I'm not convinced that the majors' decreased sales are the result of filesharing to be honest. I think it's got more to do with the increased diversity in musical tastes, and the fact that the majors haven’t done well to respond to that.
The record industry's traditional model is to create a few bands that sell millions of records, across a narrow range of styles and genres. Forty years ago, this was a great way to do business. The "pop" in "pop music" stood for "popular", so tackle one genre and you could sell to the majority of the record buying public. Also, the costs of producing music were extremely high, with the need for studio time, recording equipment, rehearsals, and a whole load of professionals - engineers, songwriters, producers, arrangers, and so on. So it made sense to produce a few records that would hopefully sell millions.
The problem with the record industry (well, the majors especially) is that they knew they were on to a good thing, and so haven't really been quick to respond to changes in the way that the public listens to, makes, and buys music.
There have been two profound changes since the sixties. Firstly, it no longer takes a whole load of resources to make a record. If you’re a dance music producer, chances are you do the whole thing on your own, without any studio time at all, and the only additional resource needed will be to hire an engineer for the mastering stage. On the other hand, if you’re in a rock band, if you’re making anything other than stadium rock (like punk, black metal, garage surf rock, whatever) then the aesthetic is definitely towards something more lo-fi, in which case expensive production won’t really do you any favours. Making music (other than really high production pop or stadium rock) is, in terms of resources, easier than ever.
Secondly, the music buying public no longer fall into one homogenous group who all like something called “pop”. Instead there are million more genres than there used to be. Many of these genres developed at a grassroots level, which was possible because it’s become so easy for the general public to make music. These genres start off on independent or underground labels, or these days maybe on MP3s and websites, and then eventually the majors will pick up on them. But one way or another people are interested in them, and buy the music. In recent years think electro house, grime, dubstep, new folk, etc.
Essentially it's the archetypal case of the so-called “Long Tail”. The tail refers to the tail end of the market, with those products that individually don’t sell very many copies. The theory is that the tail is long – there might be more products to be sold from the tail than from the peak. In other words, Death Cab for Cutie, Kid606, Yo La Tengo, Wolf Eyes and Le Tigre won’t individually outsell Britney. But cumulatively they might.
This is how the economy works these days. The tail is getting longer. Look at the success of Amazon. It’s entirely based on being able to tap into that tail – stock a million products and sell a couple of hundred each, and you do better than selling only a hundred thousand of the top one hundred selling products.
And this is why the majors have been in decline – because rather than try and understand and tap into the long tail, they’ve decided to fortify their position instead, by putting more money into fewer bands. And this works, up to a point. When tickets to see Madonna live cost £60 each, you can make a return on investment. But throwing money into PR campaigns will never create the same long term excitement and devotion as you get from a lower key, personal relationship with a band.
I could go on, but I’ll stop here before this becomes too much of a rant. Basically what I’m saying is that it’s easy to scapegoat filesharing for falling record sales, rather than properly investigate and adapt to the public’s ever changing music finding/ buying/ listening/ enjoying habits.
Wired Magazine's article about The Long Tail |
