gamby wrote:
Pre-Napster, the music biz was cash flush and could take risks on less-mainstream artists. Now, there are entire divisions of labels gone since the only stuff people will pay for en masse is the lowest of the lowest common denominator.
Once the collective decided that music should be free, the record business vanished. The major labels were pretty vibrant and diverse when people were paying for music. Now, we're left with an industry dominated by bland pop and country. Anything unique is on the underground.
Which is why I buy my music directly from the artists at their shows when I can make it to one or by using Bandcamp or other channels. I buy my music. The artist still gets their money. I don't have to worry about DRM or any of that junk- I bought one of the infamous Sony root-kit CDs back in the day. I still have it. Spending 6 hours fixing my computer after I tried to play a frickin' CD in it did not win the labels any points with me.
Back in the day, there was a pretty well established model for getting your music.
- A band made a record. It was on some kind of label. Bands wanted to be on labels, because that is how their music got out to the public.
-The label went out and did PR for the band and got their music out there. They sent copies to radio stations, got copies into record stores, that sort of thing.
-You heard a song on the radio (or maybe at a friend's place)
-You want to a record store and picked up a single or maybe a whole album
-You played that thing until it broke, and if you really liked it, you bought another copy.
What happened?
Well, radio became homogenized. Radio stopped taking risks and playing interesting music long before Napster and the like threw their lunch in the trash. Hearing new music is hard. You have to listen to NPR, college radio stations, satellite radio or other "non-traditional" distribution models to hear the non-mainstream acts. However, satellite radio and the web-at-large (youtube, blogs, etc.) are on the cusp of becoming the mainstream- heck, maybe they already have if you're under 30 years old.
People started posting music up for free on the internet. This was wrong, but it showed that digital distribution could work. Smart artists jumped on things like I-tunes. However, under pressure from the labels, I-Tunes stuck DRM on their songs and people realized that that really sucked, so they went back into the arms of Napster. Apple took a shot right to their wallet, got smart, told the labels to GTFO and removed their DRM. People started buying the songs there again. Other distribution channels like Amazon started popping up, wanting a piece of the long tail.
Some small artists decided that they didn't need a label- Kickstarter and BandCamp came onto the scene. These last channels bypass traditional broadcast radio (largely), record labels, record stores and they WORK. They work pretty well. The bands using them might never get as big as Elvis, Led Zepplin. U2, Nirvana or Lady Gaga, but lots of them are able to use them to make a career out of their music, mostly because they get a much bigger cut of their music from these channels.
And I'm ready to dance on the graves of the record companies. Screw them for breaking my computer. I just wanted MUSIC. I don't care how that music is legally delivered to me. Record Labels are Record Stores are an outdated method of distribution that rode themselves into the ground snorting coke through $100 bills and using them to wipe their butts afterwards, and they didn't see the world burning around them as it was happening.