

[nonotyet]

This is not meant to be sarcastic: What's evil about Best Buy?

[SPACERACE]

they're about as evil as every large conglomerate corporation, which is to say somewhat, but it's just a terrible place to buy music.

[titus a.]

These debates make me so giddy.

[nonotyet]

But they're really cheap! I don't get it.

[elpollodiablo]

There's nothing terrible about it. Buying from Best Buy is the same as buying from any other non-independent retailer.

Another interesting tidbit, from further in the article:

Rosen and others see that 2001-03 period as disastrous for the business. "That's when we lost the users," Rosen says. "Peer-to-peer took hold. That's when we went from music having real value in people's minds to music having no economic value, just emotional value."

[joseph scott]

because without a music buisness there is no such thing as a professional musician who can devote their life to music, nor money to send people to or run a professional studio. basically there's the potential for music to shift more and more towards home recording- which would be fucking terrible- because passion alone cannot pay salaries.

Meanwhile indie bands are appearing in the top ten billboard charts, and a band like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah isn't even on a label at all. I would wager that there are more musicians making an honest living than ever before. So their ability to survive is not being impinged upon. The people who are hurting are the people who are expeciting millions of dollars on the bottom line. As for recording methods, that has nothing to do with filesharing or anything illegal. It has to do with perfectly legal software programs becoming affordable to musicians. So recording engineers are fighting a whole 'nother battle.

and things are not going back to anything they've ever been. before the behemoths it was the little stores, but all the behemoths do is what the little guys did on a massive scale. it's the same business, selling the same product. what's happening is completely unprecedented, because what they sell is now available for free, and it's easier to get it that way than to buy it. people are only obligated to actually buy the album for ethical reasons or because they want tangential tangibles. this has never happened before, and i don't think anyone knows what's going to happen.

Yeah, the behemoths do it on a massive scale, but not on a better scale. So they're fucked and music wins. I also think you (and others here) are being too cynical about the majority of people's ability to act ethically. Again, see what I just said about iTunes being a really fucking successful business, selling precisely that which is readily available for free.

I'm not saying it's the end of everything. I'm saying it's the end of everything as we've come to know it. The sooner the record companies and artists reconcile themselves to the fact that things ain't never gonna be what they were again, the sooner everyone can start figuring out new ways of doing things.

And as far as iTunes goes: I've neither the time nor the inclination to look up the exact numbers, but I'm pretty sure that the percentage of downloaded digital music that's paid for is a very, very small bit of the whole.

Pollo, I totally agree on the first point. As to the second: the rolling stone article said this about purchased downloads:

Digital sales are growing -- fans bought 582 million digital singles last year, up sixty-five percent from 2005

That year, 2005, coincides with when iTunes opened for business. Meanwhile, here is an article that talks about them being the #3 retailer. Sure, you can compare all illegal downloads to iTunes, but that's a skewed statistic and not really fair.

[elpollodiablo]

Why not? We're talking about overall music downloads--the article says there are over 1billion illegal downloads per month. The iTunes store can't begin to compare. In my experience, people will turn to iTunes when the content they want isn't available on P2P, or the quality is bad, or whatever. I know very few people--actually, I don't think I know any people--who use iTunes as their primary source for music. It's P2P first, then iTunes if you can't find what you're looking for. Like I said, when people can find what you're selling in the street, why even bother walking into your store?

Also iTunes launched in 2003, I believe.

[joseph scott]

Why not? We're talking about overall music downloads--the article says there are over 1billion illegal downloads per month. The iTunes store can't begin to compare. In my experience, people will turn to iTunes when the content they want isn't available on P2P, or the quality is bad, or whatever. I know very few people--actually, I don't think I know any people--who use iTunes as their primary source for music. It's P2P first, then iTunes if you can't find what you're looking for. Like I said, when people can find what you're selling in the street, why even bother walking into your store?

Also iTunes launched in 2003, I believe.

You might be right about 2003 - I was trying to remember off the top of my head.

You'd have to compare all illegal music downloads either to all music sales or at least to all legal downloads. iTunes alone makes for a skewed stat. Not to say illegal downloads wouldn't still be greater, but it would be more in perspective.

Obviously someone is using iTunes, even it's not the people you know.

[SPACERACE]

well best buy is terrible because their selection has always blown in my experience, and i doubt they encourage those who choose them to seek out good music from independent labels.

js, the "indie" bands that are in the top 10 billboard charts are not on "indie" labels, so that's moot. it's just a style now. i know nothing about clap your goddamn hands say "yeah", but if they distribute and market and manage everything themselves, good for them. they still wouldn't be shit if pitchfork hadn't given them a good wanking, so i consider that a fluke.

as for recording methods, that has everything to do with filesharing, because if neither the musician nor the record company can make any money, who pays for the $3000 an hour studio? i don't want to sound too haughty, but i don't think you know what goes into recording an album at a professional studio. there's a reason people pay for the staff and equipment and time and effort that's required to make something sound great. there's also a reason people pay thousands and thousands of dollars on stereo systems to listen to these records. sound is kinda some people's lives and livelihoods. home recording is great for some things, but not for sounding good, and i refuse to accept a general decline in the way all music sounds.

itunes is pretty successful, yes, but torrent sites and peer-to-peer are vastly moreso, and will continue to be. to be fair, itunes shoots itself in the foot by offering lossy-mastered albums and no lossless option and just generally selling files that sound like shit, so that the free options are actually of much, much better quality, but it doesn't matter that much to most people, i think.

the fact that people use itunes does not matter, and i don't think i'm being cynical at all, i think the snippet pollo posted is right on: music itself has ceased to have much, if any, economic value thanks to technology. again, this has never happened.

[joseph scott]

js, the "indie" bands that are in the top 10 billboard charts are not on "indie" labels, so that's moot. it's just a style now. i know nothing about clap your goddamn hands say "yeah", but if they distribute and market and manage everything themselves, good for them. they still wouldn't be shit if pitchfork hadn't given them a good wanking, so i consider that a fluke.

In particular I'm thinking of the shins and arcade fire - are they not on indie labels? I missed the part where Sub Pop and Merge were acquired by Sony. And your lack of awareness concerning CYHSY doesn't change my point. And so what if Pitchfork helped them out? CYHSY might be the most successful case, but Pitchfork has helped numerous bands out on variously sized labels. Good for all of them.

as for recording methods, that has everything to do with filesharing, because if neither the musician nor the record company can make any money, who pays for the $3000 an hour studio? i don't want to sound too haughty, but i don't think you know what goes into recording an album at a professional studio. there's a reason people pay for the staff and equipment and time and effort that's required to make something sound great. there's also a reason people pay thousands and thousands of dollars on stereo systems to listen to these records. sound is kinda some people's lives and livelihoods. home recording is great for some things, but not for sounding good, and i refuse to accept a general decline in the way all music sounds.

I understand the difference between home recording and studios. I'm pretty confident that studios aren't going anywhere, nor is a devotion to fidelity. I'd be willing to hear more about this perspective though - honestly I've never seen any articles take it from this angle; I haven't heard about studios closing down because of filesharing. I always thought it had more to do with shit like protools.

the fact that people use itunes does not matter, and i don't think i'm being cynical at all, i think the snippet pollo posted is right on: music itself has ceased to have much, if any, economic value thanks to technology. again, this has never happened.

Maybe I'm just being too idealistic about the whole damn thing, but art has never suffered for wont of luxury. I had no disagreement with the snippet pollo highlighted. In fact it just bolstered my opinion of how far the industry's head is up its own ass.

"That's when we went from music having real value in people's minds to music having no economic value, just emotional value."

The dude is equating "real value" with "economic value," and that it's a shame for us all that it only has emotional value. Yeah, pity.

[joseph scott]

I mean, the thing is - none of these people are making "no money." There is still money to be made and it will never get to the point of total anarchy, where there is no system and no profit. So Beyonce makes a living more on par with Lily Allen. Okay. The studios will still get paid. People will still buy records. This isn't Mad Max.

[diesel_powered]

But they're really cheap! I don't get it.

This is kind of an issue for smaller retailers because Best Buy sells CDs at below cost. That's why they're so cheap. Best Buy has CDs and DVDs in their racks to get you in the door to buy a computer or a TV. Smaller shops can't compete.

And JS, Sub Pop is owned by Warner.

[John]

just a clarification here: studios don't cost 3k/hr

the main thing about the changing dynamic is that the business relationship between artist and audience must of necessity become more personal. those of us on the artist side of the coin who were tilting that way already for non-biz-related reasons (because it was interesting to us, or because that's just how we roll) sorta had a head start on this. the notion that there's some point of zero-return toward which we're heading seems kinda ridiculous to me whether it's coming from the RIAA or the Torrent Booster Society - sheet music was once an insanely booming industry, and it used to freak out about public libraries, and then about the internet, but at the end of the day, sheet music still gets printed and people still make money - just not as much. That's fine; it's what's known as a "market correction." The artist's best leverage against this correction is to bite the bullet and personalize his product, thereby establishing a relationship with the customer. I dislike talking about these things in terms like these, because I'm something of a romantic and believe there's more to it than that, but if we're talking about the business end of things, that's where the future lies. To use the glaringly obvious personal example: most of the people who buy my stuff know that they don't have to. But they know, because I make myself available, that I put a great deal of passion into what I do, and that I do it for them, and that if a day came when I couldn't feed my family on it, I'd probably stop doing it; who wants to work for free, after all? (This is the point in the discussion where people usually want to stop talking about business and start talking about how artists "ought" to work for the sheer joy of the effort, and that's also the point at which I ask people to kindly wash my dishes nightly for nothing, since there is a good deal of satisfaction in a job well done.) So my role - my job - as a person who provides a certain sort of shared experience and who requires a modest payday for it (and who's grateful for the ridiculous fringe benefits: the good times, the relationships established, the hearts touched, the shared awesomeness of the whole deal) - gets defined more clearly in response to the whole thing, and generally speaking I think that's healthy for the art in general.

But someone upthread, joseph I think, is of course right in saying that people aren't going to willingly set out on such an enterprise without an incentive, and the incentive of the old model was "maybe I'll strike it rich." So the landscape will be different, and some good things will go by the wayside. Still, artists who understand that the game is theirs to lose - that there's much to be gained in the new marketplace, both work-wise & in intangibles - will still be around, maybe.

On more cynical days though I note that I haven't seen many such artists crop up in recent years, which is one reason I get so excited about Bowerbirds: dudes aren't makin' jack, which means they may not grow to the insane heights of which I know they're capable, but should they find reason enough to keep their noses to the grindstone, they're proof that one doesn't need a giant advance to make a stunning debut, and a single proof is really all that's necessary to make a case.

My two cents, anyway.

[diesel_powered]

A point that the new director at my school brought up is that on one hand, people will jerk off all over art about how it's the height of human achievement, etc. etc. etc. and on the other hand, nobody wants to pay for it. Why is that, anyway? Why is it that the arts are the one profession where it's still okay not to get paid for anything?

[Greg Nog]

You think for other products, people are excited about paying for stuff?