Friday, August 06, 2010

The History of the Music Industry - 1960's to Present

Bob Lefsetz has an interesting short history of the music industry - including its recent floundering - over on the Encore site. It explains pretty nicely the changes over the last 45 years or so, including the phase we're in now, which I argue is a return to the "single driven" market that existed before groups like the Beatles ushered in the age of the album. He also tells it like it is with regard to the industry's failure to adapt and realize that their "goldrush" of the 70's and 80's was over. If the IT market had been similarly inflexible, I wouldn't be typing this now.

Read the article here:

http://encore.celebrityaccess.com/index.php?encoreId=260&articleId=36040


Here's a nice little snippet:

2000-2010

The major labels bitched themselves into irrelevancy. They own radio and TV, which is like owning the "Perry Como Show" when everybody's tuned into FM. And since the "Como Show"'s ratings are declining, they make everybody who appears sign a contract coughing up a percentage of all their revenue. It's unfair. And who wants to watch the "Como Show" anyway?


Yep, that pretty much says it.

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