The salvation and reinvention of the music business lies within the meaning of three little words, “choice and control.” Until 1999 and the advent of Napster, the traditional record business sought out artists with unique music and nurtured them until they became household names. However record companies came upon them, new artists were found and signed. Depending on the level of support given them by the corporate power holders, they received a budget and then were dumped into the prevailing radio and record retail distribution chain. Ultimately from radio and MTV exposure, the public would decide which artists made it and which didn’t.  Our choice of music was controlled by a system, corrupt though it may have been, that worked reasonably well from Thomas Edison’s day until the beginning of the new millennium.

In about the year 2000, consolidation in the radio industry really began to take hold and slowly started to squeeze the life out of the free expression, creativity and community upon which the airwaves had been built. Since the demise of Joe McCarthy and rise of rock and roll and rhythm and blues in the 1950’s and until the early 2000’s, radio had been the dominant force behind music discovery.  At that time, record companies became gripped by fear of the digital unknown and the disruption of their money machine which had been built upon ever changing physical formats with which they could convince an unwitting public (myself included) to buy the same records over and over again.  The great record men and women of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s who took reckless chances with their choices in music had been replaced by lawyers, bean counters and megalomaniacs, none of whom really cared about the discovery and development of new music the way the old school used to.

By 2010, emerging artists, bubbling under, saw their chance at obtaining the elusive record deal beat into submission. Technology and the Internet have made our choice in music overwhelming, disintegrating any filters that used to enable the old music discovery process to do what it did. That system clearly worked, for the most part, for an exceptionally long time.  Then Napster came along around 1999 and begged it to change and it did not. By 2005, Myspace, the first major social media platform, built its business initially on artists and musicians.  Every artist or musician, anywhere in the world, had a Myspace page.  People found new artists and new music almost exclusively on Myspace. Then Myspace turned its back on musicians, made too many mistakes in strategy and gave Facebook the opening to destroy them.   Musicians and artists left in droves and the site was no longer the music enhancing platform it once was.

From 2010-2020, Record company executives played it safe to keep their big salaries, took no chances and virtually shut the door on finding and developing new talent.  All they wanted was a guaranteed hit before the artist or just its song was signed. Only when streaming services took over and enabled the failing music industry to gouge them for substantial fees, were they able to return to being an extremely profitable industry. Radio and MTV were no longer the principal means to expose and break new talent. Fiefdoms headed by big producers, lawyers, managers, and street savvy entrepreneurs, have controlled practically all artist development for the past ten years, leaving label A&R’s to mostly administrative duties. Doors once opened by artists building a name in their local markets, have now been slammed shut forcing the independent music community into a total DIY mode.  The music discovery and selection process must be reinvented.  Music people and technology people must learn to collaborate with each other for the greater good.  Reasonable choice and control must be brought back to the people.

Other than The Voice, American Idol, America’s Got Talent and Songland, no mechanisms are currently in place to give the public a real easy choice in new music.  Sadly, these reality shows focus almost exclusively on singers and not new music material. Influencers and streaming services try to offer playlists of their selections for the hits of the future. Artists have been forced out of desperation and a need for survival to fend for themselves. Thus, we have the current, ever evolving, DIY business model. This plays into the rise of multiple digital distribution platforms, streaming services like Pandora, Spotify, Deezer, Apple, Amazon Music, Soundcloud and YouTube and social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok.  Additionally, music business sites like Reverbnation and Bandcamp house a large swath of DIY music artists, rarely breaking any into the mainstream.

Luck and fancy algorithms totally play a big part in whether your music goes viral on YouTube or any major streaming platform.  The few innovative tech savvy musicians who can commandeer the Internet and package a successful process of best practices, can get their music out to the public and gain financially.  There is no real funnel for independent music to enter, get massive exposure quickly, be judged by the public over a short period of time and become mainstream and financially viable for the artist(s) who created it.  

The live music scene changed radically in the 1980’s. There were thousands of places where emerging artists could play their new music. Artists could build large followings, make large portions of the club intake at the door, sell records/CD’s and tons of custom merchandise, get noticed by record companies with a lucky few getting signed and developed into mainstream, successful artists. Then in the late 1980’s, the liquor laws changed the drinking age from 18 to 21 across the country and wiped out ninety percent (90%) of night club market. For most clubs today, you have to be a major regional or low level national artist to even get an opportunity to play.    

What does the future entail? The fragmented independent music community needs to come together and help each other out.  Entrepreneurs need to create their own music discovery money machine that benefits the independent music community. What have you done to change the way we do music business and make it better for the independent music community to find its way into the mainstream and financial success?