Technology and the internet have changed the music business far beyond what it used to be. With mp3′s, new midi samples, sharing of internet files, MySpace, Facebook. and more, has it changed the business for the better or the worse? Does it now benefit the artist? And what about the artist’s rights? What is to come of Major Labels? Indie Labels? Live Nation? Recording? These are just some of a few questions we are faced with asking as the music world changes, and evolves for survival.
Because of mp3′s and other compressions, along with iPods, it has made music a lot easier to be distributed and travel to the lives of everyday people. Unfortunately it has dropped hard copy CD sales. But, on the other side it is now easier for independent artist to emerge onto the music scene a lot faster and still save money. It is easier for artists to now build a growing fan base by simply emailing songs and creating a chain of friends to distribute their music. And because it’s free, everyone wants a copy. Yes, it does effect record sales for labels, and ruins the profits made but what more can we do about this? We should stop complaining about the fall of the CD empire and gain control over the new digital up-rise of music, and use it as a tool to expand artist and expose it for all of the positive possibilities it could have rather then struggle trying to tame it.
Besides mp3′s another digital dilemma we face is the quality of sound in recordings. It’s true that recording digitally has made recording easy, and in some ways less cost sufficient. But like Digital photography now it has made it easier in that anyone with the proper tools can easily claim to be a professional just because they can click the button. So now anyone can have a home recording studio in their basement, which the industry frowns upon and refers to them as “Basement studios.” A happy medium between digital and “true sound” I believe to be the best for quality. We should never relay on digital to take care of everything for us. At some points there should always be a human essences and life presence in the sound.
MySpace and Facebook are now an artist’s best tools to stay in touch with fans, make fans, display music, and get noticed. Its has for the most part replaced .com’s for artist. But, what happens when these tools are gone? or crash? Artist should not relay on technology to handle everything for them. They should still stay close to the scene and personally interact. They should hand out flyers and promote using street teams. Yes, these tools can help dramatically, but without them some bands would easily fade away. Once again a presence of human interaction should never leave. These technological advances do both in helping artist and could simply destroy them if becoming too dependent.
