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I just listened to an extremely interesting episode of NPR’s On the Media, available on podcast, which spends an entire hour looking at the state of the music industry, including the plight of the record labels, legal vs. illegal sampling (the segment focuses on Girl Talk and Hank Shocklee from the Bomb Squad), the rise in ticket prices due to consolidation in the concert business, the increasing irrelevance of the music sales charts (like the Billboard 200 etc.), and how musicians are changing their strategies for making money. It’s all fascinating stuff, and is presented in a balanced way by guest host Rick Karr.
Because it covers so much territory, it doesn’t go into great depth on any one subject, but as an overview for the state of the business today, it’s really useful, not to mention entertaining. In the process of setting context for the current issues faced by the business, it covers some fascinating recent-historical ground, such as how the advent of SoundScan technology in the early ’90s led labels to realize just how they’d been underestimating the popularity of hip-hop and country, which led to both genres getting more publicity and promotion. Contrast that to now, where SoundScan, which measures purchased music through CD sales and legal downloading, does not necessarily factor in a lot of the ways that young listeners consume music, which can skew things toward baby-boomer acts, whose fans are more likely to buy actual CDs.
When looking at the problems with the concert industry, Karr points out that in 1975, you could see the Rolling Stones live for $8.50 ($34 in today’s money with inflation factored in) but during the last Rolling Stones tour four years ago, the typical ticket price was $100. As you know, that’s cheap for a lot of concerts these days. If you want to see a really big act, especially one that appeals to baby boomers (who have more money to spend, on average), expect to spend double that $100 and more. Personally, I don’t think I’d ever pay $250 for a concert, that’s way too much money for just one show–I don’t care how good it is. (Okay, maybe if they figured out a way to resurrect Jim Hendrix, Duane Allman, and Stevie Ray Vaughan for an all-star jam session, I might consider it.) As the podcast points out, you could buy five live Rolling Stones live albums for less than the cost of one of those $100 concert tickets.
The last section of Karr’s On the Media show deals with how musicians are changing their ways of making money, and focuses on Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls, and how she is using new media to drive her band’s income. It’s an interesting segment, but doesn’t go into the kind of depth I would have liked on that particular subject. Overall, though, the entire episode (which was originally broadcast last October) is a fascinating listen, and gets you up to speed on a lot of the big issues of the day in the music biz. Check it out. If you go to the main page for the episode, you can listen to the segments indiv
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