What do you think about the future of music

[Marlinark]

There's one query which has bugging me rather a lot recently. Where is the best place to get mp3 downloads for a price, the musician rights are dissolving.

Looking to the future it appears that all of the music downloads are going to start displaying for free. While Itunes sells, it is beginning to give more and more for free. I suspect this is good as it relates to more music being releases but it kind of feels like a large amount of good music is being missed out on due to this too. With such a big amount of different sites there should be a method to stop this. Which come to my solution. We want to universify mp3 to one area.

Just considering the future, any input or noticed logical fallacies?

[fingerpikingood]

ya, now with internet there are some upsides and downsides for musicians as i see it.

in the past what was really good was you need a musician in order to hear music. but still the great ocmposers got the most cash. what ended up happening, is that poor people could only listen to music at your local pub, and the rich would teach their children to play their piano.

but the composers got their cash from writing what the others would play, and for appearing for play in front of elite guests.

same happened for photography. it used to be in order to get a picture of something, someone had to paint it.

still though nowadays, the great writers get alot of the cash, the great performers get alot also because their music can be distributed to so many people that have surplus cash to spend on frivolous things like listening to music (thank god for that one).

the internet can allow for people to more easily become available to the general public, either by free downloads or other ways.

but still alot of money comes from filling large venues of ticket buying audiences.

also alot of money goes into producing mixing and mastering works.

the thing is, it is easy to become available to the general public, but the general public needs to know about you.

record companies usually take this job. this is imo their main function. alot of money can come from radios playing your stuff, often record companies will illegally entice stations to play their tunes in some economic fashion.

but if your music is good enough people can learn and know about you from live performances or places like youtube and stuff like that, which is great.

but still, you'd need a record label to become really mainstream. even great guitarists like tommy emmanuel are unkown to the general public, but lots of people that look for great musicians know of him.

I think with royalties and filling large venues and mp3 sales for those things in demand, the wealthier in the music industry will continue to be quite wealthy. the best of the best in mixing and mastering and stuff and all that will continue to rake it in.

perhaps a little less than before because of piracy, but still.

whereas the others that are not showcased by rich record companies will get very little, and need to give away their mp3s and even at that finding customers will be tough because you haven't been advertised, nobody knows about you, nobody has any reason to download your mp3 over any of the zillion other ones that are available.

but, by that same token, if you do have youtube videos, and perform live often, you can tell people where they can get your music for free. so word of mouth can spread much more rapidly.

so i think what's happened and will continue to happen is that your average person will have an easier time and more opportunity to blowup than previously, where you may have needed an actual scout to hear you and sign you, or you'd have to pay a recording studio to make your cd and then sell those to people that might hear you play.

a harder thing. but if someone likes your stuff you tell them they can get it for free, it would probably spread faster that way.

so i think basically the rich will continue to be rich. the less fortunate will need to tighten their belts perhaps even more, since the supply of known musicians is likely to increase. (so they would suffer because of that a little also, but not much i don't think), but on the positive side the transition from unkown to known is easier, and the level of professionalism an amateur can deliver with computers and technology nowadays is far greater though still quite expensive.


i'm not sure what you mean by universify, but there might be an opening for jobs of people that make mixes of the lesser known and free mp3s that they like and people might buy those for looking for new good music, or, once you've found songs you like you could approach the artists and ask for a fee to publish your music on their CD.

which should workout well because artists will only pay if the exposure works, so the guys making the mixes will need to find good artists and not just anyone willing to pay the price. basically they will be paid for having good taste, or rather common taste i guess in certain musical styles, and for searching through all the free stuff.

although i guess maybe record companies have guys like this that work for them too.

but again not sure what you mean by universify mp3s to one area. if you mean one site or location where you can buy it, i disagree with that, it gives too much power to that place. it's like saying you want only one CD store to exist. that's a monopoly and not a good idea.

plus in a non communist place, and just given the nature of the internet, that would be a near impossible thing to implement.

[fingerpikingood]

on a side note also, what's kind of funny about people is that often they need to be told what is good. if someone looks like lots of money is backing them or they are hyped, reviews are good, the radio plays it, and stuff like that then people will be more likely to like it. that's why i find american idol or xfactor quite an interesting thing. but that's where record ocmpanies come in also. that's their job. glorifying their artists.

others can get by without that, but still, word of mouth and stuff is necessary. it is relatively rare that someone would be of the type to hear someone play locally and then decide that they must get their album. at least i think so.

[mjo]

Originally Posted by Marlinark

.... Where is the best place to get mp3 downloads for a price,

I know this one ! It's at your site: emusic .com.
...did I win ?

..I'd also like to welcome our newest member: :lordservicesltd - bet there's some good stuff for sale there.

[Madaxeman]

MP3's and computers and internet are just new technologies that have simply expanded accessibility of music to the masses. We are heading inevitably towards instant everything on demand. The industry, artists, and consumers will all adapt. Money will always be the common denominator in the end, so free is relative (someone always gets a buck somehow).
With things like Kindle for books, eventually someone will figure out a way (if not already) to copy and paste, and then books are in the realm of MP3's. People will not stop writing books, and authors will still get paid for writing them.
Everything will lean towards equilibrium and then something else will tilt the balance.

[ChrisJ]

It has been a very long eight years and things have really changed. I've have had a front row seat in both the "old" and "new" music business roller coasters so let me give thoughts.

The age of rich musicians is ending. There is simply not enough money to be made anymore. Digital technology has made the CD obsolete for a very large portion of the music buyer's market. There are still people buying CDs, but the amount of people downloading one song for 99 cents is growing everyday. Where musicians used to be able to get a $1.50 in mechanicals and recording points for a sale of a full length CD, now they get 7 or 8 cents for a song that someone downloads from iTunes. On top of that, as record companies are making no money, they are now trying to get their hands on other types of royalties due to the artist (performance royalties and such). Not to mention piracy. Also the new paradigm is that to even sell a full physical CD, it must be cheaper than the full CD download, so less money going around.

The age of middle class musicians has begun. The same technology that is devastating "big" music business has made it very easy for everyone to record and sell music. This is something I would have never imagined as I got my first contract at eighteen years old in the 80s and at the time, it was the only way to record and release records, If you didn't have a record label behind you, you might as well have been dead. Now you can record yourself, press yourself, send the CDs to two dozen internet retailers including the download ones and collect royalties. The model is actually better because you are now your own record label and more so than the measly $1.50 you would have made in royalties, you get all the profit from each sale, maybe 8 or 9 dollars. Be warned though, this is getting more and more difficult as well for the same reason as above, 99 cent downloads at iTunes.

The era of friendly musicians has begun and and aloof rock stars is over. People are more interested in being able to get close to artists (in an internet way). Meaning these days artists are expected to have their website written in 1st person and keep blogs, etc.

The days of rich session musicians is ending. But there is more work for everyone. I don't get that many calls anymore to carry my stuff down to a particular studio and do tracks. I now get an email with an mp3 attached and do the tracks myself. I can record for people all over the world this way. And make about 150 or 200 dollars a track. So learning protools is getting more important than being a great sight reader anymore because time is not as big an issue as it used to be.

-CJ

[bluesking]

Interesting data from the front-line ChrisJ, thanks for that!

I don't know if anyone remembers the reactions when cassettes were introduced? It was going to be the death of music & the musician..... Somehow we don't remember it like that though

I bet the record companies were pretty glad to bring in the CD format. From a licensing point of view it was a retrograde step, scooping up consumers in a big bag and handing them straight to the record companies. The consumer got fidelity, the companies got a lockdown format, everyone was happy.

Of course nowadays we are being subtly discouraged away from MP3s because most online content providers don't sell lossless formats. So we are told that if we actually want to enjoy our music, we must pay for a plastic disc stamped with optical reflective material. All we need is the data for god's sake!! Of course online retailers maintain the extra server load generated by larger, lossless formats would be prohibitively expensive, but I can't seriously believe it is more expensive than making plastic discs in plastic cases, and shipping them from pressess to shops all around the world.

Going back even further, what did live musicians make of the radio medium I wonder. That was surely the end of music right there, I mean, people wouldn't need to go out of the house to listen to music, how would those musicians feed themselves without entry tickets?

Every day I smile a little more knowing that the days of the record company might well be coming to an end. The days of the musician will never see the same fate, because as long as there are humans there will be music.

The days of the album may well be over, but its not because of technological/financial limits. Its to do with demand. If people don't want albums, only singles, then give them singles. I still want albums, and I'm sure 100 years from now people will still be creating albums, maybe not as many, but they will.

The record companies have made several crucial mistakes in the last 15 years. They have rejected the opportunities presented by the internet during the first 5 years of this period. They have attacked music fans through bitter and petty lawsuits. They have complained about their reduced profit margins as if it is everyone's duty to support them (thats not a free-market where I come from). They have saturated markets with music aimed at increasingly younger audiences, ignoring the vast disposable wealth of the over 20 market. Ad infinitum.

The record companies are relics which belong only in the past. As musicians with a message, it is our duty to precipitate their demise, no matter how uncertain the immediate future may appear.

We all know that music will live forever, lets grow a pair of balls and lead the revolution rather than fighting it.

[ChrisJ]

Just one more note. Record labels need to reinvent themselves in order to be viable but they have yet to do so. They are the Robert Mugabes of the music business. One of my good friends was the A&R person for one of the most famous singers in the world (sorry can't say) and she told me that my last CD cost 1/10th of 1 percent of what this artist's comeback CD cost. Now how can the label possibly make their money back? Record companies need to figure out how to produce CDs for, let's say, 100 G rather than two or three million. It is not really a big deal to do a record for several tens of thousands of dollars. I can do one for under 10 G in a real studio with real musicians. But they still adhere to their old formulas. I think that new, smaller and more limber labels will emerge like as in the 50, Sun, Chess and Stax come to mind.

Labels like magantune (which I am signed to) offer their artists music as mp3s or wav files and the consumer can pick the price. So if you can only afford my CD for 5 dollars, that is fine but if you think it deserves more and can pay it, you can pay 20. http://magnatune.com

[fingerpikingood]

Originally Posted by ChrisJ

Just one more note. Record labels need to reinvent themselves in order to be viable but they have yet to do so. They are the Robert Mugabes of the music business. One of my good friends was the A&R person for one of the most famous singers in the world (sorry can't say) and she told me that my last CD cost 1/10th of 1 percent of what this artist's comeback CD cost. Now how can the label possibly make their money back? Record companies need to figure out how to produce CDs for, let's say, 100 G rather than two or three million. It is not really a big deal to do a record for several tens of thousands of dollars. I can do one for under 10 G in a real studio with real musicians. But they still adhere to their old formulas. I think that new, smaller and more limber labels will emerge like as in the 50, Sun, Chess and Stax come to mind.

Labels like magantune (which I am signed to) offer their artists music as mp3s or wav files and the consumer can pick the price. So if you can only afford my CD for 5 dollars, that is fine but if you think it deserves more and can pay it, you can pay 20. http://magnatune.com

ya i think honestly record labels are going to get more and more screwed. because sure they can record and mix our tunes, but this is easy to find, like you said in my own home even, or anywhere local.

but i think they still provide a use for marketing groups. I think that is actually very powerful. and i think labels will become little more than that, just marketing groups. mixing artists and stuff like that should or i guess already should have seen a dramatic increase in supply of labour so their value should drop or should have dropped already.

mastering engineers are probably still ok, and this might be the next best thing record labels could offer. but even at that, mastering engineers might have it a little rough also.

but i really like the model where people can pay whatever they want for music. it's a good philosophy i find and meshes well with art.

but the really big bucks are when people in china know you by name. this can be difficult to achieve. sure maybe you could go there yourself for a while and make a name for yourself, but usually big artists first get popular in beijing and then go there.

and this all happens because they are being marketted and backed by big dollars.

but now with internet even achieving world renowned status is becoming more achievable without the help of giant established corporations.

[JonR]

Originally Posted by bluesking

The days of the album may well be over, but its not because of technological/financial limits. Its to do with demand. If people don't want albums, only singles, then give them singles. I still want albums, and I'm sure 100 years from now people will still be creating albums, maybe not as many, but they will.

Why? The album format was a creation of a specific period in the recording industry, dictated by technology and market forces.
I don't want albums. I want songs. I long ago got tired of buying albums, because it was so rare to find one where all the tracks were worth playing. I reckon most people have always felt the same, preferring (in the old days) to borrow albums from friends (or libraries) and tape the best tracks.
For too long, too many artists were bound to the god of the album, feeling they had to fill that quota of space before anything could be released - and so often coming up with filler tracks, or maybe just stretching other tracks to artistically unnecessary lengths.
(The original idea of the 33 rpm LP was to enable classical symphonies to be enjoyed in their entirety, without changing discs. The idea of pop musicians filling them with a dozen or so short tracks came later.)

It was only the packaging that really made albums worth having (and made LPs better than CDs). In the old days, it was about the only way a fan could get a big colour picture of the artist, along with (of course) plenty of information about him/her/them and about the tracks themselves. Albums in those days were real cultural icons, heavy with semiotic meaning!

Now the internet (myspace, blogs, etc) renders that obsolete, along with the necessity for hard plastic.

Of course, you still miss that primal pleasure of holding an object in your hands, something to possess. It's harder to value invisible information, mere bits of data on a hard drive.

But I think in general it's a good thing for music. The existence of physical objects containing audio recordings was always beside the point when it came to music itself. We came to worship those discs as being somehow the "real thing" (because they were physical artefacts) - and in comparison live music suffered. We felt disappointed if a live act didn't sound as clean and perfect as the record.
Recording is still worshipped of course, but is becoming more ephemeral - residing in the ether, as it were. A little more like live music itself, which only exists while it's being performed.

And live music, of course, remains indivisible. The experience of being present at a performance is the same as it ever was, and has always been, since before recording was invented. It's what music is FOR. Musicians will always have that, because it will always be in demand. Recordings - of all kinds and formats - have not killed the demand for live music (despite the doom-sayers at every stage), and have even (arguably) increased it.

Musicians may be losing control of recording rights, in an age where fans have lost respect for intellectual ownership of copyright. But they remain in control of performance.
As a composer, I have mixed feelings, but I can see there's an argument for musicians not having rights over recorded product. There is a good moral argument for the idea that "music belongs to everyone". Before recording existed, there were obviously no recording rights! But musicians existed and survived. Composers were paid by commission, just like any artisan. (If a carpenter builds you a chair, does he have a right to royalties every time you sit in it?)

Naturally, as long as people are willing to pay for recordings (assuming some at least remain willing, given the free availability of almost everything if you know where to look) there is money to be made. And it's only fair the artists earn a reasonable proportion of that (along with the technicians etc).
As Chris says, the technology now offers musicians the chance to take full charge of the whole process. And I agree the best policy is to allow buyers to pay as much or as little as they want. If that ends up as nothing, so be it. (Although I do think buyers should be made aware of what it has cost the musician to produce the recording. To encourage a moral judgement of how much to pay.)

[bluesking]

There are a couple of reasons I still want albums around, but as I was originally saying, most people don't, and these people should form the natural "demand". If they want singles, give them singles. Music is for them more than it is for us (and obviously a lot more than it is for the record companies).

I personally will miss the album. Not because of the physical medium nor the packaging. Only the thematic development that can be realised in a linear arrangement of movements. I can only fully enjoy bands like Chicago & King Crimson when in album form. A single song in a compilation ruins the dramatic effect of the album. Its not just old fogey bands though, I hear Dream Theatre are regarded in a similar light in this respect although I can't say I have listened to much of their stuff.

Of course many bands don't use the album format in this way and they would do just fine with singles only (e.g. I couldn't tell you which album most AC/DC songs are on even though I own all of their albums and I know all of their songs by heart).

Another reason I will sort of miss albums is because, as you say, most albums contain at least one song someone doesn't like. Yes, it spoils the album. But do you remember the feeling of hearing an album with no such songs on it? To find that album where everything sits well together is a magical feeling. Every time I listen to The Nightfly by Donald Fagan I get chills all the way through the whole album. To me, there is not one note on the whole album which doesnt fascinate and please me. If all those songs were muddled up with the whole Steely Dan / Fagan catalogue that magic would be diminished.

Aside from that I agree with all your sentiments, JonR.

[Marlinark]

I admit to not knowing much about this which is why I asked initially but don't you think that all of this begs the question of what our future technology will be like from a musical standpoint. It seems to me as if mp3 is going to advance from a computer deal to a wristwatch that can telepath the notes into your head.

[bluesking]

Originally Posted by Marlinark

I admit to not knowing much about this which is why I asked initially but don't you think that all of this begs the question of what our future technology will be like from a musical standpoint. It seems to me as if mp3 is going to advance from a computer deal to a wristwatch that can telepath the notes into your head.

This is the most ridiculous speculation I have ever heard. If we ever have the sort of technology which allows this then we won't have music in any sense we currently understand. There will be no language/music/art. We will probably progress to a hive mind where we are all simultaneously aware of all human thought. The notion of "individual" will no longer exist. What the hell would we need a wristwatch for in this scenario?

Crackpot.

[fingerpikingood]

Originally Posted by Marlinark

I admit to not knowing much about this which is why I asked initially but don't you think that all of this begs the question of what our future technology will be like from a musical standpoint. It seems to me as if mp3 is going to advance from a computer deal to a wristwatch that can telepath the notes into your head.

we do have this sort of technology. it's call sound. ;-)

but seriously our brains are not equipped to accept wireless transmissions, although the brain adapts very easily, and it is likely that we basically have all the technology necessary to do this with implants. not because we are so advanced, but because the brain is a really versatile thing that would do most the work for us. like if you plug a bionic arm into your brain and everything it needs to function functions well, then the brain will figure out how to use it properly.


as for albums. well i understand how lots of people want singles, and ya i'm that way sometimes also. but i think this is really what separates the good artists from the mediocre, or lucky ones i guess.

because you could get lucky and write one great song, but to make a nice full album that the whole thing is good.

I mean, there's nothing like buying an album because of one song and then finding all sorts of other ones that are great also.

but albums like this are hard to find.

so i think what might happen is that artists will get paid less for only putting out singles people want to buy, rather than building albums people want to buy.

which is only fair i guess.

[bluesking]

Originally Posted by fingerpikingood

like if you plug a bionic arm into your brain and everything it needs to function functions well, then the brain will figure out how to use it properly.