“In an interview for a new high school textbook called The Rax Active Citizen Toolkit… Yorke claims the music industry is on the verge of a major crisis and could collapse completely within ‘months,'” WENN reports.
WENN reports, “He says, ‘It will be only a matter of time – months rather than years – before the music business establishment completely folds. (It will be) no great loss to the world.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If so, the greedy music cartels brought it upon themselves.
Let’s hope he is correct.
But let’s face it, most musicians have absolutely no sense for business, logistics, or all the hard work behind the scenes it really takes to sustain a music career. They have been happy to have the fat cats take care of all the details as long as they were treated to their face like important people. Only recently has distribution become so simple and cheap that artists are finally opting to be their own producers/managers/licencers and deal directly with distributors like Apple/iTunes and the like.
If you want to see an artist worth celebrating, look at people like Aimee Mann, who is not only a singer/songwriter. She is also multi-instrumentalist, producer, manager, record company owner. All that hard work, and Aimee still is unknown to most kids these days. A surprisingly large portion of the mass public buys/steals crap corporate computer-corrected “music” from invented pop “stars” and negative gang banger hatemongers instead. Indeed it is no loss to the world to see the big labels supporting this crap get flushed. RIP Britney/Pink/Snoop et al. Good riddance.
Oh. Death to the RIAA
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(post every 60 seconds? But, I wanna post now!)
I see the music industry moving from a publisher model to an agency model. Record companies that own the works produced by their artists will be replaced by agencies that will handle promotion and distribution and take a cut of revenue as payment. But they will work for the artists instead of the other way around. Of course, over time, one more high-powered “A-list” agencies, like William Morris is to actors, will emerge that can choose their own clients.
——RM
@trex67
“OK Computer = Best album ever. Radiohead = Best band ever.”
Nope. Widespread Panic.
Unfortunately, Aimee Mann has the “Voices Carry” ‘eighties song’ albatross around her neck.
But, it’s worth it to ignore that, an listen to newer material.
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Last week, I heard ‘Creep’ — the “so ‘very’ special” version — on the radio. 17 years is quite the song rotation. No one I NEVER listen to radio if there’s any for of iPod around.
Last week, I heard ‘Creep’ — the “so ‘very’ special” version — on the radio. 17 years is quite the song rotation. No wonder I NEVER listen to radio if there’s any kind of iPod around.
D’oh!
@ Mike
Agreed.
Aimee Mann is a perfect example of someone doing the work and having a successful career. The fact that she’s not a household name is due to demographics and the media mega-conglomerates unable to sell anything besides Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, etc. The really huge phenoms in music are all of the American Idol ilk. The vast unwashed hoi polloi have no innate sensibilities to recognize musical quality – they are sold by appealing to carefully selected aspects (mainly visual) of a product other than musical talent. That’s where the major labels are today, and that’s one reason they’re failing.
Pearl Jam has been without a real label for a few years now and seem to be doing quite well. They don’t sells as many albums as before, but they still have a rabid fan base and still sellout most concerts they play.
They also release a live recording for every show they play and their fanclub members always get the best seats. Bands could learn a lot by see what they are doing.
Ticketmaster merged with Livenation earlier this year. It’s Livenation that already owns the online concert ticket market — hands-down. Nobody else is even close.
Livenation sells tickets for entertainment, sports, and family-oriented events. I would expect them to go after more online ticketing companies that have not been bought up (like eBay did with stubhub). This is a market ripe for more consolidation).
@ HolyMackerel,
“The music industry started with bands of minstrels entertaining for their supper.”
Everyone tries to rewrite history.
The music industry started with banging on a hollow branch with a stick to keep the big cats away from the home tree.