Comments on: Music for love not money

By: Bloix

Bloix — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:15:51 +0000

I don’t accept Waldfogel’s three techniques for measuring the production of high-quality music. All three suffer from the same defect. The 60′s were a period of major cultural discontinuity – in race relations, sexual freedom, political engagement, gender equality, clothing styles, generational interaction, and in music. People under 30 simply didn’t listen to music made before 1962 or so, no matter how good it was. Jazz dried up in the 60′s. Classical music began a slow decline that is still underway. And most 50′s pop was simply ridiculous after the Beatles.

But there’s been no major rift in musical taste in the intervening 50 years. We are as far from “Paperback Writer” (1966) as that song was from Jolson’s Swannee – but I didn’t listen to Jolson in the ’60′s, while my teenaged children have the Beatles on their ipods.

By: Mike Caulfield

Mike Caulfield — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:51:54 +0000

As far as the radio play, could it not be related to the baby boom and bust? And the resurgence of the Millenials?

I was born in 1969, the low point of birth rates in America, or near it. I grew up listening to R.E.M., Magazine, P.I.L., The Pixies, The Cure, Human League, The Smiths. I’d argue it was some of the greatest music ever produced. But none of it was on the radio at the time. Back then, you could only see this stuff on MTV’s 120 minutes. The rest of the music industry was relentlessly focussed on selling Lionel Richie’s new album to boomers…

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 22:41:20 +0000

Very interesting article! Artist must definately have to be wanting to make music just for the love of the game now. I do think that it is difficult for many artists to make nearly as much money as they maybe could have in earlier decades, but I am sure it could be argued that the quality of music is decreasing from this. It will definately be interesting to see how the music industry is going to be able to find creative sources of revenue in the future.

By: Daniel Earwicker

Daniel Earwicker — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:18:07 +0000

Very good reasoning. Situation has much in common with the argument for higher salaries for MPs – the jobs are heavily oversubscribed. Kids queue up for X Factor auditions in their thousands, and new artists upload their work to YouTube in their hundreds of thousands. No particular reason to worry that falling funds are endangering our supply of would-be musicians (or politicians).

By: Gary

Gary — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:05:19 +0000

Many artists make more money from merchandise and live gigs than they do from recorded music. Recording costs have plummeted and there’s no real need to spend months in the studio. The record companies have become superfluous. Promoters are the important group now.

By: Simon Edhouse

Simon Edhouse — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:01:39 +0000

Record Companies did three main things, discovery, development and distribution. They sought and developed acts, musicians, songwriters etc, (A&R dudes) They also distributed the music product. What has happend is that the web/internet and cheaper music technologies, (Garage Band, Protools, Logic etc) has messed up all three of their trump cards. Talent develops itself now, largely, (is discovered by crowd sourced word of mouth, web-buzz) and of course file sharing (super distribution) is the killer app for music distribution. That’s where the music industry was making most of its profits. – Like many business models that get disrupted, the Record Companies tried to stamp out the innevitable new distibution model, instead of harnessing its power. Steve Jobs cleverly came in and performed an intermediate disruption, that placated the record companies, (but still pissed them off) and delayed the innevitable.

The Record companies are the ice-factories of 1910, that wanted to dominate the distribution of blocks of ice, and didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t be involved in the development of the domestic refrigerator. The ice Co’s died… and we all now have refrigerators and can make our own ice.

The Record Companies should just work out what they do well… possibly talent development, (although that’s been co-opted by Simon Cowell etc) …or they should learn from history and give up their tired old model, and embrace monetized super-distribution.

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:26:48 +0000

I wonder if the new clients gained through exposure just balances with the lost sales; the net result being more listeners and the same revenue. Not unlike what Steam or many mobile app developers are seeing.

By: Jazi zilber

Jazi zilber — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 01:43:56 +0000

Since the difference in sales is not huge (i remember that sales are lower but not by very much), it is vy hard to infer.

Clearly the host of confounding effects (as evident by large variance in value before napster) makes any inference unconvincing

By: Sean Phelan

Sean Phelan — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 20:01:10 +0000

Tim – thanks for a fascinating and thought-provoking piece, as always.
Is the Waldfogel article you cite this one? http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/waldfogj/pdfs/Shiller_Waldfogel_submission.pdf

By: Steve Kalman

Steve Kalman — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 19:08:31 +0000

perhaps the business model of suing your once and future customers and trying to dictate how they will consume your product isn’t working out as well as the record labels hoped.