
09/09/09 - The Day the Record Industry Died  - peter123
http://dashes.com/anil/2009/09/090909---the-day-the-record-industry-died.html
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pyre
When did people ever get excited about a press release from a major recording
studio that wasn't related to a specific artist? How does "Artists and Apple
can generate marketing buzz" mean that the record industry is dead? When did
the record industry ever generate marketing buzz?

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foulmouthboy
Record companies had to ensure that magazines wrote about their artists, music
was played on the radios and recordings would be available to purchase in
stores. The average person on the street could only take their word of mouth
so far. Now, the equivalent person on the street could write a blog post with
an international reach while also uploading and sharing an MP3, which is
basically what the record company was doing in old timey times.

~~~
tptacek
Record companies had to do that work to publicize their artists and drive
sales. The overwhelming majority of all music plays _still_ go to a small
number of major-label artists. The crowd-based blog-sourced promotion model
hasn't made a dent.

Record labels are in decline for reasons that have nothing to do with
individual empowerment.

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foulmouthboy
Right. I don't think we're disagreeing. Just pointing out that the stuff that
individuals do is essentially the stuff that only record labels could do once
upon a time. I was responding to the idea that record companies didn't do
anything.

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tptacek
Based on empirical evidence I find it hard to believe that labels really do
nothing. Most big-selling major-label music is strictly inferior to what even
Last.fm manages to find for me almost at random.

They are clearly doing _something_ to hypnotize people into buying Feist.

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pyre
Radio airtime and purposefully catchy tunes that stick in your head. I've
found that the more you hear a song over and over again on the radio the more
you end up liking it, even if you hated it at first. That's what hypnotizes
people.

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tybris
I get very confused by reading "Beatles", "Record label" and "Apple" in the
same sentence, with Apple not referring to the record label.

~~~
pyre
I also get confused because I thought the Michael Jackson owned the Beatles'
copyrights. Does Jackson's estate own Apple Records?

