Fantastic, semi-relevant interview with Gary Numan

With all the talk about microtransactions, new vs used game sales, and "state of the industry" type stuff, I thought some of you might like to check this out:

http://www.fastcompany.com/3060236/gary-numan-thinks-the-music-industrys-collapse-is-a-beautiful-thing

It's a fantastic interview with Gary Numan. Lots of talk about synthesizers and electronic music. About half-way down the page, he starts talking a bit more about the current state of the music industry. I made a comparison between the gaming industry and the music industry in my rant yesterday, and a lot of what Numan talks about here could also apply to where the gaming business is heading.

This little part in particular really jumped out at me:

"What’s really cool is that I think the days of the record company are numbered. That’s not a bad thing. I think they’ve screwed artists really badly for decades. They still are. Now it’s all swinging toward label services, which is a much better thing for the artist. The thing is, as an artist, I would much rather have the fan standing right there. They give me their money. Here’s my album. We have a little chat. Fantastic. A nice, close interaction. We’re talking to each other and there’s nobody in between. I think the music industry has been plagued by people getting in between artists and fans."

Interesting stuff :)

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"What’s really cool is that I think the days of the record company are numbered. That’s not a bad thing. I think they’ve screwed artists really badly for decades. They still are. Now it’s all swinging toward label services, which is a much better thing for the artist. The thing is, as an artist, I would much rather have the fan standing right there. They give me their money. Here’s my album. We have a little chat. Fantastic. A nice, close interaction. We’re talking to each other and there’s nobody in between. I think the music industry has been plagued by people getting in between artists and fans."

I like this too. A guy I know called Butch Walker put out a pay what you want live album in 2008 and he released it on therecordbusinessisfucked.com. He's pretty correct.

That said, record labels still are useful to me. For example, I like Hopeless Records. In general, if I see a band got picked up by those guys, I give them a listen. Also, the unsigned bands I know put out music that sounds like demos and they're pretty much only available on MP3 or CDs, when I would prefer to buy on the much more convenient and cost effective wax cylinder, or in a pinch, vinyl.

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In the past, the record company had a lock on manufacturing, distribution, and promotion. They paid the radio stations to hype songs, organized and controlled the top 40 lists and what made it to the record shops for sale. To make it big, bands needed a label's support and the Labels knew it and abused it.

With the internet and print on demand services, a band can distribute their own music, promote their own music, and interact with fans directly. This bypasses the majority of value from the Label, so it's pretty obvious that the label would disappear.

Video games are different in some ways, but we've already seen the collapse of most game stores. Gamestop exists now for used game sales and the few exclusive items they pay to insert into games.

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I could agree that this is a possible future, but it does not describe the current world. Mass media like radio and TV is still directly linked to the massive sales needed to recoup a label loan. The distribution options of the internet are helping but much more helpful is the dropping cost and complexity of electronic music recording and editing equipment. That's leading to a democratization of music creation that eliminates the big advance that you used to need from a label to make "album quality" music that so many genre's fans expect/require.

And all of this eliminating inefficiencies can only get you so far. Add to that the problem that a lot of the most adventurous music listeners will find music through…free…sources or streaming services which pay much less than sales.

Advertising is still in a weird space, and touring is still a big financial investment for most bands. Both of those are pretty much essential to make a living in music, but also greatly limit your opportunity to make new music.

(most of this is gained from seeing parallels to the video industries, which I know much better so feel free to tell me where I have it wrong music experts.)

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Adding on to that, or maybe to the side, is that a lot of these "new" techniques really play into bands that already have a solid fan base. Radiohead released In Rainbows as Pay-What-You-Want and there were lots of think pieces written about how it was going to Change Music Forever TM. The thing is, if they had been a brand new band releasing their debut album, they would have made less than $100 on that. As it was, they never released their sales figures, but they abandoned that release model for their next album, so I guess they thought they would either make more money the other way, or it wasn't worth the technical hurdles of handling all the hosting/downloads themselves.

Beyonce released her last two albums with absolutely no press lead up (maybe like a week of notice, or maybe just some teasers.) Have you heard of Beyonce? Would anyone have known or cared about her albums if they had not already heard of Beyonce since the mid-90s? (No.)

Getting big in the old system and using it to build brand and name recognition, and then carrying that over to and using the new systems to make it even bigger works really well. It's good work, if you can get it.

That being said--I'm ecstatic that I can afford pro-sumer level studio equipment to record music myself, because that is my biggest creative passion in life. I write weird music that no label would ever front recording session costs for.

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Adding on to that, or maybe to the side, is that a lot of these "new" techniques really play into bands that already have a solid fan base. Radiohead released In Rainbows as Pay-What-You-Want and there were lots of think pieces written about how it was going to Change Music Forever TM. The thing is, if they had been a brand new band releasing their debut album, they would have made less than $100 on that. As it was, they never released their sales figures, but they abandoned that release model for their next album, so I guess they thought they would either make more money the other way, or it wasn't worth the technical hurdles of handling all the hosting/downloads themselves.

Beyonce released her last two albums with absolutely no press lead up (maybe like a week of notice, or maybe just some teasers.) Have you heard of Beyonce? Would anyone have known or cared about her albums if they had not already heard of Beyonce since the mid-90s? (No.)

Getting big in the old system and using it to build brand and name recognition, and then carrying that over to and using the new systems to make it even bigger works really well. It's good work, if you can get it.

All excellent points. I'm in the process of wading back into this whole world right now, and the most consistent feedback I'm hearing is that all but the biggest of the big artist will get little more than pennies for their music through digital distribution. And even then, any artist who wants to make real money needs to do it by selling merch or other side avenues (Dr Dre has made more money from Beats headphones than anything related to his music, and he's Dr Freaking Dre!). On the flip side, I can go from recording a song to having it for sale on iTunes in a matter of days, while maintaining complete ownership and control of my work, which is pretty darn cool.

That being said--I'm ecstatic that I can afford pro-sumer level studio equipment to record music myself, because that is my biggest creative passion in life. I write weird music that no label would ever front recording session costs for.

Do you have any of your music posted anywhere? I'd love to hear it :)

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