[FA Worldmusic] Future of music industry

[Ian Menzies]

Germaine to recent posts by Mark and Evangeline of late. I found this guys
take made several points that resonated with me.
Ian


From:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-sachs/is-a-cd-worth-the-plastic_b_68066.h
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By Tony Sachs

The release of Radiohead's new album as a
pay-what-you-want-if-you-want-to-pay-anything download has once again raised
the question -- what the heck is going on with the music business? And is a
CD worth the plastic it's burned on anymore?

Between Radiohead's experiment and Prince's giving away millions of copies
of his new album and CD sales sliding deeper into the toilet on a weekly
basis, it seems like recorded music is ceasing to be a viable commodity, and
will now function as a tool to promote concerts, rather than the other way
around, which is how it's been for my entire life. A lot of people think
this is a good thing -- that you're not really a musician unless you're
constantly on the road. To which I say, huh?

If the sale of records had been in freefall in 1967 instead of 2007, would
the Beatles have been allowed to spend all those months and all that money
in the studio making Sgt. Pepper ? Would they have felt the pressure to tour
behind the record? How would that have affected what they recorded? Or would
they simply have packed it in after their last concert in 1966? How would
Brian Wilson and Phil Spector have reacted to the wholesale theft of music
they'd labored over in the studio? Would they have bothered if they felt
like they had to give their music away and hit the road in order to get
people to hear it?

Fast forward 10 years, or 20. Would Steely Dan have gone back to being
session musicians after their last tour in 1974 to avoid being on the road?
Would they have bothered to create such sophisticated, well-produced albums
as Aja and Gaucho if they had to play the songs in hockey arenas for nine
months out of the year? Would XTC's Andy Partridge have gotten a day job
rather than make some of the most brilliant pop music of the last 25 years
after stage fright got the best of him? Would R.E.M. have made Out Of Time
and Automatic For The People, two of their most intricate (and best, not to
mention biggest-selling) albums, if they knew they had to tour behind them?

A lot of people are still really angry that they paid $19 for a Backstreet
Boys CD 10 years ago. (Not that anyone put a gun to their heads, but
still....) But that doesn't mean that, as some sort of 40-acres-and-a-mule
payback, studio recordings should now be free. Musicians -- recording
artists, if you will -- put time, effort, sweat, and creativity into making
records, not to mention money. Just because record companies have charged
too much for music for at least the last 15 years doesn't mean the pendulum
should swing so far in the other direction that it should all have no
monetary value.

The good news for Radiohead is that early reports indicate their fans are
paying MORE for their new album than they generally pay for a CD. As one
pundit puts it, it's the fans' way of showing their appreciation for the
band's goodwill. If the rest of the industry can find some way to come to
the same sort of delicate balance -- where neither the consumers nor the
artists feel ripped off -- then maybe the music biz, in both its
pre-recorded and live concert forms, will turn out OK. And maybe musicians
who make CDs won't be forced to hit the road in order to sell them.