Over the last few years I’ve heard a lot of discussion of “THE DEATH OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY.” I’m a musician, but I’ve never been in the position where the music I’ve made was the source of my financial livelihood – it’s always been something I do for my own creative satisfaction, so my opinions on the matter are pretty idealistic. For me, putting out music for free has been the best way to ensure that it is heard by as many listeners as possible so that your audience can grow and eventually there will be enough demand that you can charge for your product. Since youtube, Pandora, file-sharing, and all the other ways that people acquire their musical/cultural fixes for free have become prevalent, I’ve landed pretty firmly on the side of the consumer. That is to say, “GOOD! Technology has made this art free – let THE INDUSTRY figure out another way to make money off of it.”
My Dad’s girlfriend, Diane, works in the advertising world. While visiting them recently, I was explaining that I’d released my album for free and was extolling the exaggerated belief that ALL music should be free – until Diane asked me a question that made me think.
“So if I use one of your songs in a commercial, I shouldn’t have to pay you for it?”
It’s funny how your stance on a scenario can depend so heavily on who you’re picturing in your mind as the characters. In my imagination, I was the consumer and some famous zillionaire rock star signed to a label that’s part of a guhjillion dollar corporate conglomerate was the product. They were already rich, and the fact that they’d expect anything at all from a regular dude like me seemed greedy. But in Diane’s scenario, the big corporation was the consumer, and the regular dude was the product – and let’s be clear, if she said she wanted to put one of my songs in a commercial, I’d try and get as much cash out of the deal as possible. So I realized, all it boiled down to was “corporations have too much money and individuals have too little, so the money and stuff should go where it’s needed.”
On the other hand…
I have lots and lots of friends who are musicians. Most of them, like me, essentially make music for fun. But this year, for the first time, one of those friends has “made it” as a musician. In my younger days, the idea of “making it” meant buying your first mansion, driving a monster truck, marrying a Victoria’s Secret model and playing Arena shows. As a 30-year old, my idea of “making it” has changed. It’s still pretty sweet, actually. “Making it” means quitting your day job.
My friend’s band, who has been toiling in relative obscurity for nearly 10 years, has received recognition in the past year or two to the extent that they now play music -THEIR music – for a living. They tour the country, they are signed to a record label, they get guaranteed payments from the shows they play, and they are adored by thousands of attractive 20-somethings. They are not rich. In fact, they’re probably kind of poor, in the greater scheme of things – but to me, they’re living the dream. I’m proud of them. I know how hard they worked, and how hard they continue to work, to get where they are – and of course, their music’s great.
So now I think of my original scenario with the downloading/file-sharing/free music acquiring … and it feels wrong. When I picture my friends deciding what they can afford to eat for dinner tonight before their 5th night in a row of driving across the middle of the country in a van and sweating through their shirts in front of drunk strangers, the idea of someone somewhere choosing not to pay them for their work makes me angry. Don’t they know hard it is to do what my friends are doing?!
But then I picture Lars Ulrich, the drummer of Metallica, kufillionaire rock star, standing on the steps of a courthouse insisting that the crooks who illegally downloaded their music – the same people who made them rich and famous in the first place – be arrested. It’s hard to feel sympathy for that guy, or anything besides “fuck him…they haven’t made anything good since Master of Puppets anyway” for that matter. But I guess I get where he’s coming from. He worked for it too.
Regardless of what’s right and what’s wrong, and who’s an asshole and who’s entitled to what, the death of the music industry isn’t just about the amount of money rock stars can make, but the quality of the music that’s being released. I was listening to a podcast today by comedian Bill Burr. He was talking about being mocked for buying a DVD of a famous Black Sabbath concert that is available for free on youtube. In his own defense, he said
“If something’s that great you should pay for it…[if you acquire it for free], you can’t bitch about music today…That’s what happened to music. It all became free, the whole industry collapsed – granted, it was a piece of shit industry that was fucking people over – but it could guide you to some pretty amazing artists. As much as there’s always been the Justin Biebers – ‘cuz there has been – like I’ve always said, when the Beatles were making albums, so was Herman’s Hermits. When they were making Rubber Soul, Herman was in a fucking studio down the hall singing “Henry the 8th” – so nothing has happened to music. What’s happened is the music industry has changed. I don’t know how Pink Floyd would do it nowadays without some giant machine to let everybody know that you’re out there.”
It hadn’t occurred to me before that the amount of money the music industry made and the quality of the music they produced were related, but it makes sense. THE REASON there’s more shit on the radio is … Shit sells and it always has! The difference now is, the music industry seems less willing to take risks. For every Nirvana – a truly outside the box anomaly who swept the masses despite their venom against the system they’d become a part of – there were a thousand knock-offs, almost weres, and could have beens. In a business sense, those are misses. Losses. To avoid the risk in a down time, the industry’s focused with dead aim on the bubble-gum demographic because they’ve been their most reliable and easily brainwashable consumers since forever. But that doesn’t mean great, innovative music isn’t being made anymore.
No matter who’s making money they didn’t have before or losing money they did, music isn’t dying. Anyone who chooses not to pick up a guitar or a keyboard or sing a note because they no longer see the music industry as a viable career choice can go screw – we never wanted them in the game anyway. I’m certain there are just as many people making music now as there have ever been – maybe even more, given the advent of readily available FREE recording technology, user-friendly music-hosting websites like bandcamp and soundcloud, and of course, social networking out the wazoo to spread the word. Nearly anyone can make an album and release it to the public. It should be a wake-up call to the corporate conglomerates pining for the salad days that musicians will always make music and everyone else will always listen to music, and that has nothing to do with money. The supposed death of the music industry hasn’t prevented today’s Pink Floyd or Nirvana from forming and beginning their creative ascent…you just have to look a little harder to find them.
Strongly Weekly 