Music Business Can Be Profitable

I have been watching the music business adjust to the evolution of the internet. Needless to say, it has been sad and disappointing.

For years, consumers have been fed albums with two songs. The labels / radio station machine would all profit from the ridiculous profits. The machine was in motion. Virtually perpetual. While drunk with these profits, the internet made an appearance, and life changed.

Cassette Tapes, CDR-CDRW drives, were all supposed to be the death of music. Who knew that it would take a virtual medium? Consumers were now able to share music with friends without distance apart being a factor. Peer to Peer was the real culprit…or was it.

Did the music business establish a strong bond of loyalty prior to the internet, or did they feel that consumers had no choice, and therefore were subject to whatever decisions the label made, and that was it? Did the industry commit suicide by ignoring its consumers for years? Could they have cultivated a loyalty among consumers that would have negated the popularity of peer to peer (free/piracy) distribution of music. Either way, this would / could not have been avoided, and we are talking about how we can recover and prevent future (free/piracy) outbreaks.

There are many ways today that music is promoted online, as well as a multitude of platforms that distribute music. Typically an artist will release a single, then drop the video, and hope it gets the attention of fans. We see now, in today’s over saturated market of indie v major, major artists tend to attach a release to some media event, typically an incident of some sort.

What if your entire song was not in the video? What if you played snippets to engage them to purchase?

Jamaican record shops sold vinyl on 30 to 40 second samples of music for years. Look it up. Why can’t this philosophy be adopted today?

Make a video, do not play the entire single in the song, or interrupt the song enough, that converting the video to an mp3 will not be as nice as the purchased download. Next, create a product that is timeless, and has quality. If people are happy with a purchase, they are less likely to feel that others should not pay. They are more likely to encourage social purchasing and supporting an artist.

Do you really need your song on iTunes? If your song is that great, people will seek it. If the only place they can buy it is from your own website, who do the profits go to?

Let’s get it together. Just because the major labels are doing it this way, does not mean you have to . Think outside the box. I remember a quote my mom used to quote that she got from her granny, “one fool makes many”.

Live up and Prosper. Bless.