The Internet: All the music in the world that nobody's buying…

[deaf dunderkwac]

If this was already posted, my appologies.

Here's some food for thought!

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... -of-music/

YO!
music ain't dead

it's just, u no...
taking a nap.

[eduardo_b]

For a very long time I have been of the opinion that most people don't really care all that much about music and they don't really know that much about music to really be able to appreciate the nuances that a good musician will put into a work.

I would say 1) this has always been true, 2) when people are younger they have more time and friends who are into music in ways that stop mattering as much when jobs, family and life in general get in the way, and 3) even those who love music are not always dissecting it while enjoying it.

[eduardo_b]

You can now sit in front of your computer and listen to the song 200 times and get fully sick of it just by going to the artist's myspace page.

Let's say we take care of piracy completely, we snap our fingers and music can't be pirated anymore. What happens to youtube, myspace, sites that stream on demand, etc?

How much of the demand to purchase music has been/will continue getting killed off by these options?

The demand and possible purchasing of music will not be affected in any meaningful way if piracy were to disappear. Those with music on shared sites are just invisible without "more." That "more" is personality and presence. Look at how Katy Perry and Lily Allen built a following. It was the music, but it was also just as much their participation, personalities and buzz they created. The music business is not just about music.

[AndreasKrebs]

Maybe we will have generations of "hobby"-musicians (I don't like that term, I'd like to regard music as my complimentary second profession). This will change music, of course. Bad thing? I don't think so. (But I'm sure I will not like every result, but that's the same with any musical decade.)

Let's try some forward thinking.

well it takes time to be on top of your game

hard to do without time off making a living in my opinion

You are right, time is the challenge. However, we hardly ever had as much free time available. When former generations of composers (18th century?) had to find a sponsor, we are our own sponsor. And maybe our music will only have a chance if our talents as being a composer are equally good as as being a sponsor...

But this is - of course - not the only possible economical model for making music in the future (but it makes more sense to think about this than about piracy).

Cheers,
Andreas

[lilith2k3]

@lagavulin16

The real issue isn't piracy. It's availability.

That nails it

Availability changes customer-behaviour (as i said some posts ago).
One form is the online-music-store, one form is the pirated stuff, one form is the half-legal-Youtubethingy, one form is the legally Promo-Myspacetrack, one form is the webradiostuff and so on.

That leads to a diversity of possible behaviour, where buying a song is only one option, but not the only one.

How much of the demand to purchase music has been/will continue getting killed off by these options?

Plus the "Internet-habitus" of "wanting all for free".

[horn]

Is it bye bye miss american pie or video killed the radio star? The mp3 hype has changed the way popular music comes into being. And it has definitely destroyed structures. But not in the way all those so called music pirates want to sell us that it would have. It didn't really change the priciples of music industry or led to a refined behaviour of the masses. The music industy, together with all the other public media continues producing stars, products and all the other unloved facts that the revolutionary mp3 leaders pretend to attack with their new "marketing order". All these well featured new pop-products dont make less money or behave differently. On the contrary.
What changed is the customers awareness concerning music. Music is no more something special. Music is everywhere. In the streets, on the busses, subways shopping malls, and since it doesn't cost you a penny it has almost no value. Apart from those products that are linked to those god like icons that are produced by the promotion factories. Nobody ready to pay for unknown artists any more since he can get thousands of unnknown artists for free from the internet. And subsequent to this a lot of other possibilities got lost for somebody who is not as well featured by the music/media industry even if their business is often not more than a niche for a certain group of high dedicated followers. Whereas it has been times when an unknown act could work out a program and musicians could be shure, that that they could gig because there where enough clubs with curious customers this not possible any more today. You often have to pay the club owner a guarantee in case that you are not valuable enough for a huger amount of paying customers to come. Or because your gig is looked upon beeing a promotion act for you like today you pay for beeing support act.
These are actualities that have been changed by the internet music revolution. On the other hand I think that this "evolution" has had its climax. The free mp3 music on the internet will not disappear but its significance is already passed by different needs of differnet social realities. And most of those pirates will continue to live in their virtual! musical retirement home like other generations before.

[Hovmod]

Oscar Wilde: "In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody."

So is literature dead now, 100 years later?

[horn]

Oscar Wilde: "In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody."

So is literature dead now, 100 years later?

Truely not, but today the nobel prize in literature has become more important than the literature itself. Like the olympic games as a public media and marketing event are more important than the olymic ideal or the output of the athletes.
Music will never be dead as it existentially belongs to human beeings. But concerning its social utilization, one can notice a trivialization and economical reduction, considering that music came up from a religous or at least a very special, mostly festive background.

[Hovmod]

My point was of course that every generation thinks they're witnessing the end-times of art, things to study and well generally the world.

[Bonteburg]

artistical expression will never die - it's its artificial scarcification and shameless commercial exploitation that's on it's way out, and good riddance!

[eduardo_b]

What changed is the customers awareness concerning music. Music is no more something special. Music is everywhere. In the streets, on the busses, subways shopping malls, and since it doesn't cost you a penny it has almost no value.

I think there's a difference between emotional value and monetary value. Not that this has ever mattered to the largest segment of the music-buying market -- those under 30 and particularly under 25. They have always traded music to some degree, and had more discretionary income to spend on music than when they come to have greater fixed expenses. Now it's just much easier to download and share. Perhaps music became too expensive in the 80s and early 90s, setting the psychological stage for the Internet and file sharing. Is music basically a commodity? For the most part the answer is yes...but does that make it less valuable?

[hivkorn]

I think there's a difference between emotional value and monetary value. Not that this has ever mattered to the largest segment of the music-buying market -- those under 30 and particularly under 25. They have always traded music to some degree, and had more discretionary income to spend on music than when they come to have greater fixed expenses. Now it's just much easier to download and share. Perhaps music became too expensive in the 80s and early 90s, setting the psychological stage for the Internet and file sharing. Is music basically a commodity? For the most part the answer is yes...but does that make it less valuable

Or maybe the actual music don't deserve to be sold...I don't know you ,but i'm tired to always listen in EVERY song on the radio the same rythm/the same kick wich make bleed my ears/the same sample (from another (un?)famous song)/ the same way of singing (with a auto tune /vocoder) , maybe pepole don't buy music because it's just shit.I can remember when i was 19-20 year i had buy a lot of cd ,and now since the end of 90 , i buy maybe ... 2 record and don't download a single record.Maybe people are tired of GREAT HOLY DJ who just take sample and loops from famous song and make sing a women on it . The way to compose music of today is killing music since nobody try to be original.music is dying ? Hail to Cobain and Dimebag.

[eduardo_b]

Or maybe the actual music don't deserve to be sold...

I find that for every truly talented, interesting band or artist there are simply dozens of others who don't have it. Oh, the production values are great, but the lyrics and music are banal, trite, über-clichéd. Even if there's real talent, the substance is missing. More cult of personality than musical. Maybe sometimes good enough to download, but rarely worth paying for.

[TristezaOrange]

Here's some bullshit I wrote on the subject on my blog:

http://electricsoundcontinuum.blogspot. ... music.html

I don't expect a lot of people (or anyone) to agree with me, but I think that there's something there.

[Goratrix]

i'm tired to always listen in EVERY song on the radio the same rythm/the same kick wich make bleed my ears/the same sample (from another (un?)famous song)...Hail to Cobain and Dimebag.

Cobain? You mean the guy who wrote such original songs as "Come As You Are"?


or maybe even

and then every Pixies song ever written.

just kidding, I really liked Nirvana, but to treat them as some pinnacle of originality is not very accurate.