{"id":486,"date":"2006-07-26T08:14:47","date_gmt":"2006-07-26T16:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2006\/07\/26\/the-landscape\/"},"modified":"2006-07-26T08:21:46","modified_gmt":"2006-07-26T16:21:46","slug":"the-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2006\/07\/26\/the-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"The Landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just give me one thing that I can hold on to
To believe in this living is just a hard way to go<\/em><\/p>\n

"Angel From Montgomery"
John Prine<\/p>\n

The future may be so bright we’ve got to wear shades, but the present is so confusing it makes us want to throw our hands in the air.\u00c2\u00a0 We used to have answers, now we only have questions.<\/p>\n

There used to be amateurs and professionals.\u00c2\u00a0 Amateurs bought equipment at the local shop and rehearsed in their rooms and after playing a few gigs gave up.\u00c2\u00a0 The professionals got the bug and wanted to go further, they wanted to get a RECORD DEAL!<\/p>\n

Oh, it was all simple then.\u00c2\u00a0 Upon reaching the holy grail, upon getting your deal, you were LEGITIMIZED!\u00c2\u00a0 Above all the rest not only in the eyes of your buddies, but the average music buyer.\u00c2\u00a0 Using the label as a bank, you worked hard on your music, hoping to create something that could get on the radio.<\/p>\n

But now almost nothing gets on the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Radio is broken up into niches, that play the same damn tracks over and over again.\u00c2\u00a0 And, if you’re not in the Top Forty niche, you can’t sell enough records to be ON a major label.\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t matter if you’re good, if you’re not a rapper, the major has nowhere to expose you, so it doesn’t sign you.<\/p>\n

Oh, you can’t blame the major.\u00c2\u00a0 The Telecommunications Act of 1996 did the big labels in.\u00c2\u00a0 Radio consolidation fucked up the landscape.\u00c2\u00a0 Alternative and AAA formats are almost extinct, and you can almost never cross over from Active Rock to Top Forty.\u00c2\u00a0 And sure, there’s a Hot AC market, but you can languish there FOREVER and never cross over.<\/p>\n

But then it got worse.\u00c2\u00a0 Call it Napster, but really it’s MySpace.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody with a band has now got a page.\u00c2\u00a0 So the waters are muddied.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, hard to rise above the hubbub, hard to get TRACTION!<\/p>\n

It all used to be so simple.\u00c2\u00a0 AOR played a wide swath of material, supported by touring.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, after disco killed AOR, MTV came in to blow up the scene.\u00c2\u00a0 But it turned out that television exposure burned out acts.\u00c2\u00a0 And now MTV PLAYS no videos.\u00c2\u00a0 The major labels can’t even employ that paradigm anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless it’s for a hip-hop act that shoots a million dollar video, that can compete with the other programming on MTV, that has ENTERTAINMENT value.\u00c2\u00a0 If you don’t rap and don’t have beautiful girls and a storyline in an expensive clip, you can’t play.\u00c2\u00a0 And, if you can’t play, the major label doesn’t want anything to do with you.<\/p>\n

I feel sorry for the musicians.\u00c2\u00a0 The real ones, the lifers, the professionals.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, the pundits will tell them it’s a DIY world.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s fine if you’re an amateur, but what is the pro supposed to LIVE ON?\u00c2\u00a0 If not the advance of the record company, which will get airplay and drive fans into the venues.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, a good musician is almost always a lousy businessman.\u00c2\u00a0 Good musicians NEED businessmen to get paid and have their work exposed.\u00c2\u00a0 But no one wants to step up to the plate, because you can’t sell records.<\/p>\n

That’s what’s truly scary.\u00c2\u00a0 All those legends filling sheds?\u00c2\u00a0 No one wants ANYTHING new by them.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, there are exceptions, but by and large it’s true.\u00c2\u00a0 The Stones put out their best-reviewed album in decades and it stiffs.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no radio repetition to drive people to the stores and the audience just wants to hear the old stuff.<\/p>\n

And the young ‘uns.\u00c2\u00a0 They perceive music differently.\u00c2\u00a0 Not all of them, not the musos, but the mainstream.\u00c2\u00a0 Music is FUN!\u00c2\u00a0 Grease for the club.\u00c2\u00a0 Listen to the new Justin Timberlake track, does it work ANYWHERE but the club?<\/p>\n

And with P2P, never mind iTunes, people ONLY want the track.\u00c2\u00a0 The rest isn’t meaningful.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like we’re in the pre-Beatle era.\u00c2\u00a0 An album is just filler.\u00c2\u00a0 And with only one track being purchased, the label takes in less money and can invest in less.<\/p>\n

And those who do go to the concert go rarely.\u00c2\u00a0 Since consolidation has resulted in extravagant ticket prices.\u00c2\u00a0 Going to the show is now like going to the prom, a once a year event!\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll rent the limo, buy a new dress, go out for an expensive meal, but you won’t do it again the following month.\u00c2\u00a0 And with everybody clamoring for this same dollar, the number of acts who can sell out reduces, hurting not only THESE acts, but the promoters.\u00c2\u00a0 In the not too distant future, on sale dates for the summer will be before Christmas.\u00c2\u00a0 To beat the other acts to the marketplace, to get some of those dollars in the coffer before the audience SPENDS IT!<\/p>\n

So, we have a touring land of haves and have nots. Those who can command in excess of a hundred dollars a ticket, and those who can barely play anywhere.\u00c2\u00a0 Because no one knows about them, almost nobody has heard their music.<\/p>\n

And you can’t blame the consumer.\u00c2\u00a0 He tuned out terrestrial radio when it went to twenty plus minutes of commercials an hour.\u00c2\u00a0 His iPod only plays what he ALREADY knows.\u00c2\u00a0 And satellite radio is a decent filter, but still, they’re playing so much stuff it’s hard for an act to gain traction, especially when so few people SUBSCRIBE to satellite radio.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure how it plays out.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s clear the present model is broken.\u00c2\u00a0 We can debate whose fault it is, but suing file traders and lowering ticket prices a smidgen is not going to solve the problem.<\/p>\n

We need a whole new crop of entrepreneurs.\u00c2\u00a0 Who believe in their acts and will find a way for them to get noticed.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the old managers don’t even sign new acts, what’s the point, why put in all that effort to make so little money?\u00c2\u00a0 And the labels are caught up in the above-delineated scenario, fighting each other for the Top Forty sliver.\u00c2\u00a0 A new player will provide the services acts need, while purveying music that is not only Top Forty.<\/p>\n

But as I said in the beginning, the future is not even close.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re going to see a further downward spiral.\u00c2\u00a0 Because with the present systems in place, you just can’t gain enough MINDSHARE to break through.\u00c2\u00a0 The funnel\/filter is too tight.<\/p>\n

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Just give me one thing that I can hold on toTo believe in this living is just a hard way to go "Angel From Montgomery"John Prine The future may be so bright we’ve got to wear shades, but the present is so confusing it makes us want to throw our hands in the air.\u00c2\u00a0 We […]<\/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-486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-7Q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486","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=486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}