My essay for Independent Music

Independent Music, A Changing Industry


To begin, I chose to do my independent study on independent music and its effect on the music industry for a variety of reasons. The first of which is that I am myself an independent musician and looking to make a career out of it. To be perfectly blunt, I figured that if I could research independent music in my spare time and get an A in school for doing so, why not? The second reason is really just legitimate interest in the topic. The music industry is a fascinating topic for study and the resent arrival of independent music only colors this topic further. My researching this I learned a variety of things ranging from how the Internet has affected the music industry to the best way for an obscure indie artist to get recognition. In this blog post, I will give a brief summary of everything I learned while making this blog and my wiki page.
The first and one of the most important things I learned was how the music industry itself was changing due to the arrival of widespread indie music. There are two ways to look at this situation, one from a corporate standpoint and the other from the position of an artist. From the corporate perspective, independent music is literally dismantling the industry. This is due to the fact that a large record label is no longer needed by artists to produce their music and to provide them with a studio in which to record their music. “Today’s technology allows artists to produce a record for about $500 when about 10 years ago a $30,000 music studio was needed”. Another factor that is contributing to the decline of corporate music is the fact that music labels are no longer really needed to promote music. The Internet has pretty much taken over this aspect of the industry. The Internet allows anybody to post his or her art on it for absolutely free. Where an industry was once needed to create a buzz about a band or record, now the simple act of uploading a song onto the Internet can be the only requirement to get noticed. The final and perhaps most important reason that the music industry is failing is because of a rapid decline in cd sales. This is once again due to the usage of the Internet. “Streaming music and the illegal downloading of music from p2p sites has almost replaced the previous practice of buying cds or vinyl records”. The Internet has also created a proverbial catch 22 for artists themselves. If an artist is obscure and not yet realized, the Internet is a fantastic resource and utility to promote their music. Usually these artists are more than willing to give their music away for free just for exposure. As an artist becomes more famous though, the Internet actually bites into their income because it hurts their record sales. The topic of the Internet and its effect on the music industry requires an essay by itself. Well, the good news is that there is one at my friend Joe’s blog. I will provide a link to it in my bibliography.
The effects of independent music from an artist’s perspective are much more rosy than from the corporate one. Independent music has opened literally an entire new world of music that would have at one time been squashed by the industry. Usually an artist on a major label is owned by the label and not allowed to be very creative with their art. The label only cares about selling cds so anything that will produce a it is god while anything different is shunned. Independent music allows artists to be creative again because they are label independent. The shear amount of music available has grown exponentially as well because more bands exist now than ever before that are able to promote their music using today’s sophisticated recording technology and the Internet. Artists now stand to make much more money than before as well. This is due to the very simple fact that now an artist gets 100% of their profits from merchandising, cds, concerts etc. than say the previous 2% they would have made under a label. This is fantastic for artists. “Previously, artists were forced to sell millions of records to make any kind of profit. Lets say they make $2 for every $12 record sold (the label keeps the rest). The artist is making only 2 million dollars for selling 1 million cds! Well, an independent artist can sell their record for $10 and keep all this money per record sold. Now lets pretend they sell ½ of what the artist on the label sells which would be 500,000 cds. They just made 5 million dollars, which is 5 times more than the artist on the label! This is very exciting because it is easier than ever before to make money from music” (Chris Powers).
In conclusion, Independent music has revolutionized the industry in a variety of ways. This topic is important in contemporary society because it is create a vivid new landscape for the consumer to take part in. If you love music, now is a great time to be alive! Independent artists are making more money and promoting more music than ever before. From a corporate view, this is awful because the labels themselves are crumbling but from a artist’s view, this is fantastic! The Internet has revolutionized these practices as well as has the recent arrival of cheap yet sophisticated recording equipment.

Bibliography
(Here’s Joe’s blog)
joesprettyrainbow.blogspot.com/
www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne?currentPage=all

www.bob-baker.com/musicpromotionblog/

www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/aug/04/illegal.downloading.is.here.to.stay