RIAA Chief Says The Music Industry Has 5 Reasons for Optimism
Now that the RIAA is tiring of suing individual filesharers, its head Mitch Bainwol needs a new soapbox to stand on. Apparently he's decided that what's needed is a record label cheerleader to cut through all the doom and gloom indicated by the sales numbers. To kick off his campaign, he released an essay "5 Reasons for Optimism in the Music Industry". The 5 reasons behind Bainwol's optimism include:
- Our product, music, remains as popular as ever.
- Long live the album. "The album’s demise is exaggerated."
- But it’s more than just the album. "The modern music company is an increasingly diversified, full-service
entertainment firm deriving revenues from a variety of different
streams." - Record labels make or break the day.
- Great music.
You can read more at The Wrap, but my question is what planet Mr. Bainwol inhabits? #5 is certainly the key, but while the major labels that belong to the RIAA can sometimes be good marketers; how much "great music" have they nurtured recently and how much "great music" did they ignore along the way?
As for #'s 1 -4, If you read this blog, you already know what I think.
This is why all these pompus execs that currently run the industry should be fired. Its this type of arrogant thinking that has doomed the labels to their fate.
From the original article:
“There are more than 2 million hip hop artists on MySpace and more than 1.8 million rock acts. It’s a sure bet that most of these acts are hoping that a label will pluck them from the mass of aspiring, unsigned artists online and take their careers to the next level.”
What Mitch fails to mention is how many of these artist that are “plucked” by a major label ever take their career to the next level. Where are those metrics Mitch?
In any event, “5 Reasons for Optimism in the Music Industry” is a poor, political response from the RIAA Chair.
Bruce should let him guest post so Hypebot readers can tell the RIAA how we really feel.
What a sad state of affairs. I am sure that Mitch Bainwol makes a very nice living over at the RIAA – it’s about time they funded something positive with regard to developing artists, maybe grants or loans instead of wasting time and money fighting the future.
As far as his “5 Reasons for Optimism in the Music Industry” …is he looking at Soundscan from 2009 or 1999?
Utter balls
I don’t think Mr. Bainwol lives on another planet so much as he lives in a different century.
Generally speaking, people stopped buying albums by new artists a while ago. As a result people stopped investing in recordings by new artists. We are now experiencing “The Age of Home-made Masterpiece” and in terms of generating great albums or lasting careers, this has been the worst decade since LP’s were invented.