The question of value in music

By the mid 1960's, cutting edge rock music responded by appearing on the newly created FM radio band, which was considered an "underground" means of airing music that favored longer songs, more controversial material and less restrictive programming styles, “FM was not popular initially, but by the 1960's, stations needed programming” , so the anti-war sentiment of Americans was reflected on the FM stations with progressive rock. The mid 1960's witnessed the Vietnam War, political protests and racial riots that brought about social unrest, chaotic times and extremely passive radio broadcasting. “There were almost 2,000 record companies generating as many as 250 new records a week, and the competition for airplay was unbelievable” 1. By the end of the decade, the primary formats on the radio included Top 40, which focused on strong personalities and heavy community involvement. While the late 1960's may have been a settled era for the vinyl recording, it was a period of massive change for the music industry in regards to the way music was heard and recorded,

“It was not until the mid to late 1960’s that the business soared. Universal introduction to truer-to-life hi-fi stereo sound recordings came at a time when the postwar baby boomers, then teenagers with lots of money to spend, were becoming ever more attracted to the expanding rock n roll genre.”

The feel of music and the sound that was developed by hi-fi stereo recording shed light on the way music was heard. Not only was it the sound of the music but it was bands that were creating LP (Long- play) albums rather than dishing out singles,

“It was not until 1967 (in the USA) and 1972 (in the UK) that the popular music business began to take off again, but not on the basis of singles, by the Beatles or anyone else. What mattered in that process was LP’s”.
Of course the sixties will always be remembered for the birth of bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys, but it's interesting that the latter of these bands were the first to use a full-range sound system for their rock music concert tour which also gave another boost in sound. Given the problems with singles charts that have been explained, the accompanying boost in sales was important,

“The sixties were also a time in which the record business, paralleling the development of the film business some 30 years earlier, consolidated distribution (and the ownership of “independent” labels) into the hands of a few corporate giants that included RCA.CBC, Warner Communications”

These corporate giants made a huge difference in the way music was being distributed. In the mid 1980’s record store chains began introducing barcode-reading sales registers that automatically communicated each purchase to a computer. “Scanners were introduced in stores primarily to facilitate the stores’ own supervision and inventory control needs.” In other consumer goods fields such technology was also being used to accurately track and relative popularity of competing consumer products and to monitor the effectiveness of specific sales promotions. Though since it was mostly the baby boomers from the sixties that were into the music scene it was somewhat difficult times for new recordings, “Yet not all was well with the industry as it entered the 1980’s, a somewhat older population base with a diminished interest in the new recordings of the time” 2
The major competitors in the music industry in the early 1990’s were Sony and Philips. Philips came out with the CD-ROM in 1992 and Sony responded with the Minidisc (MD). The MD never took compact disc’s market share and died in the late 90’s.
“In the wax cylinder days, the business model was that of a performance service. The model than changed into a product…from singles and album compilations on vinyl to cassette tapes and then CDs.” 2

By 1998 music piracy on the Internet started using MP3 format. In response to this, record companies started using watermarks to help prevent piracy. Many companies tried to use legal alternatives to pirated music, but failed. Soon after the turn of the millennium MP3 players were introduced. People bought MP3 players, but as soon as Apple invented the I-Pod, the sales of MP3 player’s sky rocketed.
“Now, in the age of wireless internet and cell phones and everything digital, we are well into the service distribution phase in which music is totally portable and available everywhere at any time via ubiquitous music service providers”

It is obvious that digital download technology is replacing the CD as the preferred method of buying music. Soon Compact Discs will follow the eight tracks and cassette tapes and be a thing of the past. During the last decade, certain genres of music such as techno, dance, electronic and others, use computers to record digital music and by doing so, is transforming the way traditional music was once created portrayed and performed,

“The resulting global “piracy” problem was then only worsened by the stubborn state of denial and delusion that, at the time, characterized the industry’s response and led to the alienation of the most avid fans as well as many of the most prominent recording artists.”

Producers felt they knew what was best for that time period and it pushed traditional ways of creating music (like 8-tracks, provision of big recording studios) to the side.
Record companies manipulate artists into marketing themselves for profit the use of personal computers in your own home brings change throughout the entertainment business, the music industry and radically changes the style of music offered to listen to today. Using music programs and instrumental effects on the computer, this type of software gives almost anyone the opportunity to be creative with digital music. People no longer have to deal with the minor time restraints that traditional music supposedly demands, having the ability to record a song with high quality sound right at your finger tips meant that in reality, a band does not have to put as much time and effort into their music since it doesn’t involve real instruments.
“The opportunist approach, although seemingly more open minded, is basically a modified version of the idea that the art and entertainment provided by the new media are a threat to the traditional culture”


With the popularity of digital music booming within the mass culture, eventually if everyone started to use digital music to record all of their music, people would forget the way music was traditionally practiced. Even though a lot of new talent would be found I’m sure, producers and record labels would take advantage of these opportunities and in turn focus on producing their music by their standards in order for profit rather than focusing on the music at hand,

“mass culture is an industry organized for profit; that in order for this industry to be profitable, it must create a homogeneous and standardized product that appeals to a mass audience; and that this requires a process in which the industry transforms the creator into a worker on a mass production assembly line, requiring him or her to give up the individual expression of his own skill and values” 3

Artists tend to lose their own skills and values in their music when getting their songs produced by money hungry record companies, since all that they want is to commercialize a person’s song in order to make money as well as marketing the person to what the mass society would want. It is shown that the younger generation seems to be the target of digital media and sound. Its because the younger generation has grown with the constant change of technology, the computer has since developed into a machine of the future,

“More particularly, the increased spending power of the younger generation, and the development of something approaching a discernible ‘youth culture’, means that a fairly direct connection can be made between the younger generation and the media”

For instance, a band called Radiohead made a controversial move that sent shock waves throughout the music industry by introducing a pay-what-you-want system on-line before physically selling their newest CD. A year after Radiohead’s “in rainbows” CD release, the publisher of Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”, Warner Chappell, revealed some details about the success of the “pay-what-you-want” experiment. Chappell says, “Radiohead made more money before In Rainbows was physically released on CD than they made in total on the previous album Hail to the Thief,” Warner Chappell did not reveal how much the band actually made total in the “pay-what-you-want” system, but admitted more people downloaded the album online for free than paid for it. Warner Chappell confirmed that,

“It is a hugely-successful number considering the album was both given away for free and that it was actually downloaded more times via Bit Torrent than free and legally through Radiohead’s own site.”

On a financial stand point it seems that Radiohead still achieved a profitable margin, the way music that music is valued was is in question. One of Radiohead’s key members declares that it was an act to question the way music is portrayed and valued, Johnny Greenwood says, “Its fun to make people stop for a few seconds and think about what music is worth, and that’s just an interesting question to ask people.” This poses some controversy amongst other bands such as Robert Smith from the band “The Cure”, a well respected band, who fiercely disagrees with Radiohead's pay-what-you-want plan,

“The Radiohead experiment of paying what you want - I disagreed violently with that. The idea that the value is created by the consumer is an idiot plan. You can't allow other people to put a price on what you do, otherwise you don't consider what you do to have any value at all and that's nonsense.”

Robert Smith makes it clear that he'll be the one setting the price on Cure-related music, claiming that he, “will not be doing a Radiohead/In Rainbows/capitalism-eschewing style pay-what-you-want "idiot plan" any time soon” 2. What this does for musicians in my opinion is cause problems within the music industry. Being a band that has fame, wealth and is widely known throughout the world, using the pay-what-you-want system does more damage to the music industry. What happens is if everyone was to question how music is valued, no one would be making any money.
I think it is easier for a band that has not been struggling in the music industry to do an act such as this since they are already successful. Robert Smith from “the cure” makes a good point for all artists who are struggling in the music industry and who are trying to make a living and paying for their expenses to live. Radiohead could easily spit on a piece of paper and sell it on eBay, In my opinion things need to have a value on it to be deemed a valuable and a precious item something like an art piece.
Attempting to predict the future of the music industry is truly an exercise in futility. I begin to ask myself these questions, who could have predicted the MP3 player twenty five years ago? In addition, in twenty years will the MP3 technology be as obsolete as eight tracks are today? No one knows what the future holds. However some possibilities are interesting to examine. For example, the Internet makes it possible for artists to sell directly to the consumer. This could make record companies obsolete. The necessity for an artist to sign a contract with a record company stemmed from the fact that the record company was the only way to distribute the artist’s music. Since the artist can post their music on the Internet and sell directly to the consumer, the necessity of the record company and their contracts has greatly diminished. Does this mean record companies will disappear? The answer is probably not. However, it is obvious that the big record companies will have to make major adjustments.
In conclusion, the industry has gone through three broad and somewhat overlapping business-model phase transitions that are characterized by the ways in which music is preformed, stored, and distributed.


Bibliography
1.Cultural revolution? By B. J. Moore-Gilbert, John Seed

2.Marketing in the music industry by Charles W. Hall

3. The Digital Musician: Creating Music with Digital Technology‎ by Andrew Hugill
4.Entertainment industry economics by Harold L. Vogel
5.Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America's Media by Eric Klinenberg

6.http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2007/10/10/radioheads-jonny-greenwood-on-in-rainbows-its-fun-to-make-people-think-about-what-music-is-worth/

7.http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/10/15/radiohead-publishers-reveal-in-rainbows-numbers/