jus sayin...
Digital Music News - Recording Sales Declines & Musician Employment, 1999-2011...

its basic economics... too much supply, not enough demand.

maybe laws can be passed that makes it a felony to make or distribute music without a license and a big label contract

Or maybe we could just enforce the laws we already have effectively... because I'm sure you're not referring to this as the supply issue?

SoundClick - Free MP3 music download and much, much more.

If all the music available legally for free is effecting the commercial market, why are people bothering to steal the music that is being charged for?

What's the definition of a "musician" though? Seems everyone and their mother is a "singer" these days.

what you put on your tax return...

Interesting. I'd be interested to know what your take is on the impact it has made on the quality of the music and production overall, but that's probably off-topic. Personally I went back to school to change careers, but now do this for fun only, but am finding I like it much better that way. I realize that's not the answer though LOL.

there's really not that much of a stretch between the two.

why is everything either black or white with this. there's probably thousands...millions... of forces acting in concert (pardon the pun) that are responsible for the 'music biz' problem

not really.

one really, really, really big obvious problem, and probably a few others at a very far and distant second...

restore fair compensation for consumption and let the chips fall where they will. want to convince me I'm wrong? fix the big problem first and then see what remains after that.

if you get a flat tire on a highway, you don't clean the windshield to fix the problem.

There's more than one issue...

The dwindling revenue available from recording is one.

The other is that there are fewer paid positions for musicians. I used to make good money playing conventions, weddings, restaurants, hotels, etc. That work has really dried up. Shows are going with canned music. Easy to blame the economy, but it's been heading that direction for years. DJ's take much of the work. One-man bands (guitarists playing with tracks, etc) take some. Then there is (what appears to me) just a falling demand for live entertainment. People just don't seem to care as much as they used to. I firmly believe patrons are lower-class than they used to be. I've worked in some swanky hotels bars. I was shocked at some of the obnoxious behavior I'd see.

What used to be jazz gigs with decent musicians are mostly now some kid with a guitar and a drum machine who doesn't sing well.

Either this is what the masses want, or no one cares enough to change anything.

Thanks for hearing my rant.

Sadly, yes.

agree to disagree then.

i'm seeing mass media, technology and and a virtually unbearable glut of music in turning it into a nearly valueless commodity in many peoples minds.

i understand diamonds are plentiful yet whose distribution is strictly enforced to maintain, again, a perceived value.

but then again, that's a physical object.

i don't know if there's going back. even if pi***y was eradicated, don't know if people no longer place enough value on music to pay much for it anyway

same idea as the leddy person above who posted as i typed this.

music is dung... you can generally find it all over the place and pick some up free and useful for composting, or pay a farmer a few cents a bag for his if need be. hell, someone's even always flinging it at you every single waking moment of the day whether you like it or not

so you see this
SoundClick - Free MP3 music download and much, much more.

as the reason why this is being stolen?
iTunes - Music - The Beatles

I'm sorry, but no amount of hobbyist bedroom recordings dumped onto the internet is going to compete with or replace the beatles, led zeppelin, pink floyd, nirvana, janes addiction, etta james, deadmou5, edelle, etc, etc, etc...

if that we're true that's what would be on itunes and be the most played music on spotify, but it's not. it's that simple.

but almost every one of those bands are from another era and, dare i say it, already made all their money, some...most perhaps, fabulously wealthy in their times.

they also were in a time where music was groundbreaking and very very special and exciting indeed.

and of course even today there will always be the chosen few offered unto the masses, that satisfy that human urge for celebrity, and make millions, regardless of the awful economic state for everyone else in the business

perhaps we can make an analogy to post wwii america where the united states absolutely ruled in manufacturing and the rise of the middle class.... mainly because of zero competition. Now having to exist in a competitive global arena... well, things are no longer so rosy, are they

oh yeah....

speaking personally, i was someone who listened and loved music voraciously. i had to be listening to it 24 hours a day.

but ever since the advent of the age of broadband, the only music i will actively seek out much anymore, is myself with a guitar in my hands, lol

like edelle, deadmou5, taylor swift, mumford & sons, one only need to look at the Itunes Top Albums to see the difference between what's available legally free by hobbyists and what people actually want to listen too...

Apple - iTunes - Browse the top album downloads

you can disagree but a billion ipods say you're wrong.

the most popular artists and albums are also the most exploited, go figure.

Not really. An oversupply of kids operating Kool-Aide stands isn't going to affect the revenue of the Coca-Cola company very much. However a gang of thugs hijacking Coke trucks and giving the product away might.*

And there is a law that makes it illegal to distribute music without a license. It's called copyright, and it makes it illegal to distribute music that you don't own the proper license for.

In fact, it's a felony. We just need to get the powers that be to enforce the law.


*- Why would a gang of thugs bother doing that? Well, they might be being paid by, oh (for example), a big liquor company that wants to devalue Coca-Cola so they can do a hostile takeover at a fire sale price. Which, BTW, was exactly Sean Parker's strategy when he started Napster. He's talked about it in interviews.

The two are connected. With far less money available from the record industry for the development of live acts there are fewer quality live acts on the lower levels which leads to a diminishing of public interest.

The situation is not helped by the cuts in music education in the public schools and the hostile attitude of some city governments toward small live music venues.

Yes. And you can thank filesharing for changing that.

100%

When there is no development money for quality music there will be no new quality music.

It doesn't just grow on trees (or in bedrooms) you know....

Looks like an upward trend to me.. just sayin'

The saying can't have a job in the business unless you are already in business.


Yep John,music has been dumbed down.
I listened to a different we will call it station and the repeated phrases and computer manipulizations were very neurotic,like the tone of the street but
don't see it moving the way it should,What is????

don't want to write a book here, but its human behavior/psychology. setting aside other factors, people go with what they know. whomever the media kings pronounce worthy, there they are in your face.

of course there's a weird chicken/egg synergy thing going on... is it the pure talent (or lack thereof)? the endless hype and promotion? the odd luck of tapping into the zeitgeist at the perfect moment? all of the above no doubt.

take two rather similarly capable unattractive male actors off the street and stick one in a sitcom that becomes a hit. he winds up having to beat the women off while the other guy can't get arrested.

you know that for every big talent, there's thousands just as talented that'll never see the light of day. of course there's the argument of that the ones who did make it worked hardest for it and it payed off. sure, but there's lots that do and..... well, you never wound up knowing who they are anyway.

i dunno... who gets to be the big queen king celebrity for a day seems much more in common now more akin to one of those movies about a dystopian future where the protagonist must run the gauntlet of some perverse game show in order to earn their 'freedom'

i'm sorry, i don't agree with that at all.

tho', what are we talking about here... production values or talent?

if its production values, there's always been something that gets my goat.

media companies all seem to have particular standards with regard to production values... and yet the contents thereof more often than not, would insult the intelligence of any two year old

'hey, we have this state of the art production facility and all we do is shovel shit with it!'

Yes, the shutting down of some of the illicit sites has in fact made a measurable, but slight, difference.

Sales are still around 50% of 10 years ago, though.

Those are not the musicians doing bad. Adele for instance sold millions of records worth tens of millions of dollars, if she is poor it's a problem with her record contract if anything. Some of the other musicians you listed are already wealthy and quite frankly it shouldn't be a priority to figure out ways to line their pockets some more. Sorry.

The musicians that are truly finding it hard to make money from their music aren't the ones on the top sales lists, or household names. They are the ones on Soundclick or whatever. Basically the ones you seem to be deriding as not real musicians. Good work.

True.

Album Sales Dip But Overall Music Sales Grow, Says Nielsen SoundScan - Forbes

It's the combination.

You need the talent to begin with - but there's a lot of raw, unfinished talent around. It takes a proper production team to shape that talent into something special that the public is willing to pay for.

The Beatles without George Martin probably would have been successful - but nothing like the act we know. Maybe as good as wozzname - Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, the band they stole Ringo from. Never heard of Rory Storm? He was quite big in England - one of Joe Meek's bands, actually.

It's not totally impossible for an artist to do it himself, Prince is proof of that - but somebody like that only comes around once or twice a generation and usually has significant studio experience before their overnight success.

why are you so angry, and how do you know what they actually make? If you think every artists on the top 100 is set for life you really have no idea of what the reality is like.

but the point is, you're making excuses again. the point was, that the decline in sales is because of hobbyists, clearly it's not and you just made my point, so thank you.

this is true. but why does it matter? why aren't all musicians allowed fair compensation for their work? why do you get to decide who get's paid fairly and who doesn't?

actually no, you don't seem to understand the word "professional." please go back to the OP and start over.

On what do you base that?

I find that very hard to believe. If someone wants to share using the internet, I think it's still pretty easy to do so, regardless of what's been shut down. What has been shut down?

I think the growth is actually based on the industry (and consumers) adapting.

Talk to me in January...

just for fun...

rest assured there is an alternate reality where that did happen, as well as infinite permutations both musical and otherwise. we're living in one of the ones that they did hook up with GM.

so take heart...somewhere out there you and i are both the biggest of bigshot rockstars in the world.... it just don't happen to be this here one.