The Future of the Music Industry

As an avid listener to a plethora of musics one can't help but sit back and wonder where the music industry is going. Is this digital age that we're living in good or bad for artist? Is it as easy for an artist to make it big in this day in age? Is it as easy for a artist or band that has already found "fame" to keep making money? These are all things that I am in the midst of learning and would like to write a little on.

After given an assignment to read some amazing articles out of Wired Magazine, my views on music in this digital era changed erratically.

No more than a day ago I found myself siding with those who said that artist and bands are being hurt due to technology that has swept the music and digital world. It's nothing to go over to a friends house and have them burn a CD for me. It takes a matter of minutes to get on to Napster or Limewire and leave 100 songs richer, for free.

After reading more on the subject, I realized, that bands may be losing a song download here and there, but there are so many other aspects to our digital age that we're living in that are helping artist to make more money.

In no other age has there been so many ways to get a name somewhere that the general public has access to it at any given time. An artist or band can have there name all over the Internet where they can be seen and heard by anyone who searches them out, or even stumbles across them.

Almost 30 years ago there was an epidemic that swept world. That epidemic was in the form of a round plastic disc that we can play music on. We all know this as a CD. People went from dubbing music onto tapes to putting their tracks onto Cd's. And that's the form of music we've known for the last three decades. We've always had something tangible that we can hold in our hands. The slowing of this, may not be bad for the artists or bands.

In Wired David Byrne stated that CD sales are on the smallest forms of incomes that an artist encounters. He also interviewed the singer for the band Radiohead. He stated that most of their money has come from licensing. In other words, they get most of their money from people using there songs in commercials, movies, TV shows, ect. He went on to say, there newest CD has had more Internet sales than all of their other Cd's combined.

This is not a trend only seen by Radiohead. More and more artist and bands are selling crazy amounts of music over digital download sites. I think it will be a growing trend in the indusrty untill the next epidemic of music listening comes along.

Though I haven't proved much in this entry due to lack of time and not really wanted to write a research paper online, I for sure have seen myself become more interested and educated in the past day. The future of the music industry is strong and will continue to get stronger in the digital era that we're constantly surrounded by. I believe that we'll continue to see artists and bands grow and make money. We will most likely see the day that Cd's are an irrelevant part of our society and we solely rely on the digital music to feed our social needs and our music taste.