(Question – why couldn’t this Nostradumbass predict the collapse of France? -bfh)
A French economist, Jacque Attaili, wrote a quirky little economics book back in 1977 that predicted the eventual glut of recorded music and the demise of the industry’s business model that we are seeing today.
The premise seems to be that the music business is driven by both technological change and cultural forces. We’ve arrived today in a world where a lot of terrible music (thanks to cultural forces) is next to being absolutely free (thanks to technology).
The producers of this BBC program interviewed Attaili.
They make some interesting predictions of their own on the manufacturing of all things once 3d printing is widely available.
As songwriters, we’re paid approximately $0.0009 per internet/streaming play, per quarter, per song. A few week ago we received an electronic transfer for $37. 68 . . . Now, a question for all you math wizards: How many play did we get to earn our whoppin’ payment?
I cheated and used a calculator. Congratulations on having nearly 42000 people listen to your songs in a quarter! Now, if you could sell them tickets to live events…. hmmm…
I’ve thought for years that music had become so diverse that it would probably change the entire industry. Not only is there a huge library of old recordings, there has been an insane amount of new stuff put out over the past couple decades. I can’t keep up with it, and for the past several years, I often don’t even know the name of the artist or of the song I’m listening to. I play some of my older stuff periodically, though.
Somewhere North of 40,000?
I’d joke about congratulating you on a hit song, but with royalties like that I feel sympathy is more in order for being forced to work for wages kids in Bangladesh would pass up.
There will never be another Beatles or Led Zeppelin with the wide shallow pool of musicians this business model creates.
Video Killed The Radio Star. When MTV launched, the focus of “music” became about image and performance rather than music. That’s the only way one can explain rap.
Bands that survived started writing shit music targeted at the mindless masses. Aerosmith, the once great rock band who recorded Toys In The Attic now schlocks out shit songs like Pink and Love In an Elevator.
Don’t get me started on Nashville Pop Country music!
Not to alarm anyone but we will never see another Tommy or White Album recorded in our lifetimes.
awd
41866.666666667
Or another Quadrophenia
When Carl Perkins found out The Beatles were going to do a cover of Matchbox, he asked if his name could be made a little smaller on the record label. He really didn’t want anyone to know it was his song that some British rock band covered.
When he got his first royalty check (somewhere close to $75k in 1964) he asked if his name could be made a little bigger on the record label.
But now with the internet, the proliferation of music (anyone can write shit and say it deserves to be heard) has made it more difficult to reach the people that will listen to your music. You’d think it would be the opposite but it’s not. It’s music overload. There is SO much available that it becomes hard to even listen to just one more band or one more song. And not to forget, social media is taking up more time — time that would otherwise be used to search for and listen to music. The technology has made the music industry more socialist. That is, it has brought down the good and great artists so the horrible and below average can get a slice of the pie.
Thanks, “even steven” (we know a songwriter in Nashville with that same name), “Dr. Tar” (we don’t know anyone with that name anywhere), and “The Plutonium Kid” (ditto anywhere), for your calculator savvy. Yes, it’s a sad region we writers occupy on the vast world wide web. We (Miss Diana & myself), like all writers, want our work to be heard and with the hearing, to effect people. We’d prefer the effect not be for free – but beggars can’t be choosers. Thank the Lord for radio, soundtracks, etc.
Woulda been nice if Ringo coulda gotten the lyrics right, though; he made Matchbox one of my least favorite Beatles songs.
Whenever something is in abundance, it gets devalued. Not only devalued, that very abundance makes it harder to separate the wheat from the chaff.
You cannot get a feel for an artist by downloading just one song; you need to hear several of his output. Playing an entire CD is better than listening to one song (among thousands) on your I-Pod of 1000 artists. Yes, some songs on the CD will be better than others, but so what? You get the full range of his talents, the full range of what he can produce from his instrument.
It’s the difference between knowing many artists shallowly or knowing a few artists in depth. That said, I have I-Tunes on my computer (free radio stations from around the world), and Sirius Radio in my car, for the variety of it all, but still listen ALOT to my CDs.