A Music Industry Suckage Update

Here is yet another hand-wringing article about the state of the music industry: Fans, artists and industry: Nobody's rockin'. At least this one gets it mostly right - a big part of the problem is that the music industry is now largely controlled by an oligarchy of clueless bean counters.

There are some interesting tidbits in this article. The first is that the best selling album today is the new effort from Eminem, "The Eminem Show". Now, looking at this guy's demographic, I'd have to say that these are exactly the same people who are most likely to download music from the Internet. And yet, the album sold 300,000 copies in its first two days in stores, and is expected to sell 1 million more this week, which will be a new sales record. Internet downloads do not appear to have hurt Eminem.

On the other hand, 'compilation' CD's of current radio hits are not selling, largely because there are no current radio hits. And that has absolutely nothing to do with piracy. People still listen to music in their cars, it's just that more and more of them are listening to their own CD's or tuning into 'classic rock' stations. People just don't like most of the music being produced today, and that's why they aren't buying it. As the Eminem example shows, if people like the music they will still buy the CD.

Continuing from the article:

As for today's music offerings, well, fresh bands grow stale overnight while The Beatles continue to sell quite steadily. In this singles-minded era, fans forge only feeble bonds with momentary artists.

''Rock bands have hits, but nobody knows who they are,'' says Alan Light, a former Spin editor preparing to launch a music magazine.

''It's the Nickelback question. They have the most-played song in modern-rock radio history (How You Remind Me), and you can't pick them out of a police lineup. There's no story, and it's part of an enormous problem at the heart of the music industry. Artists are being prematurely dismissed or not signed in the first place.

Apart from inciting 'Nickelback' into a life of anonymous crime, the implication here is that there is something about new music that makes it hard for bands to gain name recognition. And that's true. The problem is that the music is CRAP. The same thing happened to crappy music in the 60's, the 70's, and the 80's. Anyone remember Brownsville Station? "Smokin' in the Boy's Room" was a monster hit for them. How about The Starland Vocal Band? "Afternoon Delight" was a huge smash. And I'll bet even those of you who remember the band names know nothing about them, and couldn't name a single member. The Starland Vocal Band fan club consists of one old guy named Howie, and I believe he's an accountant for Sony.

It takes more than one hit song to establish name recognition. It takes a career of excellent music, and that means real talent is generally a necessity. And I'm not talking about the ability to sing and dance - the supply of good singers and dancers is huge, but Bob Dylan can do neither and he has had a great career. The talent we're talking about is artistic talent - the ability to shape words and music in ways that speak to the human condition. Talent like that requires nurturing, not a half-pound of glitter and a bitchin' video.

The problem today is that groups with real talent aren't being allowed to grow. Many classic artists started out slowly in record sales, and some never had big hits at all when they were making records. It took a large body of work to establish a fan base.

Consider The Grateful Dead. Their only top-10 hit, "A Touch of Grey", charted 22 years and several liver operations after the band's first album. Despite the lack of individual hits, they became immensely popular and turned into an enormous cash cow on tour. Today, their albums sell better than they did when they were first released.

Had The Grateful Dead started up last year, they would have been cancelled by the record company after one or two albums, and faded into obscurity. And of course, if a record company signed The Grateful Dead today, they would have forced Jerry Garcia to change his name to 'P. Doopy Doo' or dropped him from the band because he wasn't trending well with the 12 year-old female demographic.

As long as the record industry continues to favor focus groups and 'packaged' bands, it will continue to neglect real talent, and it will continue to decline. File sharing has nothing to do with it.