Win 1 of 5 FREE Passes To Billboard’s FutureSound Conference Nov 17-18
The Billboard FutureSound Conference will be held November 17-18 at the Terra in San Francisco. This inaugural gathering will focus on bringing music industry, tech and finance leaders together to to define "the future opportunity of the digital music market for the artist, entrepreneur and rights-holder alike." Because of our media sponsorship of the event, we have 5 free tickets to giveaway. Here's how to win:
Submissions must be prior to 5PM ET 10/18/2011.
In the comments section below, tell us what development – good or bad – in music industry during the last decade has surprised you the most? For example:
The death of the album? The rise of Apple as a music powerhouse? Ian Roger's being nominated for an MTV O Award for Hottest NILF?
If you want to comment and can't attend, just let us know in your post. We'll include all the best answers in a future Hypebot story.
What development – good or bad – in music industry during the last decade has surprised you the most?
There’s never been so many people listening to music, yet music industry is still struggling.
In the past decade I was most surprised by the major labels failure to truly monetize streaming music.
How a computer company single handedly launched todays largest, most successful online digital music store 10 years ago.
The most surprising development in the music industry is how the rise of “do-it-yourself” recording technologies has allowed more bands than ever to spring up and spread their music. In the past, only bands that had proven themselves (or at least proven themselves to record labels) could afford to put out good quality recordings- now, anyone with a $300 ProTools rig can produce something and put it on the internet.
This glut of new music (both good and bad) has created a unique problem for listeners: How to sort through the troves of bands that are self-promoting? Aside from places like Pitchfork and HypeMachine, there is very little infrastructure in place to filter out the truly special talent from the blase. While blogs and aggregators like HypeM provide some sort of solution to this issue of picking good music out from the bunch, there is a lot of room for improvement in this arena. What will be the next institutional system through which we discover music?
I have been surprised at the lack of a centralized and comprehensive music recommendation engine. Several companies and guides partly satisfy this function, such as the early iterations of Pandora, Rhapsody’s ‘related artists’ tabs, and others, but if I have specific tastes, it’s still not easy for me to find similar artists.
A big part of the problem is that this task is subjective and there’s only so much a machine or database can take into account in generating recommendations, but I still feel that this is a function that should be more developed than it currently is.
For example, if I know I want to find spanish-language rock artists with funk, rumba, cumbia, and reggae influences, I should be able to search for that. While there are creative ways to go about this, such as looking up Santana, Sublime, etc., a very knowledgeable music expert may be a potential fix. In other words, a music recommendation hotline or chat room allows for more comprehensive and accurate user input. While some might argue that this is similar to featured playlists, those do not allow for sufficient user feedback.
Now that the music community has made it easier for listeners to gain access, the music industry has to think about how to funnel users (perhaps for a fee) to music they would like.
The Beatles signing to iTunes apparently signaled a major paradigm shift. It was not causal, but symptomatic of the inevitable of a chapter. I don’t think it was entirely coincidental that the very next week saw the closure of the CD department at Borders. Yes, Borders’ future held an end to the whole chain of stores, but I don’t think they knew that then. All Things Must Pass.
“inevitable END of a chapter.” Sorry.
The most disappointing ‘development’ would be the lack of actual talent being recorded and marketed by the record labels. It has become apparent that it’s all about the ‘look’ and a focus more on the physical marketing of the artist and not the actual music itself.
The reason people say that ‘good music was all made in the 60’s and 70’s’ whether that is true or not, is because at least there were actual musicians playing and writing their own music. There wasn’t a cookie-cutter type mentality of what would be played on radio. Every band back in those decades had their own sound, whereas now, you could play 10 current ‘artists’ in a row and have a hard time figuring out where one ended and another began.
My hope is that with more Independent labels and musicians coming on to the scene, and the online media sites such as “Pandora” playing them more, it will allow for a more diverse music selection in people’s homes.
All the tools that were once exclusively owned by Major Labels and very high priced services are now at the hands of any band willing to use them. Distribution, marketing, fullfillment, booking. Recording, music videos, and publishing. All these and more can be accessed directly by a band or musician.
Of all the developments in the past decade, I am most amazed by this. Not just one tool or service, but the amazing litany of tools and services.
As an independent artist manager, I’ve found the most exciting development in the music industry to be the ability for musicians to release their music WITHOUT the help of a record label.
One of the acts I manage, MEIKO, self-released her debut album in 2007. With no physical distribution and no promotion/marketing budget, she sold over 220,000 individual song downloads and over 25,000 full album downloads.
To be able to release music whenever and how often you’d like, with no pressure from a label, no release schedule to wait in line on, and no disorganized sales staff to have to deal with, this development is a blessing.
The sheer number of different ways in which we can consume, discover, share & create music along with how these modes continue to change ie. the shift from ownership to access.
Fans and artists connecting (digitally) over dinner, yet thousands of miles and worlds apart.
IMHO, the most surprising development in the music industry these past 10 years is its unfolding.
It’s more the lack of development that surprises me the most. 13 years into the digital game and the industry has yet to come up with a compelling digital product that evolves the artform and gives people real incentive to put their money on the line. The future is not solely about streaming access and downloadable music files that lack context, interactivity and integrated community – if that were to be the case we should all throw in the towel today and become farmers.
The lack of filters! Amazing tools, Millions of new artists. All competing for attention. There needs to be a way to filter these artist by what people want and need. I don’t want to scan thru thousands of crappy music to find a jewel. I want to get what I want now and thats it. Music discovery is exiting only if is music Im actually interested in. There needs to be a standard of quality required for new artists. And there is a huge need for music curators that can identify good from bad at least based on quality of the recordings. And the BIG ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. MONETIZATION!!!!
The life of an artist goes like this.
YOU pay to record your musc.
YOU write your songs
YOU pay for the artwork
YOU pay digital distributors.
YOU pay for marketing and Promotions.
YOU are asked to pay to play. So no money in shows.
Since you’re just starting out and they’re giving you exposure. Try putting that in your car, or paying your mortgage with exposure see where that gets you.
YOU have to pay publicists.
YOU have to make you own website or pay to have it made
The artists get payed penny’s if they’re lucky.
And get drowned in a sea of other artists.
There needs to be a solution. Nobody has come up with one. AMAZING! SO MANY ARTISTS, SO MANY NERDS THAT LOVE MUSIC BUT NO ONE CAN MONETIZE IT! WOW!
Probably the most surprising and inevitable development over the past decade in music has been the fall of the Major labels. We’ve seen 2 of the Major Four forgo bidding and change of ownership. It’s a precursor to building a new sustainable system (i.e., investment in artist development) and rise in Independently marketed music. Music services has and will continue to expand upon new resources to retain true artistry and musicianship while the Majors will forever be in denial about what works and how to prevent what DOES work from happening.
How a service could bring people together. During a rough year economically, how somehow there was a new place for us to listen to music. No, I’m not talking about Spotify.
A place where we could chat about music and actually listen to each other. A place where we could listen to music and chat to each other. Finding each other through a language universally used; music.
A place to find something new. A place where we could get fans and even in some cases new e-friends. Even if they were bobbing by choice. No, it isn’t Pandora.
Somewhere I immediately connected to bands, producers, writers, musicians and people that just loved music. A place that wasn’t forced on me or you. No, this isn’t Pitchfork either.
No it isn’t iTunes. I still love you Apple and can’t wait for Match to come into play. I believe this will change the game again.
Besides some stunning and heartbreaking songs I’ve heard over the last ten years, you’ve made me dig deeper, you’ve given me some outstanding music and you’ve inspired me.
You’re unique.
You’re Turntable.FM.
Matt
@madktc
Lil Wayne’s evolution from southern gangsta rap phenom to mainstream pop artist.
I’m a new entrant in the music business, so my retrospective of the industry is heavily biased. But I am surprised that the music business is so far “behind the curve” in the digital age. As soon as the technology and bandwidth became available, the film industry began developing alternate means of monetization. Napster was over 10 years ago and only now the new formats are becoming dominant (i.e. paid downloads), but streaming is still struggling to gain a foothold.
Strangely, it seems the U.S. Government was farther along than the labels in adopting emerging technology-based innovations. Back in 1995 they gave us a performance right in digital transmissions of sound recordings.
As the old adage goes, “hindsight is 20/20.” But I’m less interested in what was done in the past. I’m more interested in how we can shape the future to create value for artists, and rights-holders alike.
-Ben
BThompsonProductions@gmail.com
the fact that indie bands and unpolished sound became so ‘now’ and so modern. that’s very liberal, the way music should be, and yet, unexpected. I thought with the advent of more and more technology, listeners would ask for perfection, but they developed a taste for realistic, often underproduced music and even voices with notable flaws. I believe the underlying message is, we want to feel human and interact with humans, not devices.
note: unless you also ensure plane tickets, I wouldn’t be able to attend if chosen 🙂
Digital distribution has been around for more than a decade but oftentimes still feels like a brand new issue.
This isn’t something that went away at any point in time, but music has developed the capability to revert back to an art form that was more prevalent in the 60s and 70s. Because technology is more available for the average consumer, the consumer himself becomes his own songwriter, his own producer, and his own distributor. In fact, you can really have a one man label at this point, and you do have that.
When Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (CYHSY) debuted their first album, I remember getting a hold of the CD and geeking. I though, “this was all made amongst friends across state lines. All alone, they did it.” They wrote their own songs, they produced their own album, and then they distributed it themselves out of their homes (at least for the period of time when I got the album). It wasn’t something I didn’t think was impossible – in fact the Postal Service had done something almost exactly the same a few years prior, but it was the control and the self-start-up that CYHSY had with their album that really surprised me. They were nobodies (unlike Postal Service, which was comprised of well known artists at the time), but I found them in my little home town in Mississippi.
CYHSY and similar business savvy artists have shown us that this is an era in music where anyone can make it. You don’t have to be commercial, you don’t have to be marketable, and you don’t even have to sing a word that anyone can understand. That’s inspiring and revolutionary in the music industry.
What surprised me the most was how tightly correlated the relationship was between games like Guitar Hero/Rock Band and digital music sales. Historically, we have seen trends where new albums increase sales of older ones, but this new way of interacting with music really hit home for gamers young and old
What’s most surprising is how obsolete record labels have become. Unsigned artists would like the cache of a label and money (if that) of a label however labels aren’t needed anymore. The simple fact that labels have allowed themselves to become obsolete, says even more. Their business model needs a change to capitalize on free music. There’s a way, it’s that the big wigs upstairs aren’t thinking and implementing out of the box ideas. Sean Parker said it correctly, “I’m not sure why you would sign with a record label.”
Mobile – Not utilizing the mobile space and potential mobile platforms to monetize. There’s so much more to the music and the mobile world.
Apple – Do I need to say anymore? This seems to be the only way music is making money. Since iTunes has become a standard, I’m waiting for the next big thing.
Spotify – Hello!!! GENIUS! I absolutely love Spotfiy and once it was opened up to Facebook users, INGENIOUS! The fact that you can create your own playlist and share with others is absolutely amazing.
What effects the music industry is how people listen to it!
The most surprising aspects of the music industry in the last 10 years have been the cumulative effects of unprecedented supply. As the number of songs exponentially increased, and at an unprecedented rate due to the lower price points of home recording hardware, along with increased software piracy of music / loop / virtual instrument software, the incredible market pressure of over-supply has solidified music as loss-leader content. Fractional margins on iTunes, no problem, Apple makes a real fat margin on the iPod, iPhone and iPad. iTunes exemplifies the inverse of the initial cell phone business model pitch, where the companies gave away free phones and dinged you monthly for the service. In Apple’s case they give away the service (iTunes) and ding you hard on the hardware. In this model the integrity of an album doesn’t mean anything, as you’ll need and i-device to get all of iTunes / digital service features whether its an album or single track. Give away your music on sites like noisetrade.com in return for a users email -to add them later on facebook- and to get their zip code -to geo-localize them and create a database of followers by city. As more artists give in to a singles based market structure, and give away their music in the hopes of building a fan base, it becomes more disposable. If artists are going to give portions of their works away anyway then the emphasis becomes in making and generating more songs at lower overhead cost. While this vicious cycle can be manipulated by singer-songwriters to their advantage, the musicians focused on accompanying and playing are feeling an oppressive pinch. Many cannot continue to ignore that along with being a good musician or singer, to make a living wage you must also be the rights owner, producer, manager and marketer. The reason more poeple yearn for the days where bands created music better than the sum of its member’s creative force is because today its all about realizing (which means be able to monetize) an individual artist’s vision. The question then becomes “can you truly supply something other’s can not” and more importantly can you ensure that this is the continued perception about your work. In the last ten years we have felt the growing pressures of over-supply get stronger and affect every aspect of the industry.
Today it really isnt all about the music. Look at everything on the top charts! Not saying it is all bad, because that is definitely not true. But when I look at all the songs at the top charts, I hear overproduced music usually blasted with far too much autotone.
Today it’s really about who you know, social networking, who “tweeted” about you, and very little are you one of the most talented people around. For example: Lauren Conrad could tweet my music page and I could just be breathing on a track and people would like it just because she said to like it. And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing either because this is how you get exposure these days. It’s not really about how good you are it’s how you run your business (being an artist).
Just like Sean Parker said in an interview at Web Summit 2.0, “I’m not sure why you would sign with a record label.” He says that because now with Spotify, Apple, Soundcloud, and all these other streaming applications and websites; you don’t need a label unless you are in dier need of money! You can do everything yourself.
I’m about to release an EP and it was recorded and mastered in a house studio and then I will use CD Baby to distribute it on the itunes & amazon. As simple as that all by myself.
A record label could still help today but you really can control your destiny by almost being a business man and looking at all the ways you can distribute and expose yourself through technology. It might be sad that barely anyone goes and buys a whole CD because they just want that single from Foster the People, but that’s what the industry has come to today so we must figure out what works. That’s why we need to take advantage of the groundbreaking technology and use every bit of it to take it to that next step and always look for changes and ways to make your product sell better and distribute better. Thank you.
The biggest (and most welcome) surprise would be the change in the mindset that touring, not music sales, has become THE barometer of success for an artist.
Used to be, all the energy went to radio & sales. If radio didn’t click, if the album didn’t sell, then the project would be considered a failure.
But now, touring is the most vital piece of the pie for artist development pie, with radio and music sales being lagging indicators.
And with that change in mindset, managers and artists of all sizes have realigned their priorities to spend their time & energy in developing long-term careers, instead of chasing short-term radio-fueled pops — which will make for a much healthier industry at large for decades to come.
The rise of Apple in the last 10 years to become the dominant force in music (sorry record labels) and media delivery. I’ve always been an Apple user, but the swift rise of the iPod and all the subsequent products has been so astronomical that it caught me by surprise.
Music Piracy has created and undeniable effect within the industry as a whole.
It seems trendy for most people to take the “it won’t hurt the big record labels” stand but when household names like Arista & Jive Records are closing up shop for good just last week you would expect a few minds to open up to the damage that’s still happening.
Or if what becomes of the corporate side of music really doesn’t matter to you, what about the really cool local band you dig going to listen to on Saturday night being forced to give away their music that actually does cost money to record even if the latest EP was tracked from the bass players bedroom?
Anyone old enough to remember the “trickle down effect” within a well known presidency could easily make the connection that what effects the top will always, eventually roll down hill and hit even harder!
Yes, no?
I’m most surprised that availability is still what’s causing the most issues for artists and labels. Ten years ago it was the lack thereof and now it’s the ubiquity.
There are two related things that have really surprised me. First off, echoing some of the earlier posters, is the total lack of an effective solution for filtering and discovering music. Related to this, is the total failure of the existing commercial radio industry to capitalize on this opportunity. When I was growing up, radio was my discovery mechanism. Somewhere around 2000 this no longer worked for me (I moved, leaving behind a ‘decent’ station). It wasn’t until I discovered KEXP in 2005 that I really started discovering new music again (in spite of being in the industry and having access to hundreds of thousands of tracks). Technology has for the most part solved the ‘similar’ music listening problem, but that does not make for a memorable listening experience, for that you need a human. That being said, even top non-commercial stations like KEXP and KCRW haven’t effectively extended their brands via the web, and I still need to go to Spotify, Grooveshark, or 8-Tracks when I find what they are currently offering not to my liking. Leverage the brand and trust you have created, or you will soon find yourself in the same predicament that the major labels have put themselves into.
The winners:
Riley McCluskey
Lenny Dosoretz
Mike Savage
Matthew Downes
Chris Huizenga
Congrats. Your names will be at the door! Have you ID. Please also email a confirmation to bruce at skylineonline dot com.
How some artist don’t write alot of there own music these days they buy them off of someone else or other artist and people think that the artist wrote them themselves its like cheating ,I think,….because they are getting recognition for someone else not themselves …I also think that copying the same beat or music is lame you put the stereo on or someone else is playing music and when you here a part or when it starts It sound like an oldie or a song that you have heard before it should be unique.