Is The Music Production Business Dead?

[Aleatoriac]

Yeah, everything's dead. We're all p-zombies. Consciousness is an illusion (not non-existent, just not what it seems to be).
Economies are all swirling into a black hole of despair.

We're f**ked.
Merry Christmas.

[ATS]

no one really values music like they used to. It is a freebie thing to everyone now. Plus no one buys stereo's anymore. All the music playback is on awful stuff for the most part. Sonos is considered audiophile level now, so sad.

[Aloysius]

Get off my lawn.

[Functional]

I mean, if you're trying to make established popular music (say, your average mainstage EDM) then I wish you good luck trying to make it sound as good as people with labels that have all the resources to mix & master it (versus just you doing it all) and also advertise it to oblivion.

But if you're making less established but still somewhat popular music that has more demand, I wouldn't say it's so bad. Lot of genres need that bedroom production aesthetic to begin with so there's no point in making it sound like it's produced professionally. Not to mention, it's anything but heavily marketed. Usually just released on certain promo youtube channels and anyone can send their songs to them and if there's literally any quality, it likely gets released too.

So I'd say music industry is just becoming more sensible at large as hopefully the overly popular genres are losing their touch. Probably wont happen for couple of decades, but eventually I'm hopeful that the nonsense will stop.

[Functional]

no one really values music like they used to. It is a freebie thing to everyone now. Plus no one buys stereo's anymore. All the music playback is on awful stuff for the most part. Sonos is considered audiophile level now, so sad.

Yeah except audiophile scene is about 100% a scam so I'd personally be happy that people aren't buying their shit with the pretense that without that stuff, they can't truly enjoy any music that I'd make

[hyperscientist]

audiophile scene is about 100% a scam

Sure, but there's large distance between beats/airpods/sonos quality and scammy audiophile. I have yet to meet a person that is not surprised and does not compliment my gear when I borrow them headphones on a plane or if they get to listen to music at my apartment. I have no hifi of course, merely a decent studio monitors (genelec m030, beyerdynamic dt 770 pro). People are not used to a quality sound reproduction.

[Zexila]

Whether it's back in the day or now, you have to do a LOT more than be good at music. Personally I think next-to-no one in EDM for da club is good at music, but whatever.

Agree.

You have to be out doing it, you need some money behind you, you need to move merchandise, you need to, or someone behind you needs to have business savvy and treat it as a business and constantly be aware of things at that level

Agree.

To assert 'people like it' and 'chops at both blah and blah' means a "huge" chance you'll make it shows me, to be frank, a lack of experience on this planet and following that, terrific overconfidence in your assessments.

Only meant to say that you need to actually have something to sell in order to sell it, someone needs to like it, besides you obviously, also being pessimist and calling quits doesn't help you out much.

But of course if you proceed from the notion of "I will make music people will like so money and success will naturally come to me" certain other failures of the reasoning engine are bound to follow. Struck me as rather vapid, you know. But knock yourself out, I'm done.

I'm not, you asserted that, my point is clear, you need to work more than back in a days these days, even cheaper these days, because competition is stronger, but competition is worst nightmare only to established ones, for next Joe there's lot more possibilities to compete and be heard off, still everything is there like before, just not as vital as before and more accessible than it was before.

[wagtunes]

More accessible? Sure. Everybody and their grandmother can now make music. The barrier to entry is so low that, short of being so severely mentally handicapped that you can't even tie your shoes, anybody can get a DAW (even for free) and make beats.

It is because of this that the noise level is far greater than anything we ever had back in the 70s and 80s. You have to have at least something unique about you to stand out in that mess. You yourself agreed with everything Jancivil said. Yet you make it sound like it's a piece of cake to make it huge in the business today.

So tell me, where's YOUR Grammy award?

It's so easy to talk. But when it comes to walking the walk, I find very few people can actually do it.

Maybe you just need a few more years on this planet. Me? I'm old enough to know just how insanely hard making it in the music business is.

[Zexila]

So tell me, where's YOUR Grammy award?

Why you need it to be successful, for me not having to work another job than making music is success, which I do now, again.

It's so easy to talk. But when it comes to walking the walk, I find very few people can actually do it.

Agree.

Maybe you just need a few more years on this planet. Me? I'm old enough to know just how insanely hard making it in the music business is.

Probably, I'm younger than yourself and I don't live in USA, so have way less competition and more energy and determination for it, I know how hard it is, but it's not impossible, at least it's cheaper hobby than ever.

To sum this all up, you quoted some folks who for sure are having the worst time ever these days, but much more people now have the chances they couldn't get before, slices of pie are smaller, but much more people are eating now, I don't want it other way really, game didn't changed that much, but enough to warrant everyone more competition and to compete.

[risome]

According to the quote in the OP it got steamed

[vurt]

lobsters gonna lob.

[Aloysius]

So tell me, where's YOUR Granny award?

[Functional]

audiophile scene is about 100% a scam

Sure, but there's large distance between beats/airpods/sonos quality and scammy audiophile. I have yet to meet a person that is not surprised and does not compliment my gear when I borrow them headphones on a plane or if they get to listen to music at my apartment. I have no hifi of course, merely a decent studio monitors (genelec m030, beyerdynamic dt 770 pro). People are not used to a quality sound reproduction.

Yeah but see, there's this cool thing called psychoacoustics, which for some really weird reason the audophile scene entirely glosses over.

So let me tell you a fun story about me, about 10 years ago. I was a kid (to be honest, still am) with no money (to be honest, still am). So I had these nice commercial headphones and i liked their sound quality. They were still fairly cheap but like, to me that was awesome back in those days.

Then, a tragedy struck. You see, as usual, the thin cable got 'effed. Not beyond repair, but it's not like I knew how to solder and fix those back then. Hell, not sure I'd be capable of doing that even now, I mean it was really thin cable.

So I lost my "good" headphones. What I had left is Skullcandy headset that I used for playing videogames. Oh, they sounded HORRIBLE. Like seriously, the worst thing ever. They're criminally bad. And they also looked extremely lame, so lame that these days I'd probably choose to just not use them in public even if meant no music, because I don't wanna look like a goofy. But back then, I just really needed music on the run so what options I had, right?

What happened next? Well, a week from that point on, I didn't care anymore, I got used to the sound quality. Afterwards they weren't anymore horrible headphones that looked incredibly ugly, they were just headphones that looked incredibly ugly. You see, my brains were actually more capable than I thought: they're capable of eventually phasing out the ugly characteristics of those headphones. It's like background noise: it ain't there until you start thinking about it.

See where this is going? So let's say you buy an expensive pair of cans that are sought after by each and every audiophile that there ever was and will ever be. What do you think happens when you use them constantly? Will you be spending your brains on marveling at their impressive sound quality for the rest of your life every single second you have them on your head, or will you eventually... get used to them and then focus on the music itself instead? Yup, it's gonna be the latter. All you will eventually have is your friends just reminding you with their unbroken ears how awesome cans you have (which is gonna be the only rationale you can provide in the end). And you, on the other hand, won't get that experience again unless you stop using them for a good while. Kind of sad, isn't it?

So what's the lesson? Never, ever, listen to audiophiles. They're just people trying to make you feel miserable for not listening to music on most expensive equipment and nothing about that is right.

[Jace-BeOS]

I didn't read the whole thing either, but from what I did, there are three main points (I am paraphrasing):

1.) Since 2014, music industry revenues have been slowly, but steadily growing. Most of this growth is attributed to an increase in streaming services, which is more than offsetting a continued decline in downloads and physical media. Digital revenues are up 19.1% in 2017 compared to 2016.

2.) Streaming service revenue is impacted by sites like YouTube that offer streaming services at no cost to consumers, arguing that that their business model excludes them from having to pay licensing fees. The report says that 55% of music streaming is obtained by consumers in this way, and it strongly advocates for legislation to narrow what it call the "value gap."

3.) In terms of what recording companies are doing -- there's a section titled "Record Companies Reinvented." It's a little non-specific, but it highlights "new models of artist relationships." Universal Music Group: "... giving artists the opportunity to plug into other parts of our company, be that music publishing, merchandising, brand sponsorship, even documentary and scripted film production, and so forth." In addition, Universal is allowing artists to "build their own label... sign artists to their own brand and create their own platform"

The report is largely silent on artist compensation. There is a graphic on how record companies are assisting recording artists with global distribution, fan engagement, marketing, and connecting with producers, songwriters, etc.

Sounds like a “pro-industry” business fluffer piece. Especially since they are silent on artist compensation. It’s about the industry making money on property rights management, not the people doing the actual creative work.

[Jace-BeOS]

In OP there's line:

The golden era is over and I feel sorry for those trying to make a living in this day and age.

IMO golden era started, you can have pretty much nice setup for cost of one synth back in a day and make radio ready music on your laptop with virtual plugins, you can release your music to wide public easily, even reach some folks you couldn't in million years before, game changed.

This is an nice interview

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Mostly folks who got hurt by game changing are same people who are bunch of hot air, like that quoted remixers, people don't care about DJ's that much anymore, it's all about artist's that actually make their own music and remixes how they please and in their own style, today pop stars make collaborations with them, because they need something for clubs and in particular style, they don't make acoustic pop track and than guy make some niche club mix that barely resembles original, but it sounds club-y, whatever that means, 90% of that remixes are just lame, you got one niche version of one hot air remixer which is barely usable in actual sets, I mean guy makes one "trancy" remix, imagine how many non trance DJ's will play that, not much, game changed, adopt.

I have never cared about DJs or clubs. You might do yourself a favor and check out some remix CDs from the mid to late 90s electronic scene. The best example I myself am aware of is Nine Inch Nails. NIN at least three remix EPs that were like their own unique albums. These are creative and artful sonic explorations and reinterpretations of existing songs, done by NIN associates and fellow musicians. Even “Year Zero Remixed”, despite coming out after the “golden era of remixing” ended, had some really interesting variations of the album songs by guest musical acts. I miss this kind of thing.

Turning a song into an 8-minute repetitive dance track for clubs is not where the real remixing value was to be found.