It’s become less about what’s actually in the grooves than whether you can market it, and if so, what is the plan?

No major label is going to release a Wild Man Fischer album today.  Music used to be art.  The act made it, THEN you figured out how to sell it.  You were a curator, buying stuff for your museum.  Wait a minute, this applied to both the purveyor AND the customer.  For a long time I didn’t want anything in my collection that reflected badly on me.  And when you went to the office of the major label employee he didn’t speak about his company’s stars, but that one act that really touched him, that made that unique record.

Now a great record sells forever, no matter how long it takes to catch on (can you say "Nick Drake"?)  But if you need to make your money up front, if you need serious cash flow, then you’ve got to have the big time marketing plan, you’ve got to make as many people aware of your product as possible.  So you can get all those sales THE VERY FIRST WEEK!  Oh, some acts build.  Mostly newbies.  Whereas those with a previous history, a fan base, their records come out and then slide down down down the chart.  Front load all that marketing.  There is no sales arc.  Radio will probably only play one single, if that, stations would rather spin the well-researched cut for the better part of a year as opposed to testing a new cut, even by an established artist!

So what we have here is a game.  Find the obvious and then make it obvious.  Is this the music and music business we fell in love with?  Didn’t we decry the obvious?  How have we gotten so far off the beaten path?

Music has an advantage over movies.  You can make it cheaper, and more quickly.  Then how come it takes as long to make and market a record as a flick?  Think about it, you’re spending all that money for tracks that will be heard on an iPod and even though music doesn’t have a plot, it’s got longevity, you can listen to it again and again, you sell most of it in a week.  Why not use new technology to change the paradigm?  Why not wake up and realize it’s a changed world?

A label might want a standard contract with an act providing for up to five albums.  But this doesn’t square with the consumer’s listening habits.  The consumer wants a steady stream of great tracks.  First and foremost, STEADY!  If you’re not constantly releasing new good stuff, your audience moves on to something else.  And unlike in the seventies, there’s BOATLOADS of other stuff.  Don’t put out an album for three years today and most people have FORGOTTEN YOU!  Second, the album is irrelevant to most listeners.  They focus on good as opposed to quantity.  Oh, if you want to put out a concept album sixty minutes long, good luck (but I’m laughing inside anyway, isn’t that positively SIXTIES?)  But you’re bucking the system.  No one can digest today’s overlong albums, never mind be motivated to buy them.  In the old days we could afford very little and records had two sides and were under forty minutes.  Now, everything is essentially free, and there’s ENDLESS MUSIC!

No, the future isn’t going to be album release events.  Hell, if this was the case, Tower would still be in business, people would be lining up Monday at midnight to get the new product.  Now, people graze and when they get stuff they like, they keep it.  You’ve got to feed the grazers.  You need more product.

Rather than polish that album to a turd, you need to go into your basement studio and cut a track and put it up on the Web the next day.  The public wants the immediacy, like in blogs.  They don’t wait two days to report the news, and you shouldn’t have to wait a year between inspiration and release.  Get inspired, cut something, put it out.  If it’s good, your fan base will spread the word.  If it’s not, cut again.  Forget the big studio with the high-priced help.  Those days are through.  That’s like saying we should bring back film and color separators.  So many of the creative arts have gone down and dirty, now it’s music’s turn.

Neil Young’s "Ohio" came out a week after Kent State.  Back when there was no Internet, never mind Pro Tools.  Why can’t Rage Against The Machine put out a single coinciding with the House vote on Iraq?  Where are the political singles coincident with the 2008 election/political debate?  Oh, the artists are afraid of offending their listeners.  But now the paradigm is reversed, you don’t HAVE that many listeners, not that many people are PAYING ATTENTION!  Honesty and integrity keep people attached to you, your identity is king, that’s what you’re selling.  Paris Hilton can’t sell a record because people hate her.  The media loves her, people hate her.  People love Wilco, not MOST people, but enough people to keep Wilco in business.  Who do you want to be, as a musical performer, Paris Hilton or Wilco?

The laser printer eliminated the print shop.  The Net allows you to eliminate physical retail/distribution.  You don’t have to get a middleman to buy your record, you can go STRAIGHT TO THE PUBLIC!  And the costs involved are so low, you don’t have to sell a lot.  And you can experiment.

The experimentation in today’s world is dead.  Everyone’s playing to that one big drop date.  The stars of the future will be much more fluid, putting out innovative stuff on a regular basis.  They’ll be worried about satiating their fan base, not their handlers.  Then again, handlers don’t have fans.  The artists get it, the big labels don’t.  And the big labels are fighting change.  But change is here.  Just look at the declining SoundScan numbers for evidence.  Music will not be sold as a one hour compilation for ten plus bucks for long.  Either fight the change or embrace it.  Either spend yourself into oblivion or put out cheaper, more vital material on a regular basis.