Article Response: State of Music

As major record companies continue to blame their declining sales woes squarely on a download nation, I can’t help but pay especially close attention to a recent Internet column by Umair Haque, titled Music Industry: Stop Shirking.
“Every major label is drooling over the money-making prospects of having its own iTunes or Musicmatch,” he writes. “But they are all, in the immortal words of Johnny Cash, born to lose and destined to fail. Why? The music industry’s problem is fundamental: the implicit contract between music companies and listeners is no longer viable.
“The music industry fails to understand that a primary reason that consumers illegally share music files is that they want insurance against the music industry itself. File-sharing is as much about risk sharing as it is about theft of value. Technology makes file-swapping possible — but the music industry’s business model, which is at odds with the implicit contract it signs with listeners, makes it probable.”
Haque, a London-based entrepreneur, is exactly right. By and large, record companies have not lived up to their end of the deal. They are supposed to be weeding out the crap — not creating it.
There was a time when you could count on the A&R (Artists and Repertoire) departments of the former “big seven” (prior to the mergers which have made them the big six, five, four . . .) to find great talent and develop, grow, promote and nurture that talent for a scenario in which everyone wins.
Artists who began their major-label recording careers post-1995 have very little chance of being “career” artists anymore.
After all, building music careers costs money and this racket has become one of quick-hit, low-cost instant gratification.
The most dangerous place for artists to be is at the top of the singles charts, because unless they have a snappy follow-up, their demise is imminent.
It’s just like a championship sports team: The hardest thing in the world is repeating.
Artist “A” is the biggest band in the world, but six months pass, and then no one cares. No one will buy the next Creed record because they have loyalty to the band, but they might buy it if the talent-free outfit can produce another monster hit single.
Incidentally, one big advantage to this age of disposable music is that groups like Creed, Limp Bizkit or Korn are but a memory long before they have overstayed their welcome.
Awful vehicles such as American Idol and Canadian Idol are great for television, but don’t necessarily translate into record or concert ticket sales. That’s because Ruben, Kelly and Clay were pretty much done by the time the season finale had aired.
In Canada, the Ryan Malcolm record is tanking (rightfully so) and already you can envision a venue-half-full show at The Pump before the end of spring. That record companies might not be able to profit from the Idol brands is simply a case of turnabout being fair play. Disposable television begets disposable music — and the music in this case has even less of a shelf life than the record companies could have predicted.
The year 2003 was a far better one for new music than most fans seem to acknowledge, but, admittedly, you had to dig deeper and search harder than ever before.
If you discovered some great new music by downloading one or two songs and then dutifully went out and bought it, shouldn’t you be considered part of the solution rather than the cause of the problem?
Music fans will continue to buy music, but they will do it smarter in a consumer market where, hopefully, content will one day be king again.