Is Streaming The Solution Or Just Another Panacea ?

Leave it up to the Brits to not pull any punches and expose the true results of what has been going on in the world wide music market for the past decade.

 One must conclude that the Music Industry is no different than any other person or industry who is constantly suffering from systemic problems…Always pointing the finger at what they suspect to be the problem, while three other fingers are pointing back at themselves!

 And rather than intelligently define, analyze, and strive to resolve and deal with the problems, they manifest and create panacea solutions and cure alls….

 If the public would jut stop stealing music off the internet the industry would recover…

 If the public would just embrace technology, realize that “downloads” are the future and stop buying cd’s and vinyl …the industry would recover…..

 If the public would embrace “streaming”, the industry would recover…..

 If this, If that, …”really”!

 It all reminds me of an old saying my father used to incessantly repeat “ If” this…”If” that, If I had a square ass I would shit bricks for the county fair…BUT I DON’T !.....” And the truth is none of these so called “experts” and their propositions are the “solution” ! In fact, if any or all of them did happen, none of these projected results could possibly guarantee to cure what has been ailing the music industry for a long time.

 Everyone likes “new things” in the beginning….Initially the public purchased millions of hula-hoops, pet rocks, cabbage patch kids, walkmen, the list goes on and on …The “Market” is an amazing thing….eventually everything “levels off” and finds it’s own “niche”…

 The theft of music off the internet had a direct correlation to price. Once upon a time you could buy an album for $4.99. Albums were considered an “indiscriminant purchase”….However, once the price rose to over $8.98, the consumer, who had developed the “habit” of buying and consuming music products, was now forced to consider and think about which to purchase and which to not.

 Album sales moving from “indiscriminant” to discriminate” purchases had a huge impact on the industries future…Pricing created a huge “void” that the industry ignored and internet theft and song stealing was born.

 Downloads are great….However, when you had an album you loved, you simply copied the tracks you wanted on to a tape (the days of the Walkman or car-tape-cassette), and we could now take our music with us, where ever we went….The Ipod and MP3 player replace the those.

 If you “stand back” and take a long look at “Streaming”, you might come to the conclusion that it is nothing more than a hybrid of subscription radio…without what we used to call a “Disc Jockey”…And don’t think for a moment it won’t have “commercials” of some form or another !

 The real question is “will people pay for something that they already get for free…And the answer is “yes” – some will initially, but after a while, many may not !

The proof of this are the recent Spotify statistics on “subscriber retention”. The findings were that many of the “key” youth market, rather than allowing that monthly “hit” on their credit card”, were choosing to allow their subscription to laps….$9.95 was too much !

 At this point in time, the types of individuals who originally started and grew the music industry are few and far between. For the most part, they are not the executives who have been running it for the past 20 years and certainly not the executives and owners who have been running it for the last 10…A time period of the industry marked by substantial decline !

 In addition, most of the present executives running the business are the “old guard” who helped create the mess the industry presently finds it’s self in…. And “yes” they will all swear to “love the music”, but in reality and by their actions, it has become painfully obvious that they “love money more” !

 Those old crusty guys who were the founding fathers of the music industry, beyond their love of music, they were obsessed with giving the public what it wanted and at the same time created and drove tastes…And through their unique acknowledgement and understanding of the “human condition” and “human nature”, they secured their industry and in doing so, satisfied their thirst for money !

 The reality is that, as much as many of the experts would like us to believe, no amount of “streaming” is going to pull what they have created out of the toilet !.....And the best we (the musicians, songwriters, music publishers, managers, agents and all those who truly must live in the trenches of the impossible obstacles that confront any level of success in this business), can hope for is a clean “flush” !