mr dave

the music industry is easy to define, it always has been. it's about turning a profit, same as every other industry out there. easiest way for the labels to do that is to target hit singles to the demographic with the largest amount of disposable income (adolescents), especially when contemplating the mainstream aspect of the industry.

branding an identity on the same level as the music has been an established part of the industry since the 70s.

instead of rambling about electric cars you might want to talk about the last decade of online distribution. it's the growth of P2P sharing that changed the way music is discovered, ipods only change the way its stored. itunes wouldn't exist if napster / soulseek / limewire / kazaa / oth.net etc. hadn't established a tangible market for that type of data.

it's also rather foolish to talk about online distribution only to ignore online piracy.

in regards to the band - fan identity. you have to look beyond the music at this point and start considering social demographics. i'd say one of the biggest factors to the beatles popularity wasn't their attempt to bond with their audience post - sgt. pepper's but world war 2. you had LOTS of families rebuilding themselves and their neighborhoods after the war, and when did kids born in the late 40s / early 50s hit adolescence? what was the easiest way for them to rebel against their parents / the system that took away their father / uncle / brother / cousin? pop music has always been the soundtrack of adolescent rebellion, it's usually one of the first real attempts an individual makes to distinguish themselves from the people that came prior to them.

as for the punk movement it follows the same rebellious growth. it wasn't specifically a rebuke against the psychedelic pop of the 60s but a new generation of kids who wanted to establish something new for themselves. the main limiting factor at the time was airspace so they had to go underground. instead of seeing it as a disadvantage the more savvy members of the scene spun their environment as being one of the leading factors to the scene. it's still all about being a 'REAL' punk today right?

the reason you think identifying yourself with a scene is dying is because you're getting older and moving past the scene the industry is currently pushing. you are no longer their target market. they want to sell product to your little brother / sister / cousin, a kid who still lives with their parents and gets an allowance, not a college student accruing debt with every waking day.

your 'math' hurts my head. you're just throwing numbers around to support your predetermined conclusion. how does a drop in distribution costs affect the production costs? do the labels suddenly write off advances once the distribution goes digital?

abandoning CDs is not going to happen soon. some aspects of the industry still require a tangible product to be exchanged. claiming that vinyl records were all about stuffing as much product on the platter as possible makes me wonder if you've ever heard the term 'concept album' let alone actually heard one.

you really think that performances aren't part of a record contract? that it's up to the band to front the foolish amount of money to put on a large scale tour / show? the ideal is nice, the reality is that it's WAY expensive to put on a half decent show, let alone a top line arena performance. you really think the people who've busted their butts to finally get to a point of being paid to play music for a living want to have to keep carrying a 200lb bass cabinet down 4 flights of stairs after a show and continue living off peanut butter?

you also miss the biggest change to the digital distribution method since itunes - video games with downloadable content. guitar hero 3 and rock band have been proven to boost record sales and serve as a platform for introducing people to new music. those games are the replacement for the 'music' channels and mail order clubs my generation grew up with in the 90s.

then there's the 'in rainbows' method for established acts. radiohead proved it could be a successful distributing method with their last album. by willingly offering it for free initially it removed a lot of the pressure of a new album. you didn't feel like you had to like some of it because you had paid something for it. it also provided the band with tangible data in regards to the overall popularity of the music which could be used to release a more appropriate amount of media to meet the demand of the consumers.

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