There’s too much music made by too many people and performers are frustrated they’re broke and listeners are completely overwhelmed.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s going to happen?<\/p>\n
Hit music will survive.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if the definition of a hit is a shadow of its former self.\u00c2\u00a0 There won’t be as many sales, few people will even be aware of the track and the act will not be able to tour, or, if so, very briefly (did you catch the gross for the Jonas Brothers movie…ALREADY has-beens?)<\/p>\n
Making it is so difficult that most "musicians" give up very early in the process.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s easy to write and record a song and distribute it.\u00c2\u00a0 Everything that was difficult yesterday is easy today.\u00c2\u00a0 You just fire up GarageBand, select some loops, create a track and upload the result to MySpace and you’re an "artist"!<\/p>\n
Well, no.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re someone who’s recorded a track that most people don’t care about, probably because it sucks.\u00c2\u00a0 But what if it’s good?<\/p>\n
It almost definitely isn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 But, if it were, most people STILL wouldn’t care, because they’re not aware of it. So, we’ve got two halves of the pie, quality and awareness.<\/p>\n
Let’s start with quality.\u00c2\u00a0 You can be a supernova like Picasso, incredibly good from the start.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s almost impossible.\u00c2\u00a0 Usually you’ve got to experiment, practice, go down the road to dead ends until you finally come up with something good.\u00c2\u00a0 And most people don’t have the patience for this process. Everybody wants instant fame.\u00c2\u00a0 And instant riches.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s easier than ever to be instantly famous, but it doesn’t pay well.\u00c2\u00a0 You can be on a reality TV show and be broke and working as a waitress.\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, fame doesn’t possess the ogle value it used to.\u00c2\u00a0 We make fun of the famous.\u00c2\u00a0 As for riches…they’re almost unreachable.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why most "artists" give up.<\/p>\n
It was easier in the nineties.\u00c2\u00a0 The formula was simple.\u00c2\u00a0 If you were incredibly cute or beautiful you got a record label to sign you and put a ton of money behind you, filming an expensive video for ubiquitous airplay on MTV and paying radio stations to play your record.\u00c2\u00a0 The system was easy to figure out.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though there was a winnowing process, which frequently had little to do with musical talent.\u00c2\u00a0 Today?\u00c2\u00a0 If you can get a label interested, they want to pay less and own more and success is a fraction of what it once was.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why if you want to be rich and famous you start a Website.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless you’re truly a musician.<\/p>\n
A true musician HAS to play.\u00c2\u00a0 The money is secondary.\u00c2\u00a0 As is fame.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, you want both, but you’ve got no choice.\u00c2\u00a0 And now, with the field separated so clearly between the wannabes and the true devotees, we can start to see the future of the music industry.\u00c2\u00a0 Those who see themselves as musicians are going to practice and play for Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours, building an audience all along the way, and eventually a great portion of the rest of the public is going to wake up and pay attention.<\/p>\n
Mutt Lange started off doing sound-alike records.\u00c2\u00a0 Reg Dwight recorded demos.\u00c2\u00a0 So many of the stars of yore paid incredible dues.\u00c2\u00a0 So when they were finally foisted upon the marketplace we were stunned by their talent.\u00c2\u00a0 "Your Song"?\u00c2\u00a0 A classic still performed today.\u00c2\u00a0 A Jonas Brothers track?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s an exercise in finance, based on marketing.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like no one wants Hanson anymore, in a few years the Jonas Brothers will be a nostalgia item that does a fraction of their present business.\u00c2\u00a0 The boys have got experience in promotion, in acting, but in music?\u00c2\u00a0 Their musical history is very brief, they’ve got very little in the way of chops.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than practicing in their basement, they’re busy performing in throwaway Disney pics.<\/p>\n
You don’t have to be thirty to get enough experience.\u00c2\u00a0 Those piano lessons your parents make you take count.\u00c2\u00a0 As do all those rehearsals in the aforementioned basement.\u00c2\u00a0 And no matter how good your musical skills, performing is a separate talent completely.\u00c2\u00a0 Like an NBA player with enough games under his belt not to choke in the playoffs, you’ve got to perform enough to be able to hit every note and keep the audience in the palm of your hand.\u00c2\u00a0 So when people drag their friends to your show, they’re mesmerized.<\/p>\n
Everything you hated is essentially gone.\u00c2\u00a0 Looks-based music.\u00c2\u00a0 Formulaic radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Usual suspect writers and producers.\u00c2\u00a0 They all still exist, but suddenly they’re the sideshow.\u00c2\u00a0 The real money is in the bands that play live.\u00c2\u00a0 But people really only want to see the dinosaurs in quantity, because they’ve been at it so long that they’ve not only got a catalog of great tunes, they’re great on stage.<\/p>\n
Walk into the wilderness with me.\u00c2\u00a0 If you believe in yourself, you’re never going to give up, you’re going to play until you make it.\u00c2\u00a0 And believe me, if you put in all that time and no one is paying attention you will give up, that life is just too frustrating.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you’ve got talent, you’ll see signposts along the way, enough positive feedback to keep you going.<\/p>\n
So, maybe we’ll have a vibrant music scene in the future.\u00c2\u00a0 When the old game plays down to nothing (and Terra Firma just wrote down their EMI investment), and the new music-based acts have enough hours\/time\/practice\/performance under their belt to gain a head of steam.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of being worked on a track by a street-teamer looking to get ahead, a true friend will hip you to something that blows your mind to the point where you’ll have to tell everybody else you know.<\/p>\n
The opportunities are not only in playing, there are giant holes in infrastructure as well.\u00c2\u00a0 These new acts need managers.\u00c2\u00a0 Organizations akin to labels to run their businesses.\u00c2\u00a0 Even concert promoters to believe in them and showcase them live.\u00c2\u00a0 None of the old farts want anything to do with these developing acts, because the payday is so far away, and a trickle at first.<\/p>\n
We could be on the verge of a renaissance.\u00c2\u00a0 But it could take five years to start to come clear and ten to burst into a supernova.\u00c2\u00a0 Practice, practice, practice.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re truly good, you’ll find an audience.\u00c2\u00a0 But remember, it won’t happen instantly and you’ll struggle as opposed to living the high life.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll be driving a rickety old van as opposed to flying first class.\u00c2\u00a0 But when the money starts to come in, it will POUR!<\/p>\n
Yes, you want to get paid.\u00c2\u00a0 But even more, you want people who are touched by your original music, who NEED to go to the show.\u00c2\u00a0 Which will be cheap.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you’ll want a big tent, you’ll want to include everybody.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the Net ethos.\u00c2\u00a0 The old boys are about being exclusionary, whereas today’s kids know everybody else in their entire town!<\/p>\n
The audience is waiting.\u00c2\u00a0 Listeners want something great to pop up on their radar, that they can believe in.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s human nature.\u00c2\u00a0 Think of listeners, not executives or gatekeepers.\u00c2\u00a0 You can write the script.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re ready for you!<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There’s too much music made by too many people and performers are frustrated they’re broke and listeners are completely overwhelmed.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s going to happen? Hit music will survive.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if the definition of a hit is a shadow of its former self.\u00c2\u00a0 There won’t be as many sales, few people will even be aware of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-sb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}