The Future of Music
 

For all of you MP3 fanatics, just thought this article might be of interest. Here's what your piracy will bring in the future.

Piracy in China is so bad that only 20 albums are produced there each year. Record labels like Warners don't hardly bother with recording anymore, just talent management.

And the few songs that are produced are mostly those paid for by commercial sponsors like Microsoft.

http://www.iht.com/articles/87521.html

Welcome to the future of music.

Yes, so everyone stop downloading, go buy your records (except for me, I'm just 1 man)!

Everyone has this additude..

Even here... major music stores in our area are closing left and right. Three huge chain stores on one major street in my area have closed down in the last 3 months.

Obviously people won't stop downloading.

But eventually, over the long term, that will mean no more quality product to download.

It's only the beginning.

It'll come full circle in a short time I think...

In the end, people will covet hard copies of their favourite music again.

hah!! ever watch mtv cribs? Small time artists are still making bank, driving 4-5 cars, living in million dollar mansions. In addition to that, music execs are said to make even more than the artists themselves. They music industry is just whining because they're not making as much as they used to but they're still making tons of money.


http://www.mtv.com/onair/cribs/

agreed...

And videos are making tons of money for them as well...

wow..welcome to 20 years ago...hahaha..Artists will never make more than record execs unless they branch out into buisness men (which many artists do not) the average record exec makes 60k yearly and the average artist makes much less than this..

Did you not read my post? I said music execs make more. Also, according to your numbers, when did less than 60k a year buy all this? http://www.mtv.com/onair/cribs/flipb...ex.jhtml?c=127

Not true. If you're talking about music videos, the artists usually don't make any money off of that.

In fact, they usually have to split half of the production costs with the record company --- which comes out of their royalties.

Music videos usually cost artists, not the other way around.

the average big name video costs at least 100k ..this price includes props,grips,assistants,the whole nine...this fee comes from the artists allocated marketing fund..basically the artist doesnt make a single dime until he sells enough records to make alllll of it back..considering the average artists makes only 3-6 points on an album (less than $1 per cd) you do the math..

using this logic how many artists are on cribs?? and more importantly aren't all the artists on cribs multiplatinum artists? Most artists have what we call a sellers clause..when they reach a certain number of sales they collect a bonus..

fyi: Lots of cribs on cribs are rented...most of those homes arent paid for..

My point exactly. I thought most contracts call for a 50/50 split, but you're probably right that all of it has to be recouped before they see any "profit".

if I would show you some of the contracts of these rappers and musicians you would literally cry laughing...its so laughable what these artists get themselves into

Or ... they're into a ton of debt. One way or the other, not necessarily a sign of great wealth ... LOL

They should lower their prices!
It's crazy that a cd still costs 20 to 25 bucks.... atleast that's what they charge for it here.
$10 is enough for a cd.
Same for DvDs.
New movies are like $40 here.
Idiots.

Does it matter how many are on cribs or not? The decision to be on a show is up to the artists and the T.V. show. The simple fact that there are some no name artists with MASS assets shows that the music industry isn't as stressed as the media makes it out to be.

ths music industry isnt hurting..what is hurting is their old school approach to marketing music and spending money on worthless promotions. True enough mp3's are hurting the biz but it isnt hurting it anymore than these big shot CEO's pinching money and ordering things for their wife and charging it to the artists funds..

You don't call a 20 percent drop in music sales stressed?

How about a 20 percent drop in porn sales. I bet you would be stressed over that ... LOL

I wish I was as poor as Eminem ... :(

True. The whole thing is fucked up all around.

But I do get tired of the, "Record execs screw artists so it's ok for me to screw artists too" MP3 argument.

I have been in the music business for over 20 years both as a musician and as an engineer. Downloads have their place as a promotional tool. I really believe that. The fucked up sales on CDs has as much to do with Record Companies charging more than what a product is worth as does the download world. That will kill any business. I can record a band in half the time it used to take. Thanks to computers (and auto tune! lol) Manufacturing and artwork costs less than it did 10 years ago too. We can get a project recorded/finished and in the jewel case where it can be sold for 10 bucks and still have a good margin........... Why can't Sony? It can't be videos and promotions because that ends up coming out of the bands pockets like toodamnfli mentioned. There are several small record companies I know of that are doing quite well right now. Fuck I wrote a whole book here. Sorry.

I dunno about that. Maybe it's true. But I don't see how MP3s help small labels either, if people can get their music for free.

I read these articles from Janis Ian where she talks about increased merchandise sales, etc. from MP3s.

But, by her own account, it's only increased her sales a couple grand a year.

I find it difficult to get excited about that.

mp3 quality sucks, thats why people who are able to download them still go and buy CD's

Perhaps you missed the news where one of the biggest music retailers has declared bankruptcy, and the others are on the verge of declaring the same?

Like ... CD sales are down ... WAY down ...

Hello? LOL

Christ ... that survey is so ridiculous it's pathetic. It has no credibility whatsoever.

It wasn't based upon actual music sales data at all.

The small companies I know of are doing well because they can get the music out on the web. Before the web it costs too damn much to be an indipendant artist. There was little hope without touring your ass off. MP3s sound like crap like mentioned. I don't care what you do to them. They work well on computers and to an untrained ear. I can't speak for all small record companies but the 3 I do have connections with are doing fine. Don't get me wrong. I think the huge assed napster type trading has hurt some. But it isn't the whole problem. Song writers should LOVE the mp3 thing. They make money on airplay and that is directly related to popularity on the web. There are pros and cons to all of it.

I don't know what I just said but I said something..............

I don't know how airplay is directly related to web popularity.

At least for now, airplay is usually directly related to record sales ... not the web.

The article I posted pointed out that it's very difficult to determine a "hit" song in China because there are no record sales to determine that ... just as an example.

Actually me saying airplay is realated to web popularity isn' exactly true. It helps. Where I am I know lots of radio people. Owners and talent. Their playlist is not even up to them. Radio today is pretty much "told" what the next hit will be. It is as much fun as the porn business. Just as many hookers, drugs and booze makes the radio world go around. Even at the local level here. This is a good discussion nevermind. Got me thinking again. Are you involved in the music business?

Sort of. Let's just say that I have studied it a lot ... LOL

That is cool. I have lived it more than studied it. It has been good to me. The best part of any day is still plugging in and cranking it up.

Piracy is bad for music business but very good for music. Let me explain:

Musicians are forced to actually have to perform live to make good money, this leads (via practice makes perfect) to much more talented musicians and a good filtering of all wannabees, poser, studio rock stars with a drum machine and a cd burner that land their 'masterpiece' in a music store for you and me to waste some $20 of our hard earned money on.

i don't notice any difference

Artists have the balls to charge $100 for a concert ticket, $50 for a shirt and they bitch about the public screwing them?

The fact is the music industry hasnt put out a decent product for years. Why should anyone pay $20 for a cd that has one or two decent songs?

Artists aren't losing anything. Maybe MTV superficial label created stars like britney spears are losing, but the people who are truly making their own music and not in it for the money are doing great.

As far as record executives, they have nothing to do for music. Good music doesn't need commercials. Plenty of independant bands have made it to the top recently for a simple fact: their music is good. There's no money to create a new britney spears, so they're signing people who actually deserve to sell records. Of course they totally fuck them, giving them a much smaller % than they would get on an independant label, but they're still getting them the exposure.

So basically as far as I'm concerned, britney spears and her record executives can end up living in a cardboard box. I don't care. The industry is being overthrown by the true artists. Viva la revolution!

get a better sound system

do you produce a product of some kind we can all steal from you?

hella of an attitude huh?

So if someone in the porn business is making "too much money" - it's ok to steal from them too?

You know what else ?

How about those porn guys charging people $40. $50. bucks a month for some of the crap there is on some pay site - you believe that? - fucking people in porn making millions.....

Let's steal from them!



:winkwink:

Exactly how does one do great if they're not getting paid for their work? I guess you expect all artists to work for slave wages.

Let me tell you something. I used to be an artist at MP3.Com back in the day when they used to pay relatively decent money to indie artists.

Since I also produce porn, I put together a porn music video to promo my songs. All I asked is that people throw me a song play so I could get paid by MP3.Com --- and they could then get the free video.

Even though it was totally free, people ripped me off in droves. They refused to play a song so I could get paid, and I was hacked to death. I had to redesign the entire site and FORCE them to play a song so I could get paid --- even though it cost them nothing.

Based upon that experience, I sincerely doubt indie artists are doing that well in this environment.

Well I've always been involved in the local punk rock scene with show promotion and all that. None of these guys are living off their music, but they still do it for love of music. They stay grounded and accept that they may not make it big. What happens alot of the time though is they'll get signed to a small local label, then maybe a bigger one, then epitaph. From epitaph some of them make it big and get signed by a major label. That's how we got bands like Green Day and The Offspring in the mid 90's, how we got Blink 182 and Good Charlotte. Not saying I like blink or GC, I think they sold out majorly, but they went the path and got noticed for their music. Times are changing to where you get big from climbing up the ladder, not by some luck of the draw when some record company pig decides that you're gonna be a millionaire.

This discussion goes round and round all the time. Let me set it straight, downloading doesn't hurt sales of good albums. It hurts sales of bad albums because people get to sample it, live with it and tell their friends, "It sucks! Don't buy it!"

If you don't believe me look at the sales of these albums which should be hurt worst by downloading since their target demo fans are the main downloading bandits;

Eminem - 7 Million
Avril Levigne - 5 Million
Justin Timberlake - 2 Million
Christina Aguilara - 2 Million
Pink - 4 Million
Nelly - 5 Million

There's more than that but that's just a sample. What you think about the albums listed is irrelevent. The fact is the fans really liked them. Album sales will, from now on, totally reflect their actual worth to the target audience. Sales will no longer be based on hype because they can't lie about the quality anymore.

This is a good thing.

So yes at the end of the day downloading has hurt the biz but overall it helped a lot. Quality is going to go up. People will never stop buying cd's. You can't compare this to China since they don't even stock legal cd's so none could possibly be sold anyway.

As soon as the downloading is monetized in a semi effective manner it will add even more to the businesses bottom lines since there will be two revenue streams Physical sales and Digital sales. This is a great thing.

The constant whining of 'Downloading is hurting the business, waa waa waa" is bullshit. Look at the big picture. RECORDS ARE STILL SELLING WELL! The only thing different is bullshit is not selling anymore. Get it through your skulls.

I sorta disagree. Most teenagers or college kids that know how to get free music online are not going to pay for it. Why pay 20 bucks for something you can get for free?


All the artists albums you list ARE bullshit. But when something gets hyped 24/7 on mtv, its gonna do decent sales.

Dude take your personal preferences out of it and look at the business. Bullshit or not, each album has multiple singles that fans like. That is what makes a hit album (hit = commercially successful)

There were waay more albums that were hyped this year that had dismal sales. As I said before, just hyping an album is not working anymore. It takes some substance.

Again, you may not like the mtv fluff but there's millions of kids that live and die by it. They are just asking for a bit more than one hit song on a full album now. If you look at the sales figures THEY STILL BUY RECORDS IN DROVES. Sales figures don't lie.

I hope you're right. Although wouldn't you agree that "bullshit" is difficult to define in music or, even, any industry?

How many acts have been called "bullshit" over the years, who went on to sell millions anyway. (Rap is a good example.) And who's to stay there's more bullshit product now than in previous years?

The numbers don't lie. Surely you're not disputing the 20 percent drop in CD sales? That's documented fact.

Even if the adult biz, the most successful webmasters I know make money because their content can't be stolen (at least easily).

They make money on password traffic because the freeloaders can't get the stuff for free. And the freeloaders only buy because they can't get the same stuff for free.

So a few big name acts like Eminem are still selling millions. For all we know, Universal's tactic of flooding Kazaa and other networks with bogus Eminem files helped those sales.

Once again, because they couldn't get it easily for free.

The truth is the entire CD's suck,

they realize it only had one or two good songs so they don't buy the whole CD

Did you really understand my post? I don't try to define bullshit as a personal preference. I define bullshit as an album that doesn't have enough songs that appeal to it's target audience. In other words an album with more than a few singles. I'm here for the business not to play favorites. My taste is always separate when evaluating the business and forming a strategy.

Read my post again so you can see where that dissappearing 20% went.

It's Grammy weekend and I have a couple of parties to attend. I will be back to answer any questions you may have late tonight.

I'm confused...

so you're saying it's OK to steal something if the quality is not up to what you think it should be for your own personal tastes?

:thumbsup