(via threedotdash)
This is a really interesting article. If the music industry would just grow up and use the internet for all it’s advantages, they’d do a lot better, I think. Shutting down Muxtape? What a terrible idea. I can’t tell you how many times I heard a sweet song on someone’s playlist and clicked the link to Amazon to buy it.
Perhaps the major labels are just scared of the fact that independent musicians might not need them anymore. If you do it right on the internet you can do DIY.
It’s so sad that the music industry has no idea what it’s consumers really want. They mass produce shitty records from one hit wonders, making it a waste of money to buy an entire album, encouraging people to go to itunes (or illegally download) the hit single. But one-hit wonders and singles have been around for ages. The real problem is the lack of label support for new artists who are a little out of the mainstream. It seems that labels only want to promote artists or albums that sound like someone else. So we get a millions bands that sound exactly the same, producing music that sounds the same as the next song. They no longer promote new, innovative artists. Labels are also prone to burying the acts that make them all of their money; the established acts who are a sure thing.
As an example, and let me say this upfront…IHATEWALMART!!!….but walmart has exclusive marketing rights to the new ACDC album. Now we all know that the new ACDC album will sound like every other ACDC album, and believe me, I will buy it because I love ACDC. But Walmart is absolutely fucking blowing it. There are no ACDC posters, no huge displays of ACDC records leading up to the release (and they may still do this, but why not start early), no ACDC dvd’s playing in the audio section. If I were in charge of marketing, I would have ACDC blasting from every radio, playing over the in house music system, playing on all of the big screen tvs on display. Everyfuckingwhere. You would not be able to enter my store without seeing a display for ACDC.
I remember a few years ago when WM was Garth Brooks crazy, they had his cds everywhere. Everywhere. You couldn’t buy toilet paper or a sweater without looking at Garth Brooks. But then record companies spent more money because they knew you had to spend money to make money.
But the music industry is cutting out the smart people who know how to promote music. There is a big movement to cut out the promoters and also the small time record stores, but this is a HUGE mistake. They are all fools. By the way, if any record exec wants to hire me to promote their work, just let me know.