A grand time for Music
Friday, 08 June 2007
The story of why the music industry is dying at record speed is old news. By now if you still believe that the music industry is still just trying to "recover" you are most likely more pathetic then the industry itself. The old men in the stogy walled gardens let the place catch on fire. Yes Rome is burning and it ain't coming back. So if the music industry is a poster child on how not to move w/ the times, adopt new technology and be able to reinvent itself, Why is it a grand time for music?
The creation, development and distribution of music now starts with the musician. This is an incredible shift from the past and present where the record company owned the intellectual material (appropriately known as the "Master"). The musician now owns his intellectual material and licenses and distributes in a way true to their intent and artistic vision (check out how Trent Reznor released 9 inch nail's last effort). A more viral natural distribution through conversation. thus distribution is straight from source to the appreciator or fan who immediately gets to enter the conversation, in fact they are the conversation (www.purevolume.com, http://www.buzznet.com, http://www.pampelmoose.com to name a few) .
When a record company gave a large advance, expectations were really high on both sides of the equation. The musician feels like they have creatively signed a part of their life away, pressured to come up w/ hits on the slight chance they will sell through their advance. The company demanding hits to pay back their huge investment. It's not that the record companies lacked and idea of how to market the package good. They failed to recognize the conversation. They missed the boat of inter connectivity -- the idea that we want to keep engaged, we wanna interact, we wanna be Socially and culturally networked.
The conversation recognizes the package good. It has a place over in the merchandise section next to tee shirts and hats. Its cool. Its the by-product not the product. The music is distributed through conversation. The music, or our connection, does not stop when the CD ends or the last note on stage is played. The conversation keeps going because we are connected. 50% of the youth finds out about their entertainment online. The news is it is not about justifying the middleman, the A+R exec the middle level management exec caught in the corporate justification of inefficiency and love for the package good. It's about freedom to be plugged in, to interconnect and start conversing. The music is out of its bottle. BTW what makes things really scary is the fear of what unknown is about to come our way... just ask any record exec what they thought of Napster the first time they experienced it...."
-- Martin Shore is the founder of Social Capital Entertainment, an innovative independent entertainment studio with a diverse portfolio of projects spanning film, music and interactive entertainment. SCE is the producer of the recently released film "Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror". Martin is also a successful real estate entrepreneur; recognized by Ernst & Young as runner up for its California Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1998.
