The last time I bought a whole album (downloaded from an online store, of course) I had already heard most of the songs on it and was well aware that I could hear all of them for free anytime I wanted between a couple websites. I didn’t buy that album to hear the songs on it; I bought it for the convenience of having the songs in my music player and being able to transfer any of them instantly to any devices I want. When I’m really into a certain song, I might have it stuck in my head first thing when I start my day, and having the ability to play it immediately and sparing me from having to type it in on some website is worth something to me. Yet record labels have made it quite clear that they don’t care about me, they only care about protecting their music.
I’m writing this post kind of late in the game. I’ve already heard many times that my generation just assumes music ought to be free. There are plenty of opinions floating around that make the music business seem just absolutely hopeless, even coming from major executives in the actual industry. But I think mistakes can be corrected and the major companies just aren’t taking any positive initiatives to improve their situation. (Suing individuals for illegal downloads is only reactive and pathetically uncreative.)
I think it is true that record labels have generally failed to justify the cost of music. We know once you have one digital version of a song it costs nothing to create an infinite number of copies. If a friend has a song on his MP3 player that I like, why would I put in the effort of looking it up, purchasing it (not just spending money but also taking the time to go through the process), and downloading it when I can have the same thing faster and for free by copying his? Sure, creating the initial recording of the song took time and money, but as a consumer experiencing only the end product I have no sense of that, which is a far more important factor in my decisions than my knowing logically that those expenses had to have been incurred at some point. It’s no surprise to me that musicians and record companies are now making their money from live concerts. The cost, effort, and quality is immediately apparent to the consumer, and I can’t produce an even near equivalent experience in my own home. But I don’t think record companies should abandon trying to sell music and only concentrate on live entertainment.
At the most basic level all a business has to do is solve a problem. To give up on record sales and blame illegal downloads is to assume the only problem that ever existed was in distribution, and worse that this problem was artificially imposed by the distributors themselves. I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but I still have a big problem: I can get free access to almost any song ever recorded, but I don’t even know what to listen to!
Top 40 radio stations are a big part of why the music industry can be so make-or-break. If an artist can’t get a song in the top 40 most popular songs, which are played on almost every contemporary radio station, he or she probably isn’t going to get the level of mainstream attention necessary to be really successful. Whoever decided that I only care about 40 songs at a time? Well unfortunately when you have a medium as widely popular as a typical contemporary radio station, there isn’t much choice but to ensure the appeal is as broad as possible. They can’t risk playing a song that listeners won’t like because we’ll change the station. So why are record labels relying on radio stations to get their music out? This, I think, is a very basic, fundamental problem that record companies seem to completely lack verticals such as a means of exposure. They depend on other companies at all the different levels leading up to a purchase, but those in the middle don’t share the same primary interest of selling more music and the labels are paying them lots of money they could otherwise be investing in creating their own solutions.
I think for starters record labels shouldn’t be so exclusively interested in signing artists who are expected to be hugely successful. By scaling back their typical spend per artist, perhaps investing in smarter advertising rather than expensive and old fashioned tactics, they could afford to sign more artists and experiment longterm (just because initial market research indicates a miss doesn’t guarantee that outcome when the right audience finds out about it). Then they need to take control and create their own channels to promote and sell their music. Why are record labels paying Apple to sell their music for them? Is iTunes seriously the best shopping experience the music industry has to offer? Most online music stores, iTunes included, don’t even allow you to listen to a full length demo of the song you’re buying. If you haven’t heard the song elsewhere, you have no idea what you’re buying! They could likely be preventing more sales than illegal downloads this way.
Even with the ability to download just one track instead of buying an entire album at a store, the pricing model just doesn’t work. Ninety-nine cents isn’t a whole lot to pay for a song I know I like, but when you consider experimenting and buying music just to see if you like it that can add up to a sizable amount of cash really quickly. At this price level you’re paying a huge percent just in payment processing. I should be buying credits in $15 increments to cut down on the costs. I don’t think people are unwilling to buy music so much as they are unwilling to pay so much for music (especially when, as I mentioned, we’re paying largely for convenience), so buying credits wouldn’t be a big disturbance to the customer; plus people would almost certainly be more likely to impulsively spend those credits after they have them.
I think packaging tracks together could be a huge success in music sales. For example, if I’m buying one track at full price, why not offer me a similar track from a different artist at a discount to get me to try something new? I suspect this isn’t done because the music stores don’t have the freedom to offer a substantial discount like that, nor would they necessarily be the ones benefiting from it longterm if I happen to like the suggested artist. If record labels were more involved in the way their music is sold, maybe we could create our own compilation albums and we wouldn’t be dependent on other sources (some of which turn out to be illegal) to find out about their less popular music.
The whole industry in general just hasn’t been very conducive to helping me find new music. You’d think, since they seem to consider it such a threat, the record labels would have learned a thing or two from the Internet’s open culture. Like that there are a lot of people with a passion for their various tastes in things like music and are quite interested in learning new things. They could very cheaply host free events to help people discover new music and interact in person with other people who share their same taste in music. Or even just publish their own articles that help suggest new music at the bare minimum.
I have no motivation to go to a brick-and-mortar music store because the people working there have less information readily available than I can find online in a few seconds. Music stores really should have been focusing on creating a fun and engaging experience a long time ago. Employees need to be absolute music enthusiasts who add value just by being there instead of overly trained drones who barely interact with customers and only know how to ring up purchases or lookup inventory on a computer. Record labels need to take a look at the present state of the music stores and decide whether they need to be supplying them with more information and tools to sell their music or if they need to launch their own chain of stores and take over.
In my next post I’ll discuss what I think are some good examples of websites that are on the right track to helping connect people with new music they’ll like. (Update–That post is available here: Pirates Pt2: What’s Good About Online Music?) I hope to find a brick-and-mortar store I can say the same for in the near future, but at the present time I cannot think of one and I’m sure any good examples are small, little-known shops that don’t get enough credit for it.
