This recent Lefsetz Letter post attempts to lay out the future of not just the music industry, but music in general. While Lefsetz, in general, has solid, informed advice for artists and aspiring music professionals, his cynical (and I can relate) views can sometimes overzealously champion this God and Savior Internet.
The Internet changes; it doesn’t kill. Lefsetz’s appropriate commentary is overshadowed by his lust for panic, and asserting his correctness (but I love him for that). So let’s stop the insanity.
In the article, which I suggest you read through, a number of claims are made as to what will become of Record Labels, Promoters, Agents, Managers, Retail and on down the line. In the end, he only briefly touches on where people will find out about music, and assigns that responsibility to “their friends.” Let’s pose the question, “where did their friends hear it?”
This is where the MItB problem enters the equation.
Lefsetz envisions music promotion of the future as a “series of bunts” as opposed to “grand slams or home runs.” Meaning that thousands of blog references (for example) to your music would take the place of one airing on MTV. It seems logical, and getting your music featured on a blog written by a college kid in Toldeo is easier/cheaper than landing a spot in MTV rotation, right? Let’s say for now that it is (it’s not), and since the CD and Retail are dead, and you don’t need a huge PR budget … the Labels are dead as well.
This brings us to the audience, if you’re promoting with bunts, then your audience is receiving bunts as well. To find out about great, new, music they have to visit 13,000 blogs everyday – more information than brains. Eventually, certain blogs (or other filters) are going to become more preferred than others, and, in turn, more inundated with unfiltered promotional material from Artists, Managers, Agents and Promoters (not Labels, remember, they’re dead) and we’re back to MItB.
So someone has a great idea to start a company that listens to new artists, and in return for some financial right, helps them (with time, staff, money), emerge from that crowd and get heard by the preferred filter. The filters, in turn, begin to prefer this company because it not only makes their job easier, but possible, and the Record Label is born again from the flames.
Music and the Music industry is going to change, but when you take the MItB effect into account, it’s not dying quite the gory, John Rambo, death that Lefsetz (and the rest of the world) would have you believe, because certain, most basic, aspects of it are not changing at all.
People will still (and always) want to listen to good music, the need/demand is not changing. Musicians will still be making music, and some (most) of it wont be worth listening to. The supply and demand of music remains unchanged.
Imagine that fifty years ago we planted a tree, but there was an ass-ton of poison rain, so we put a big glass box over it. The tree grew, and eventually filled out the box, making a nice, rectangular tree. Over the years, the tree got sorta old, and bits of it rotted, and the glass cracked a little, and some asshole carved “Sid Lives” into it, so we decided that it was time for a new tree. We plant a brand new tree, but due to ubiquitous recording equipment, there’s even more poison rain falling and we decide it’s a pretty good idea to put a glass box over this one as well. In five to ten years, we’re going to end up with a brand new tree; a brand new, rectangular tree that looks rather like the old one with a few different branch-formations here and there.
The record industry grew organically to fill the gap between artists and audience. If we chop it down, it’s going to grow back in a different pattern, but the final shape will be the same.
Posted by c007km