How Obsolescence Shapes Popular Music
"Near the end of the twentieth century, Major Labels that embraced disposability and commercial music as a viable way to achieve repetitive consumption realized that in catering previously to niche acts and genre specific music, they had severely limited their potential market.
But, in abandoning their more risk averse, ‘gut-feeling’ mindset, they began to operate in a very conservative way, which caused them to try to minimize the very risks that built their industry."
Don't miss Kyle Bylin's latest essay:
Conditioned To Steal: Popular Music and Obsolescence in America
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I was enormously annoyed by the lack of durability of my recent cell phone. The power supply broke down and a new cell would be cheaper than just a replacement power supply. I don’t need one regularly, so I’m not buying one again for now, because the new one isn’t likely to last longer.
Same goes for the music industry: if they have deliberately decreased the half-life of their products to sell more, they have been annoying their customers and in the long run, people just won’t be buying anymore.
Btw, most albums that I’ve bought during the last 3 years were independent releases, either self-released by the artist or on indie labels. But the major labels still dominate the public perception of the music industry (including the one in the credit businesses’ eyes) even though their importance has gone down tremendously. Why is that? Are they paying their own spin doctors? Probably.
I think obsolescence plays a more predominate role than we give it credit for, but I can't go as far as saying that they've decreased the half life of their artists on purpose. It's more along the lines of trying to make a product like music adhere to quarterly growth, wherein, there is no "this year" or "last year" of music, there is only quarterly releases and needed, projected growth to be met. That's when I think things get into trouble, as well as, having less influence over MTV (being that there isn't one anymore) and less say over what tracks are into rotation on radio.
But, as I've argued previously, if your in the business of making things quickly popular, it can potentially hurt overall sales in comparison to more organically grown careers, who gained the underground before going into the mainstream. Thus, there are tons of ways, much like your cellphone, where the disposability of technology products and music, coupled with the economics of fashion, that only further contribute to creating a throwaway culture and generalizing the sensitivity to such a scenario.