Anyone else having a sense of deja vu?\u00c2\u00a0 Like this is the end of the Mafia?<\/p>\n
I don’t know about you, but where I grew up there was a strong organized crime presence.\u00c2\u00a0 My father used to alert me to it as we drove through the streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut.\u00c2\u00a0 He’d tell me about the hits, the people to be avoided.\u00c2\u00a0 I had a healthy respect for the Mafia.<\/p>\n
Maybe that’s why I believe "Godfather II" is the best movie ever made.<\/p>\n
But the reality, despite the "Godfather" trilogy and "The Sopranos" never mind "The Valachi Papers" and numerous other Mob flicks, is that the Cosa Nostra lost the war.\u00c2\u00a0 With RICO and stronger law enforcement, the Mafia’s back was broken.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a shadow of its former self.<\/p>\n
At first I didn’t give a shit about the Entercom suit.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean who listens to terrestrial radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t EVERYBODY know the songs are bought and paid for?\u00c2\u00a0 But then I thought about that exact fact.\u00c2\u00a0 That listenership is declining, and the major labels are losing mindshare.\u00c2\u00a0 And what if there truly was equitable access.\u00c2\u00a0 God, the influence and airplay of the majors can only go down.<\/p>\n
But that’s not the only front they’re being hit on.<\/p>\n
There’s P2P piracy.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s IM’ing and hard drive swapping.\u00c2\u00a0 Internet and satellite radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Alternative forms of exhibition and distribution.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake, in front of your very own eyes, the power of the major label cartel is being broken.\u00c2\u00a0 It was developed for a different era.\u00c2\u00a0 When there was no sun shining on its inner workings.\u00c2\u00a0 When threats kept outsiders from asking questions.\u00c2\u00a0 When you could get away with questionable accounting.<\/p>\n
iTunes is the labels’ worst nightmare not because of the lack of variable pricing, but because of the accurate ACCOUNTING!\u00c2\u00a0 With nothing to press, nothing to ship, an accurate count of what is sold can be easily ascertained.\u00c2\u00a0 So now, it’s CLEAR that the labels are screwing the artists.\u00c2\u00a0 With their pittance of the sixty-odd cents of wholesale.\u00c2\u00a0 With their ultimate royalty still decreased by packaging deductions.<\/p>\n
What do you need a major label for?\u00c2\u00a0 To spend a fortune to burn you out instantly?<\/p>\n
What if you can get exposed without the major label?<\/p>\n
You can get on MySpace no problem.\u00c2\u00a0 You can get on Internet radio no problem.\u00c2\u00a0 Satellite too.\u00c2\u00a0 And soon, TERRESTRIAL!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, the majors will still have their relationships with TV, but is TV really the answer for anybody other than the vapid superstar?<\/p>\n
The game is changing IRREVOCABLY!\u00c2\u00a0 If there’s any value in the major labels, it’s purely in their catalogs.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s too expensive for them to do business in the new artist world.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s too high an overhead.\u00c2\u00a0 All those expenses for recording and marketing.\u00c2\u00a0 For a very brief career that fewer people care about.<\/p>\n
It’s just amazing.\u00c2\u00a0 The major labels are collapsing under the weight of their own tired, fixed systems.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re embattled on all fronts.\u00c2\u00a0 Made to compete on an even playing field, they can’t.<\/p>\n
The advantages of the major are disappearing every day.\u00c2\u00a0 No credible act wants to sign with them.\u00c2\u00a0 Can you imagine the Arcade Fire continuing to fly solo fifteen years ago?\u00c2\u00a0 But they’re AFRAID to go with the major, for their credibility will take a hit.\u00c2\u00a0 Sell out to the man and you’ve got to play by his rules.<\/p>\n
Nobody seems to get it.\u00c2\u00a0 Not Dennis and Lenny over at "Hits" or their mocked "Billboard".\u00c2\u00a0 Not SoundScan counting CDs or BDS.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re all built for an old system.\u00c2\u00a0 An old boy network of insiders.\u00c2\u00a0 That everybody has hated for years and doesn’t have to play by the rules of anymore.<\/p>\n
Distribution is king.\u00c2\u00a0 Not content.\u00c2\u00a0 Major labels controlled not only retail distribution, but distribution\/exhibition on radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Now there are more venues, over which they have no control, and they’re losing power over the remaining domains, other than classic physical retail, which is gonna die.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, by selling out to the big box retailers did they seal their fate ANYWAY?<\/p>\n
This is not hysteria.\u00c2\u00a0 The majors won by fixing the game.\u00c2\u00a0 By playing with their own marked deck.\u00c2\u00a0 All their advantages are evaporating.\u00c2\u00a0 They will dominate no more.<\/p>\n
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Anyone else having a sense of deja vu?\u00c2\u00a0 Like this is the end of the Mafia? I don’t know about you, but where I grew up there was a strong organized crime presence.\u00c2\u00a0 My father used to alert me to it as we drove through the streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut.\u00c2\u00a0 He’d tell me about the […]<\/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-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-entercom","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","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=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}