[NewMusic] [BA-NEWMUS:50] Re: 21 Grand Brass Band

[Phillip Greenlief]

Dear bListers,

Well, I'm just full of them today...here's another piece on the "death
of the CD"...(or, a theme for Moe!'s 20th Anniversary Concert?).

Cheers,
PG

When The CD Dies
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2007/05/29/when-the-cd-d
ies/

"Everyone in the industry thinks of this Christmas as the last big
holiday season for CD sales," Mr. Sinnreich said, "and then everything
goes kaput."

Plunge in CD Sales Shakes Up Big Labels 

Love it or hate it, the "New York Times" is the paper of record. If for
no other reason than most news organizations no longer DO any reporting,
they just rely on wire services and print commentary/opinion. "The New
York Times" sets the agenda. And when they go on a story, it has
legitimacy. Wall Street, the business community, they now know what
active music consumers know, that the CD is headed for extinction. With
everybody clued in, its death will be hastened. THEN what?

1. Indie Retail

Survives. Just like vinyl has never gone completely away, there will be
people who will want to own discs in the future, whether they be CDs or
vinyl. Most of the indie stores that have weathered the crash will
continue in business, assuming their owners still want to keep the doors
open. Most have diversified, they don't rely solely on music to make
money. They will be kept alive by collectors. But they will not matter.
Just like vinyl doesn't matter. Disc sales will be a sideshow. If you
make a business out of it, more power to you, but most people just won't
care.

2. Big Box Retail

Best Buy and its brethren are going to kill the CD. They're gonna shrink
floor space and titles and one day they're just going to stop selling
discs completely. This will happen long before record labels desire to
give up on the physical format. Retail is in tune with its customers'
whims, it has to keep moving forward to survive. Soon CDs will be
evidence of the past, and these stores want to be the future. Big box
retailers will kill the CD the same way the industry killed the cassette
and vinyl. They'll just stop stocking them, and the consumer will go
elsewhere.

I think Aram Sinnreich's prediction is right. After this Christmas, big
box retailers will start folding their tent. Oh, maybe they'll sell a
few titles. But so do supermarket chains.

3. Radio

Radio hasn't given a shit about CD sales for years. Radio exists in its
own little backwater, where the advertiser is king and the music is just
part of the sausage. Hey, so many of the records that zoom up the chart
are not available at ANY price! With indie promo essentially gone, radio
groups are not worried about losing the relationship with labels, there
are no more perks left to acquire. As for radio station shows and other
give-backs, you don't need the label for that, just the manager. The
manager will be more powerful than ever before.

4. The Promoter

When the CD dies, Live Nation is going to be in even deeper shit.

Oh, AEG will be too, but they tend to only want to be in the blockbuster
business.

You see forever, the road took its clues from the labels. The labels
signed the acts, promoted them, created DEMAND! Now the promoter has to
create demand himself, and so far, he's shown no talent for it. Oh, he
could cede this development process to Net radio and other developing
exposure media, but that just means he'll have to settle for smaller
shows, and less revenue. Doesn't bode well for your stock price.

5. The Agent

Will have to work in concert with the manager to help create demand.
This won't solely be the province of the promoter. The label did the
heavy lifting for seemingly EVERYBODY in this business, what happens
when the label goes KAPUT!

6. The Manager

It starts with the manager. He creates the original demand. But the goal
used to be to sell to the highest bidder, to get the label to COMMIT!
And that commitment yielded exposure, which could earn you money on the
road, and in the old days, royalties. NOW WHAT?

The manager has to piece together all those new media strategies, to try
to get his band traction. MySpace, music blogs, it's not about grand
slams anymore, not even home runs, but BUNTS! Spreading the word,
building demand, is like starting at the bottom of the minor leagues,
working your way up to AAA, and then entering the bigs. First in KC. Or
Seattle. Some secondary market. It's gonna be tough. And the manager is
going to be starving all the while, because fifteen or twenty percent of
nothing is nothing. Which is why the established managers only want
established acts, and a vacuum has been created for new managers to
develop new acts. But there will be starvation along the way, and only
the fittest will survive.

7. The Act

Has to get a manager. That should be your goal, to create enough noise
to get someone to commit their money, time and effort to growing your
act. You can only go so far by yourself. After all, you've got to write
the music and play it! So, the act lights a fire, which burns up through
the manager, agent and promoter. As for the label?

8. The Label

There will be no labels if you can't get paid.

The online business presently doesn't deliver what the consumer wants,
which is ownership of a ton of unrestricted music for a low price. Those
wishing to sell recordings only have six months to solve this problem.

It ain't iTunes. Even Steve Jobs says most people who buy iPods buy
almost no music at the iTunes Store. 

Thoughts on Music by Steve Jobs

It's not Rhapsody or Napster. You've got to get a new player, when iPods
rule. And the public is not ready for rental.

So.

The only solution is some kind of legal P2P. But the labels and
publishers are not ready for such. Therefore, stasis and infighting will
kill the recorded music business.

Sad, if you think about it. People should pay for music. But the owners
won't LET THEM! Not in the way they want to.

It's not about mergers, or laying people off, the solution is on the
other end, delivering a lot of cheap music. But no one is prepared to do
this. It's fascinating watching the movie. As fat cats inured to an old
way of doing things proceed to destroy their business.

9. Publishers

Will survive. And thrive.

10. The Public

We haven't had that spirit here since. Well, if not 1969, then 1979, or
'89 or even '99. But 1999 was almost TEN YEARS AGO! The public thinks
that most mainstream new music is crap. And if the labels die, GOOD
RIDDANCE! In other words, most people just aren't paying attention.
They're not only not buying discs, they're not going to overpriced shows
with exorbitant ticket fees either. In an era where it's about getting
the masses involved at a cheap price, the music industry has catered to
an ever shrinking few willing to overpay for crap.

Joe and Jane Public want music. But they'll just steal it. Or listen to
the radio.

As for new stuff? You'll hear about it from your friends, if you're
INTERESTED! Otherwise, you'll just fire up your home theatre and watch
one of the 500 channels or a DVD.

Music has turned itself into a second class citizen. Via greed, via an
inability to wake up and admit we're living in the future.

It's not like this inevitability, the impending death of the CD, was
sprung upon the executives in the middle of the night. It was obvious at
LEAST seven years ago, when the original Napster gained serious
traction. The only person who saw the light? Steve Jobs. And he made his
money from selling iPods, and now iPhones. If the iTunes Store never
goes ga-ga, he just shrugs his shoulders and moves on. As for the music
industry??

There will be a new music industry. But it will not look like the old
one. It will be run by youngsters, with different values, spreading the
word amongst their peers. They won't sell out to Madison Avenue because
Madison Avenue won't have any idea what they're doing. When the new acts
do get traction, will advertising even LOOK the same? Will anybody be
watching the commercials on television? Will we live in a Google ads
world?

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are duking it out online. Even AOL. You
wonder why AOL went free? For the EYEBALLS! There wasn't enough money in
selling online access to compete with the big boys focused on ads.

Same deal in music. By catering to a select ignorant or addicted few,
willing to overpay for discs, the music business ignored the mainstream,
failed to see what the people wanted and where they were going.

The people are digital savvy. It's in their DNA. Selling McCartney discs
at Starbucks is the last Hail Mary left. Whether it's successful or not,
you won't be able to do it during Christmas '08, Starbucks won't be able
to stand the hit to its credibility, its customers will LAUGH at them,
DISDAIN them.

The disc is dying, are you prepared?


Phillip Greenlief
c/o Evander Music
PO Box 22158 Oakland, CA
94623-9991
www.evandermusic.com