What's wrong with the music business?

[Maximus]

So what’s wrong with the music business? Where to start (for starters most of us have day jobs so we can still play) anyway I stumbled with this in Steve Lukather's Site http://www.stevelukather.net/Article.aspx?id=26 and I must say I agree with it, so what do you guys think.

[Omega Monkey]

It would be a LOT easier to start with whats NOT wrong.

Which the answer is, not much. About the only thing is that SOMETIMES talented and deserving musicians make some decent money for their efforts.

[Syrinx]

I totally agree with Omega Monkey. Music industry is just a business like any other and they are in for the money, and I believe it's only for the money.

Not that long ago, I used to hear Allan Holdsworth (who is a GOD in my book) explain that the reason he rarely does a US tour is because his agent could only get a handful of places that at the end of the tour breaking even is not even certain!!!! And it's not just him, many many famous in a God-like status musicians are barely making it. It's ridiculous.

[ChrisMcCoy]

As the lyrics said it best, "Video Killed the Radio Star" :)

My 2 cents, the thing that's wrong with the Music Business is what seems to be the inability of record companies to commit to long term lifespans for artists and focusing only on the "one-hit-wonders". To sum it up, lack of a long term vision. Focus on making the dollar faster and moving on seems to be the status quo.

My question is, what happens to the artist once the one hit is gone ?
I guess I should start looking for them to apply for a job working for me in the computer field :) Sad but true. I've met a lot of daytimers doing the 9-5 thing who used to play in fairly well known groups. One of them was introduced to me through a friend who works in a law firm in DC. I won't mention her name, but she has a Grammy Award sitting in her living room. I wonder how it feels coming home from a 9-5 in a law firm (a secretary no less) and seeing that grammy just sitting there in the living room.

I could spend all day ranting on my quest for the "big music deal" back in the late 80's, but that's an ugly can of worms better left unopened, and it's in the past.

C.

[Awake]

One of his critcisms I particularly agree with, and one I particularly do not.

I think he's absolutely right about technology being a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I am staggered that I can sit in my study and both write and record something that sounds like it's off The Downward Spiral in two hours using no instruments but a keyboard and a mouse. You take a modern PC, a bunch of VST instruments, and you're there. I remember making a record maybe five years ago with a guy who had an armada of equipment in his basement, and I just couldn't believe that you could record all these instruments into a computer and it would actually sound like a record (he even chopped up some of what I played and made it sound like I could actually keep time in one difficult passage). The point is that technology is very liberating; nowadays, Paul McCartney can write a symphony and and Roger Waters can write an opera, despite a lack of any formal training. They can fiddle around in Logic until it sounds right, and that's just an amazing creative tool. But the other side of that technology is as Luke describes: the problem is that it is so easy now that anyone can do it. There is no premium on actually being able to play, to practise writing, to produce quality product, and I'm sure that in part, the easy availability of the same technology which makes it possible for Roger to crank out Ca Ira also facilitates the existence of a monstrosity like Barbie Girl. Twenty years ago, if Aqua had walked into a recording studio and said "here's our song", they would have been laughed out of the building, because no one with a brain is going to spend the hundred grand that it takes to record that piece of shit properly, but today, Aqua can fire up their PC and record their crummy songs in an afternoon using nothing but stuff they already own.

On the other hand, Luke writes:[there are] guys who are heads of major record companies right now, that if you put a gun to their friggin’ head and told them, ‘You play me a C scale right now or you’re dead,’ you’d have a bunch of dead record company people, because they couldn’t do it . . . Think of it: If you’re the head of all the doctors in a hospital, chances are you’re going to be one of the best doctors. You’re the go-to guy. But if you’re the head of a record label, chances are you’re not only one lucky bastard, but you’re also not the best guy for the job, you’re also not a musician, you also don’t have much of a musical backgroundThis is an unfortunate comparison. The guy who is in charge of my company right now is the least technical person in the building; that's okay, he doesn't have to be. There is no logical reason why a hospital administrator would be a doctor at all, let alone the best doctor (that, after all, is why they have someone with the title "Chief of Medicine"), and there may be several very compelling reasons why he should not be: a company I used to work for several years ago had a boss who really was the go-to guy, the most knowledgable guy in the company about the technical details of the industry we were in, and he was the WORST manager I've ever known. Really smart, intelligent and knowledgable guy, but the problem was that he let himself get so bogged down in micromanaging all this stuff that he knew how to do that he was neglecting the big picture which is - hello - what executives are supposed to be doing.

It isn't a problem that record company bosses aren't musicians, but it is a problem that they don't care about the product. Luke could put a gun to my head and tell me "you play me Paich's piano solo from Better World or you're dead", and I couldn't do it to save my life - but that doesn't mean for an instant that I don't appreciate hearing Dave play it.

For all the reasons Luke mentions, I really feel sorry for people who want to make it in the music industry - you read people talking about making it big - "when my band hits it big" - and it's hard to avoid the conclusion that they're heading for almost certain failure, with the slight possibility, if they're very lucky and do get signed, of a last-minute detour into a brick wall of disappointment and disillusionment.

[agamemnon]

I think too many people are dedicating themselves to an artistic disapline and not putting the art itself in perspective.

I've worked with bands and musicians local to me for years and the majority have the same opinion that if they don't succeed outright they shouldn't evolve or expand themselves in the disapline but rather reach out to form "connections" and such that they feel they can use to succeed, but then fall on they're ass.

Its like a pyramid scheme gone awry, many people don't want to accept the fact that their on their own, no promoter or label or manager or producer can make up for something lacking within, or a general lack of widespread public interest.

In most buisnesses, when a company weakens competitors take over. Music should be the same but too many people are buying in to the idea that the "music buisness" is different from every other buisness, IT IS NOT!

Make music, learn buisness, make decisions for yourself. Some investors bank and others fail, you should study the successes if you want to succeed and only study the failiures if you want to fail.

that is all.