According to a story in Monday’s New York Times (“Plunge in CD Sales Shakes Up Big Labels,” by Jeff Leeds), recording industry big shots are losing at a game they seemed to have given up on years ago. As the CD format nears the end of its reign as the dominant format for commercial recordings, record executives at the major labels are facing being forced to consider whether or not they can continue business as usual, and from where I sit, there’s not much hope that they can.
As the Internet makes it easier for people to download music, both legally and illegally, and for artists to publish their music, industry giants are being forced to use new strategies to keep up, and they don’t seem to be working.
It’s a good thing for the fans, and it ought not hurt the artists themselves, either.
A major label breakdown could mean less money for the U2s and Green Days of the world but allows for the dissolution of the ownership of listener tastes by the industry. As ears in search of something new turn away from corporate-owned radio and look to blogs and buddies’ sound systems, smaller acts have the chance to make a name for themselves without billboards and videos full of cars, scantily clad women and stacks of cash.
True, the decline of the big money music industry could keep artists driven by bank account balances away from performing music. It could make the reality of the starving artist more obvious than ever before. But mightn’t weeding out money-minded artists ultimately do the industry good? Couldn’t a decrease in the amount of money exchanging between hands for recordings help guarantee that those artists who chose to pursue a career in music were involved because of their love for the music? And would this not, in turn, guarantee the industry a more compelling product to sell?
The current structure ensures more money for the few artists devoted enough both to music and business to land big contracts. It does not ensure that the most talented artists will be paid at all, and it is more interested in subsisting on the rewards of recycling than promoting creativity. The record companies are finally suffering for operating in the safest, most immediately profitable ways possible, and that’s opening the door for people who are willing to put themselves at a greater risk for their shot at stardom.
So let’s sit back and watch the record companies do their best to push the same old songs on us, to alienate customers with lawsuits and kill their own profits with over promotion of an outmoded product. It should be quite a show, and maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll get an industry more conducive to innovation and less preoccupied with profit.
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