Thoughts About the Music Industry

By Steven Grant

Had a thought about the music industry the other day. You know, the guys who haven't yet figured out that the Internet has changed their whole business. Funny thing is: while through the '70s and '80s album rock was king, in the '90s and well into this decade, during the heyday of chick singers and boy bands, the focus of the big record companies was entirely on the single. They rebuilt the business around it. The demise of the "hit single," as they exhausted audiences early in this decade, is more than anything else (except possibly arrogance) responsible for the collapse of music industry business. (If an industry still pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars per year can be said to be in collapse.) The record companies, of course, have blamed their fortunes on bootlegging via the Internet.

Which isn't really that off-base. Just not in the way the record companies think.

What the Internet has done, what the record companies intended whether they realize it or not, is to destroy the "album" as the medium of exchange for popular music. Fact is that most albums pretty much divide in two: songs you want to hear again, and songs you don't want to hear again. Even "concept albums" or "rock operas," like The Who's QUADROPHENIA, usually only have a couple of tracks really worth hearing again and again, and if by only listening to those tracks instead of grasping panoramic brilliance of the creator's art... hey, fair's fair. You put this stuff out there, you don't get to dictate audience appreciation of it too. I got the gist of QUADROPHENIA the first time, and color me impressed, but there are still only a couple of songs on it worth re-hearing. The Internet has destroyed album sales because it has made the album unnecessary. Not only has music gravitated to MP3 the same way it gravitated from vinyl to CD in the '80s (and it's not like the music industry didn't milk that tech shift for all it was worth, as people had to phase out their turntables and re-buy on CD everything they still wanted to own) but even if you buy your music rather than bootleg it (and the success of iTunes, EMusic, Wal-Mart and other venues suggests quite a few people are more than happy to buy their music, particularly if there are no DRM or other technological restrictions on the material that would require buying it again if, say, you buy a new MP3 player) the main advantage of buying online is that you can pick whatever songs off an album you like, skip what you don't like, and - this seems to be the part record companies can't get their heads around - they don't have to be the songs the records companies tell you you're going to want. Formerly known as "singles."

What this does is changes the entire ecology of the music industry. The record companies got what they wanted: people are now willing to buy on a per song basis. Many of them just don't think what the record companies want is cheap enough. (So far, EMusic has the best set-up, a low flat fee for x # of DRM-free songs per month, but because it doesn't get much love from record companies, its stock can be a little dicey.) What this means for musicians is, basically, that the album is no longer something they need to worry about. Albums will always have their place, especially as records of concerts or some other special event, but musical acts might just as well spend a month putting together one or two really good songs and releasing them via the Internet than spending six months putting together up to a couple dozen songs of varying quality and inspiration and packaging it as an album. All in all, it's probably the same level of exposure for much less work. It's still possible to make a lot of money off a single if enough people want it, but the problem for the record companies is that recorded music is pretty much back to where it started: as a come-on for live performances. And the Internet is to the point now where virtual unknowns can come out swinging and make themselves known, cheaply, to a very wide array of people in a fairly short timeframe. The mechanisms are falling into place (possibly already have) for acts to organize and finance their own tours, and that's where many of them make their real money. A number of prominent cult acts - Richard Thompson and Robert Fripp leap to mind - are already successfully marketing their own music via the Internet.

But these - cult stars supplying their rabid cults, live performances - aren't areas the record companies will find it easy to invade. They're just too big, gluttonous and top heavy for any of it to make economic sense on their scale. Yet the pins have been knocked out from under albums. In other words, they got what they wanted: it's a singles world now, and more power to it. It's possible the big record companies may not be able to make the transition, just like many of their biggest venues, like Tower Records, haven't been able to. So it's a crisis for them, but a huge opportunity for musicians/performers, and true relief for listeners.

The Real "High Fidelity": The little record store that could

By Steve Guttenberg

I want to tell you about my favorite record store, Future Legend. I drop in every week to see what's new, and talk about music with the shop's owners, Paul Ruggiero and Greta Perr, both seasoned veterans of the record biz.
Future reminds me of the neighborhood record shops of my youth, and it's a great place to hang and meet music lovers. When I dropped by last Friday I ran into actor Michael Emerson, (Ben), from the TV show "Lost." He was doing some last minute shopping before going off to Hawaii to start shooting new episodes.

We Future Legend regulars appreciate it, and probably all share a secret dread--this is the end of the line. We know that what we get here is irreplaceable. Every week or two I see one us thank Paul or Greta, just for being there. When was the last time you thanked a store for being there?

Future offers a surprisingly deep selection of rock, and a broad range of jazz, blues, R&B, reggae, soundtracks, country, and folk--and Future mixes each artist or band's new and used CDs together, so it's easy to find bargains (which are cheaper and way better sounding than iTunes). Paul and Greta are always on hand to answer even your most obscure music question, which sure beats the hell out of staring into the cold glare of a computer screen. Oh, and there's a healthy selection of new and used vinyl treasures. If you don't see a CD you want, Future will special order it and have your music in just a couple of days.

Yeah, the music business is in a shambles and they say the only hope, if there is any at all, is downloads. We'll see, but the little shop just celebrated its fourth anniversary, outlasting Tower Records, which closed last year.
So if you're lucky enough to still have a local record store, support it. For midtown New Yorkers, this is it. Future's on 9th Avenue, between 52 nd and 53 rd Streets, or give them a call at 212.707.8180. And no, they're not on the web,

Future Legend is for real.

Steve Guttenberg is a frequent contributor to a number of magazines and websites including Home Theater, Stereophile, and Robb Report Home Entertainment. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network.