A Treasure Trove of Music Biz info

Well, I was researching some books on the music industry when I came across one called the Future of Music written by Davis Kusek and Gerd Leonherd. I was about to purchase it on amazon when I discovered that it is available as a free download podcast off of itunes! These two authors definitely did their research because the shear wealth of knowledge contained within the book is astounding. Here, paraphrased, is an excerpt from chapter 6.
" The music industry no longer solely caters to the "popular market" where youth make up a large demographic. In times past, this was where the majority of record sales was because the music was popular, thus the term pop-music was formed. Now since the internet has taken over, more music than just "pop" can be heard. The "net" generation actually end up using the internet as a means to find new music and then purchase it. Speaking of the net generation, online music retailers such as iTunes actually sell a larger bulk of music digitally than other companies that sell compact disks! The youth actually benefit from free online music sources because a credit card is no longer needed to purchase music. Napster cited this as a major hurtle because the majority of the youth music demographic don't have access to a credit card."

This is what the book looks like.



This is just but a taste that this book has to offer. I will be posting more upon it soon.

Internet Good for Record Sales?!?!

Well, I've been scavenging the net to find some of the positive aspects of Indie Music. Surprisingly enough, I found that the internet is actually helping record sales of independent artists! It seemed to me that the internet would hurt profits since you can just download media for free. This following Article I think helps explain this point: "

The Changes in What Was Being Sold

The profile of what was being sold was also changing.

While speciality retailers carried inventories of 2,000 – 10,000 titles in their larger stores, Big Box stores carried fewer selections, focussing on the 200 titles that represented the bulk of music sold. The result of the shift in market share to the Big Boxes has reduced the variety of titles available not only in the Big Boxes but, because of the changed economic model due to the loss of volume sales, in the specialized retailers as well.

Summarizing the situation then – in today’s world of physical sales, fully half of the retail volume is accounted for in destinations that carry limited inventory and where inventory selection does exist, it is in the aisles of retailers who are struggling to survive.

With time, as more and more specialized retailers either disappear or scale back on their operations, the scenario for choice at brick and mortar retail will probably worsen.

The specialized retailers who continue selling music today often have relegated music to a secondary position within their stores as a matter of survival. Prime retailing and display space is given over to DVDs and Gaming – the Hail Mary pass for those retailers – at least for now." http://www.pch.gc.ca/pc-ch/pubs/music_industry/3_e.cfm

Indpendent Music

I have created this blog to discuss and report upon the strife that the Music Industry in now facing. As many of us know, Independent music is having a huge impact on the industry in the sense that many artists no longer need a huge record deal to promote their music. For the musicians, this is an exciting time for more artists than ever before can promote their music. The Industry however has been suffering as a result. Well, anyway, I hope everyone will want to discuss this contemporary issue with me!