Well the answer lies solely on the vast expansion of the internet and the creation of music and social networking websites and digital music software. File sharing is at an all time high and the main bulk of these shared files come from music. But who is getting effecting by this? Well, it's effecting everyone! The artists, the record labels, the listeners, the software companies, and even the United States constitution (plagiarism laws). All of these players factor into the music game and it ultimately forces the artist to change the way they go about managing and marketing their music.
Organizing/ManagingJoining a band used to be about getting together with other musicians while you jammed out until you were lucky enough to land a gig at a local bar with hopes than one day you will get discovered by a music company who could allow you to produce an album. Well, a lot has changed since those time because managing and organizing a band these days seems more like a computer programming job. A band needs to have the computer savvy skills in order to succeed within the industry. Over the past few years, software programs have emerged as leading music making alternatives for artists to produce and record their own music without the need to have expensive hardware or a recording studio.
For instance, Apples' widely popular music making program GarageBand has given way to many artists and bands who have been able to use this program as an initial starting point to record and fine tune their music where they can later share with other. Kyle Browning (see full interview here), the lead guitarist for the popular metal band Drop Dead, Gorgeous gave praise to GarageBand by saying "I write a lot of songs when we are on the road and play guitar. I use the music program GarageBand" (Browning, 2010). In turn, GarageBand has transformed the musical workplace for a recording studio into a personal space (or tour bus) where all you need is a computer. GarageBand is an easy, user-friendly program where you don't need to be knowledgeable on high tech music boards in order to effectively use the program. This would not have been made possible a few years ago.After a band record a song on the computer, how do they get people to hear it?
Why are these music sharing websites so important to organizing and managing a band?
These websites can act as career launching pads for musicians. They give the musicians music their first initial exposure to the real (or cyber) world, where the general public can listen, comment, critique, and even download the artists work. Kyle Browning owes a lot of Myspace Music, "Myspace was our main way to post our music. Once we started to get a big number of plays and "hits" each day off of our page, we got put on the "Myspace Music Top 10" page and then we sort of just took off after that. That's really how Rise Records found us and then later signed us to a contract." This clearly shows how the organization and success of band has changes throughout the past few years because it seems like that if a band doesn't have a music profile page than they won't have a good shot of getting signed because a record label won't know where to find them. Websites like these also give the artist or band a look at where they stand in the music world and determine what adjustments they need to make in order to succeed. Whether that means a band needs to change it's members, needs to change it's lyrics or even it's genre.
Marketing
How does a musician go about marketing their music website after the have uploaded songs?
Concert Flyers and word of mouth aren't going to cut it anymore in today's digital marketplace. Musicians need to be getting their name out to the public as much as they can and the use of social networking websites is the best way to go about that. Myspace, Twitter, and Facebook are social networking sites that have millions of users that are potential customers to the musician(s). If the band or artist can tap into these users their name will get exposed larger and quicker to music fans all around the globe. There is even a published book on using Myspace to market music and the author even guarantees that after reading the book the musician will be able to "Attract more fans, sell more music, bring more people to your shows — I guarantee it!" (Baker, 2007). Kyle Browning explained to me the benefit of a Myspace Music profile by saying, "Myspace was our main way to post our music, add friends, share news, display tours dates, give album updates, and just get our name out there." These profiles are like personalized websites where musicians can share all their news to the world without setting up a complicated website or taking out an expensive add in the paper. Twitter is a new popular networking tool as well. This article here explains the major advantages to having a Twitter account and using it to network."Twitter is cool because we can post something and then other can repost our "tweet." Its the first social network site that has ever allowed people to repost someone else's news. Once someone repost's our tweet than all of their Twitter followers get to see our "tweet." So it spreads the word on our band which is really cool." - Kyle Browning
Social networking sites are changing the way that music is being marketed to the mass public. Marketing is cheaper, easier, and more effective than what was even being done five years ago. Marketing doesn't need to be an expensive task that is performed by marketing "professionals." All it takes is a little bit of persistence, time, and creativity in order to market yourself.
How are the fans listening to the bands music?
Five years ago, the internet was fairly slow, Pandora wasn't invented, iTunes and iPods were just taking off and it seemed fairly logical to the general public that the good ole' compact disc from the music store was still a good source for listening to music. Well, in today's world, a lot has changed and it has all gone digital.
According to musicindustryreort.org study, iTunes digital music sales in the first two quarters of 2009 had accounted for 25 percent of total CD sales in the US. Amazon MP3, iTunes’ biggest competitor, only accounted for eight percent of U.S. digital music sales. Besides iTunes, internet radio web-sites like Pandora are also changing the way music is listened to. Pandora streams songs for free and provides real time music recommendations to listeners. Although, illegal downloading on music is still popular, the trend of iTunes digital music and Pandora is gaining in popularity each year and are the two leading technologies in the way that people acquire music. These new technologies are shaking up the industry because they are putting convention music distributing companies in jeopardy. Besides iTunes, the other top leaders in CD sales, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target and Amazon, lagged behind iTunes with 20, 16, 10 and 10 percent shares in the U.S. CD market. iTunes music sales now represent a whooping 69 percent of the U.S. digital music market. Other companies like Wal-Mart are going to need to act fast and get on the digital train because otherwise they might lose the whole music sectors on their business. Not just distribution businesses' but the bands themselves aren't making a lot of profit from these free music providing websites and are having to rethink and reorganize the way that they are going to make money in order to survive. When I asked Kyle about the decline in album sales throughout the industry, he responded by saying "To be honest, we don't make much money off of record sales. Sure they are nice but we make a living off of playing shows and selling merchandise." This shows the way that the industry is shifting from CD sales being the predominant money making asset to merchandise and concerts being the predominant money maker. Wired.com agree in their article because CD sales have dropped over 20% in the United States since 2000. The drop isn’t because of lack of interest in music, though because since 1999 concert ticket sales have increased 100%. But there are future implication that suggest the artists will start to get their money back off of these "free" music websites because lawsuits and settlements have been getting filed to protect the artists and allow them to get the royalties they deserve. As was the case during the merger that YouTube had with independent music branding and licensing agency Rumblefish that ultimately let YouTube users add Rumblefish content to their videos. Rumblefish buys the rights to songs and then in turn, YouTube video makers can use the song in their video without getting persecuted with copyright infringement - "This deal is exciting for indie filmmakers because it connects them directly to the same pre-licensed, quality indie music but at a price that they afford" explained Rumblefish CEO Paul Anthony. Settlements like these have implications for the future because they could lead to a shift back in the industry where album sales become more important to the artists career and possible lead to the end of free music websites like Pandora.
Baker, Bob. MySpace Music Marketing: How to Promote & Sell Your Music on the World's Biggest Networking Web Site. Buzz Printing. Paperback
Kyle, Browning. Personal Interview.
Listening
How are the fans listening to the bands music?
Five years ago, the internet was fairly slow, Pandora wasn't invented, iTunes and iPods were just taking off and it seemed fairly logical to the general public that the good ole' compact disc from the music store was still a good source for listening to music. Well, in today's world, a lot has changed and it has all gone digital.
According to musicindustryreort.org study, iTunes digital music sales in the first two quarters of 2009 had accounted for 25 percent of total CD sales in the US. Amazon MP3, iTunes’ biggest competitor, only accounted for eight percent of U.S. digital music sales. Besides iTunes, internet radio web-sites like Pandora are also changing the way music is listened to. Pandora streams songs for free and provides real time music recommendations to listeners. Although, illegal downloading on music is still popular, the trend of iTunes digital music and Pandora is gaining in popularity each year and are the two leading technologies in the way that people acquire music. These new technologies are shaking up the industry because they are putting convention music distributing companies in jeopardy. Besides iTunes, the other top leaders in CD sales, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target and Amazon, lagged behind iTunes with 20, 16, 10 and 10 percent shares in the U.S. CD market. iTunes music sales now represent a whooping 69 percent of the U.S. digital music market. Other companies like Wal-Mart are going to need to act fast and get on the digital train because otherwise they might lose the whole music sectors on their business. Not just distribution businesses' but the bands themselves aren't making a lot of profit from these free music providing websites and are having to rethink and reorganize the way that they are going to make money in order to survive. When I asked Kyle about the decline in album sales throughout the industry, he responded by saying "To be honest, we don't make much money off of record sales. Sure they are nice but we make a living off of playing shows and selling merchandise." This shows the way that the industry is shifting from CD sales being the predominant money making asset to merchandise and concerts being the predominant money maker. Wired.com agree in their article because CD sales have dropped over 20% in the United States since 2000. The drop isn’t because of lack of interest in music, though because since 1999 concert ticket sales have increased 100%. But there are future implication that suggest the artists will start to get their money back off of these "free" music websites because lawsuits and settlements have been getting filed to protect the artists and allow them to get the royalties they deserve. As was the case during the merger that YouTube had with independent music branding and licensing agency Rumblefish that ultimately let YouTube users add Rumblefish content to their videos. Rumblefish buys the rights to songs and then in turn, YouTube video makers can use the song in their video without getting persecuted with copyright infringement - "This deal is exciting for indie filmmakers because it connects them directly to the same pre-licensed, quality indie music but at a price that they afford" explained Rumblefish CEO Paul Anthony. Settlements like these have implications for the future because they could lead to a shift back in the industry where album sales become more important to the artists career and possible lead to the end of free music websites like Pandora.Conclusion
After doing all the research, I think that the new aspects of the music industry are in the form of transformation. This is the first time that musicians can reaches out to millions of fans by just the use of the internet once and allow fans to follow the artists every move. Resources
Baker, Bob. MySpace Music Marketing: How to Promote & Sell Your Music on the World's Biggest Networking Web Site. Buzz Printing. Paperback
Kyle, Browning. Personal Interview.
http://newworkplacecomm.blogspot.com/2010/07/interview-with-kyle-from-drop-dead.html
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/211801/myspace_is_changing_the_music_industry.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2336258,00.asp
http://musicindustryreport.org/?p=12007
http://www.applematters.com/article/itunes-inspires-changes-in-music-industry/
http://www.musicmarketing.com/2009/02/best-business-practices-for-twitter.html
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