How The Music Industry Created Its Own Worst Nightmares

http://music3point0.blogspot.com/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbyowsinski/2014/07/30/4-reasons-why-music-careers-are-getting-trounced-by-tech/

It used to be that if our best and brightest had any affinity for music at all, they would go to great ends to enter the business, with a long-term vision in mind. Not so today, as music careers are getting trounced by the tech industry when it comes to job choice and availability, and there’s no end to this movement in sight.

Where music was once seen by many as one of the highest callings possible, that perception seemed to die with the 90’s even as the music business hit its peak. It’s been all downhill since as the brain drain and lack of incoming talent has only helped to accelerate the industry’s fall to where it is today at about half its all-time high revenue.

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If you take a step back and look at the problem from a macro perspective, there seems to be four primary reasons.

1. There’s no glamor in music anymore. ...

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2. You can make more money in tech. It used to be that just about anyone could at least make a living in the music business, even on the level of a band finding enough work playing in clubs to at least survive. ...

Today those dreams have been just about completely dashed. There’s still a lot of money being made in the recorded music business as a whole (if you take touring, merchandise, publishing and licensing into account), and hopefully even more to come as streaming becomes the new paradigm, but more and more that wealth is concentrated with the 1% of successful artists, major record labels, and publishers. ...

In many people’s eyes, if winning a television talent show (which is another post altogether) only means you’ll stay in the public’s consciousness until the series ends, then what’s the use of having musical talent ...

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3. There’s more freedom in tech. There was a point in music were artists had the freedom to create what they wanted, no matter how much it diverged from whatever was popular, and were even encouraged to do so both by the industry and the public. Now if your music doesn’t fit into a convenient box that happens to be popular today, you probably won’t get the traction you need to become successful enough to compete with even the lowest of tech careers. Music homogenization has lead to blunted creativity, even more now than in other eras, while tech offers it in leaps and bounds, which ties in neatly in with the next point.

4. Tech is more creative. If you want to be rewarded for thinking outside the box, join the tech industry. If you want to be penalized for it, then the music business is for you. The one thing that 18 to 25 year olds have in common with their predecessors is that they like to expand their creativity and actively look for a way to express themselves. When that first job or opportunity comes along, being able to be imaginative and artistic is high on the list of priorities of what they’re looking for, whether they realize it or not. Music used to offer that, and still does to some degree. It’s just that on the highest levels where the majority of the money flows, your options for expression become increasing limited as the industry contracts (there used to be six major record labels, and now there are three, for example).

For better or worse, record labels and publishers are run more like the large corporations that they are these days, which demands more conformity from the troops than ever before.

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Music is cyclical though, and a total upheaval of the business due to a new trend has occurred many times before. In a flash, music can again offer all the coolness and creativity that it once did in the past, and attract the talent that it so needs to flourish. Let’s hope that such a disruption happens as soon as possible.