I remember when I bought my first cassette tape...Mariah Carey's ‘Emotions’… I remember when I bought my first CD- it was the Cranberries. I don’t remember the last time that I set foot in an FYE or other music store with a physical location. These days, my entire music collection is on my macbook and a portion of it is on my iPhone. Some of the music is from my CD collection but for approximately the last 7 or 8 years, the entirety of my music comes from iTunes downloads.
Needless to say, the way we are consuming music is evolving rapidly. The only thing I miss from ‘the old days’ is poring over the liner notes that accompanied each CD purchase- seeing who the artist was thanking, who collaborated with the artist, and reading and memorizing the lyrics that were at my fingertips. As a whole, I am very happy with the current accessibility of music.
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Were I an artist, however, I think I would have a very different opinion. The New York Times article linked above paints a picture of the effect that the evolving music industry has had on artists. While top 40 artists who regularly go on tour are not having to pinch pennies, the evolution has effected many artists who haven’t yet ‘hit the big time.’ Royalties from streaming music plays are counted in pennies and take quite a while to add up to any significant amount of income. With that said, however, the article points out that royalties from CD’s started out very small and today are quite significant- although today CD’s are going the way of cassette tapes. Time will tell if streaming music royalties will rise as this becomes the preferred way to listen to music.
I completely agree. Today's culture has rendered CDs nearly as obsolete as cassette tapes. I believe this trend is constant and something new will eventually replace our current method. The last CD I bought was the new Jason Mraz CD for my girlfriend. I haven't bought one for myself in almost 2 years! I have become accustomed to buying not only music on iTunes, but also movies and TV series. The marginal profit for artists like Beyonce and Rhianna aren't directly impacted by the decreasing number of CD sales because of all of their other forms of revenue through royalties, appearances, and concerts. The start up artists are the ones who clearly are hurt the most by the changing landscape of means of purchasing music.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting, I hadn't thought about it that way. I think in some ways start-up artists might have the most to gain from the ease with which music can be shared electronically. More (and more rapid) exposure to a wider audience could potentially help a new artist find his/her niche.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21601602
ReplyDeleteAccording to a recent study, music piracy not only went down in 2012, but "global music revenues" increased for the first time since 1999. The rules of the game may be changing, but sounds like music can still be profitable, depending on which avenues a given artist relies on for revenue.
Thanks for sharing this interesting article from the BBC, Lillian. Maybe music lovers are turning to legal downloads over trying to find new ways to download music illegally. I hope that the changes in the music industry continue to encourage new artists to make music and doesn't stifle them.
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