“Panos’ Brew” is Sonicbids founder/CEO Panos Panay’s weekly (or more) post about whatever happens to be on his mind. Look for musings and observations on entrepreneurship, the state of the music business, his experiences with members, interesting things he’s seen in his travels, or just about anything else.
For Raw RSS Feeds
I read a great article by Jon Pareles from the New York Times in yesterday’s paper titled “Songs From The Heart of a Marketing Plan” (you can read the whole article, which I highly recommend, here).
Basically the article asserts that a) because music is becoming such an integral part of selling other products (i.e. video games, cars, beer, coffee, movie scenes etc.), and, b) music licensors are now playing such a big role in new music discovery, there is danger that going forward, new artists will only make music that sounds good in 30 second sound bites, rather than music for music’s sake. That is of course a threat to music and artistry.
Here’s an excerpt: “What happens to the music itself when the way to build a career shifts from recording songs that ordinary listeners want to buy to making music that marketers can use? That creates pressure, subtle but genuine, for music to recede.”
The article also states that: “It’s almost enough to make someone miss those former villains of philistinism, the recording companies…. Labels, and to some extent radio stations and music television, also had a stake in nurturing stars who would keep fans returning to find out what happened next, allowing their catalogs to be perennially rediscovered.”
Whereas I agree with many of the things that the article states, I don’t buy its basic argument that music and artistry will suffer because of this “tectonic shift” that is underway.
Labels, commercial radio, and music television stopped having an interest in developing artists (and even catalogs) a long time ago. Instead they focused on delivering mass-appeal hits, which made music a lowest common denominator commodity, produced by the lucky few and enjoyed by the sedated many.
Can anyone name one artist that any of the major labels broke in the past decade whose catalog will still sell ten years from now? I can’t. Music, as marketed by the major label dominated recording industry over the past 10-15 years was meant for the here and now. I would hate to look back with nostalgia to a period when music had so many gleeful gatekeepers.
As far as music licensing, for me it’s only but one of the many new (and viable) ways that artists today find and develop an audience and careers.
Podcasts, blogs, internet radio, torrents, ring tones, compilation CDs (marketed by all kinds of folks from wineries to clothing companies), YouTube, Last.FM, Pandora, eMusic, independent movies, bookshops, satellite radio, and even people’s houses (with house concerts) are all ways for artists to find an audience that were barely viable or visible just a few years ago.
And with music licensors ranging from ad agencies, cell phone companies, video game companies, and movie studios (large and small) turning over to indie music for help to promote products by tapping into their authenticity, I say let music ring (and ring and ring).
These are the very trends that are giving rise that what I call the Artistic Middle Class. Artists who are pragmatic enough to seek creative alliances and ways to get their music heard, but authentic enough to connect with these (more niche) audiences in a meaningful way that makes careers possible.
Panos
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}