{"id":284,"date":"2006-01-13T11:54:36","date_gmt":"2006-01-13T18:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2006\/01\/13\/the-king-must-die\/"},"modified":"2006-01-13T11:54:36","modified_gmt":"2006-01-13T18:54:36","slug":"the-king-must-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2006\/01\/13\/the-king-must-die\/","title":{"rendered":"The King Must Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

And sooner or later
Everybody’s kingdom must end<\/em><\/p>\n

"The King Must Die"
Elton John<\/p>\n

I’m not sure I need a landline anymore.<\/p>\n

Oh, when I was with AT&T\/Cingular Wireless, it didn’t even cross my mind.\u00c2\u00a0 Cell phones were unreliable.\u00c2\u00a0 And expensive.\u00c2\u00a0 But, since I switched to Verizon my perception has changed.\u00c2\u00a0 I can drive from point A to point B and actually have a conversation, the signal doesn’t drop out.\u00c2\u00a0 And, at home, I get four bars.\u00c2\u00a0 Why pay for long distance on my landline when I’m paying close to a hundred bucks for all these minutes I’m never going to use on my mobile?\u00c2\u00a0 And now I find myself using my cell for casual calls, since all my CONTACTS\/NUMBERS are stored in it and easily accessible.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not that I’m a complete Luddite when it comes to new technology.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that phone service is a basic.\u00c2\u00a0 One needs reliability.\u00c2\u00a0 Now my cell is just about that reliable.\u00c2\u00a0 What do I need a landline for.\u00c2\u00a0 What do I need a major record label for?<\/p>\n

We’ve been listening for the better part of a decade now how the renegades are devastating the major labels’ business.\u00c2\u00a0 By illegally stealing the music.\u00c2\u00a0 This has taken the spotlight off the real issue.\u00c2\u00a0 The major label paradigm is dying.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s losing its usefulness, its effectiveness, year by year.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be if you wanted your music distributed, exhibited, paid for, you had to be on the major label.\u00c2\u00a0 This is no longer true.\u00c2\u00a0 Major labels only sell RECORDED MUSIC.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not interested in the development of bands, their careers.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s just lip service.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, the same guys aren’t even going to be in charge ten years down the line, the parent company will be different, why SHOULD they care?<\/p>\n

You used to need the label for the money.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only to live, but to make the record.\u00c2\u00a0 And the video.\u00c2\u00a0 To pay the independent promotion fees.\u00c2\u00a0 Now you can make the record at home, on your computer.\u00c2\u00a0 Video is irrelevant, and if you need footage you can fire up your DV camera and shoot some scenes of your band performing for free and put them up on your Website.\u00c2\u00a0 As for getting on terrestrial radio…\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing other than mainstream crap has appeared on terrestrial radio FOR YEARS, to the point where not even the AUDIENCE goes there to find out about music.<\/p>\n

The whole music discovery process has become democratized.\u00c2\u00a0 People are no longer at the mercy of the major label\/terrestrial radio game.\u00c2\u00a0 An indie band’s site has the same real estate on the Web as the major’s act.\u00c2\u00a0 As for the major label sites…\u00c2\u00a0 NOBODY goes there.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the majors were blind to the power of the Net and made them generic and didn’t update them.\u00c2\u00a0 Now you go to a filter like pitchforkmedia.com and then go DIRECTLY to the site of the band you want to check out, via Google.\u00c2\u00a0 The major label plays no part.<\/p>\n

But what’s even weirder is the carping no longer has any traction.\u00c2\u00a0 The public doesn’t care, more people are trading P2P than ever before.\u00c2\u00a0 The acts being purveyed by the majors burnish their images not a whit.\u00c2\u00a0 Mariah Carey may have come back, but I’ve got to tell you, most of those millions who bought her latest album DIDN’T BUY ANOTHER CD ALL YEAR!\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe one more, or two.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re CASUAL fans.\u00c2\u00a0 And the casual fan never supported this business, the hard core fan did.\u00c2\u00a0 Who needs a TON of music.\u00c2\u00a0 This person, the heart and soul of the business, has moved on.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why all those indie stores are closing.\u00c2\u00a0 The new generation doesn’t need to go to the shop to pay for overpriced CDs, he sits in front of his computer all day, DISCOVERING STUFF!\u00c2\u00a0 While the casual buyer picks up a CD at Best Buy along with a new computer printer and the major labels scratch their heads and wonder where their business went.<\/p>\n

There’s no center anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Not the major label, not terrestrial radio, not MTV.\u00c2\u00a0 We live in a niche world.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, if you want to be ubiquitous you’ve got to throw in with this system, ALL OF IT, using saturation marketing to beat every last person in America over the head multiple times.\u00c2\u00a0 But that results in you becoming an Internet joke.\u00c2\u00a0 Criticized on awfulplasticsurgery.com, made fun of on a plethora of celebrity sites.\u00c2\u00a0 The more you push, the greater the backlash.<\/p>\n

Where is it written that physical product is the key to a music career?<\/p>\n

NOWHERE!<\/p>\n

Now it truly IS about your career.\u00c2\u00a0 First and foremost, you must have diehard fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Who will not only support you, but tell others about you.\u00c2\u00a0 Who will believe only if you’re GOOD, only if you RESONATE with them, not because some third party paid for filter TELLS THEM!\u00c2\u00a0 Your fan base gives you money.\u00c2\u00a0 To support you.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they want MORE!\u00c2\u00a0 They buy concert tickets.\u00c2\u00a0 They buy merchandise.\u00c2\u00a0 And they want the music too.\u00c2\u00a0 And, if the RIAA doesn’t prevent equitable authorized distribution on the Web, like legalized P2P, the act will give that music away simultaneous with selling it.\u00c2\u00a0 Since the act knows it’s about eyeballs.\u00c2\u00a0 That you don’t want to PREVENT people from hearing your music, that this is COUNTERPRODUCTIVE!\u00c2\u00a0 AND, that even if you give away the music for free, you can make up the revenue elsewhere.\u00c2\u00a0 In live receipts.\u00c2\u00a0 In merchandise.\u00c2\u00a0 Areas of income the major label doesn’t participate in.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, they WANT to participate in this revenue, they just don’t want to do the things to grow this revenue in an appropriate fashion over time.\u00c2\u00a0 They just want to jam and make and take all the money NOW!<\/p>\n

Right now, as we sit here, there are entrepreneurs revolutionizing the business.\u00c2\u00a0 Managers who are fronting bands flying low level aircraft collecting from ALL revenue streams.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of these acts are going to graduate, into 747s.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, you’re just going to be sitting at home, and one day you’re going to hear this ROAR!\u00c2\u00a0 When you turn on your computer.\u00c2\u00a0 And find out an act you’ve never heard of RULES!<\/p>\n

This is the way it used to be.\u00c2\u00a0 Cottage industries infiltrating the mainstream from the fringe.<\/p>\n

But only a couple of acts will do this.\u00c2\u00a0 Most acts will be niche.\u00c2\u00a0 But making a very good living, because of all the revenue streams.<\/p>\n

Maybe there’s a new David Geffen out there.\u00c2\u00a0 Who will do a bit of consolidation.\u00c2\u00a0 Whatever, we know the person who’s ruling tomorrow won’t be the same one ruling today.\u00c2\u00a0 The same way we know that landline usage is never going back up.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, how long until no one has a fax machine anymore?\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I finally disconnected mine.\u00c2\u00a0 It was like burning half a yard every month for no good reason.<\/p>\n

No man’s a jester playing Shakespeare
Round your throne room floor
While the juggler’s act is danced upon
The crown that you once wore<\/em><\/p>\n

The juggler is already dancing on the major label crown.\u00c2\u00a0 Only those old kings who’ve been in power forever don’t realize it.\u00c2\u00a0 Or, like the corrupt despots of old, they’re planning to rape and pillage through the rest of their last reign, decrying the acts of the unwashed, before the upstarts take over.<\/p>\n

We’re not going to see a righting of the ship.\u00c2\u00a0 The old powers will not be the ones ruling in the future.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t tell you how long it will take to happen, just that it will.\u00c2\u00a0 As sure as Nikon announcing yesterday that it’s giving up making film cameras.<\/p>\n

It’s the end of an era.\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing can be done to stop it.\u00c2\u00a0 The major label model doesn’t fit the new world.\u00c2\u00a0 To try and fix it would be like putting an Accord body on a Chevy Vega, or a Yugo.\u00c2\u00a0 It might look right from the outside, but it will never run right.<\/p>\n

People have stopped laughing at the inanities spewed by the major companies.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve moved on.\u00c2\u00a0 And despite what the old powers say, this is GREAT for artists, this is GREAT for music.\u00c2\u00a0 And the public too.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And sooner or laterEverybody’s kingdom must end "The King Must Die"Elton John I’m not sure I need a landline anymore. Oh, when I was with AT&T\/Cingular Wireless, it didn’t even cross my mind.\u00c2\u00a0 Cell phones were unreliable.\u00c2\u00a0 And expensive.\u00c2\u00a0 But, since I switched to Verizon my perception has changed.\u00c2\u00a0 I can drive from point A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-4A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}