What’s the future of music? You tell me and we’ll both know.
At just about every conference or industry forum we attend, invariably someone will ask about “What’s the next big thing in music? What’s the future of music? How will bands be making money in 5 years, 10 years?”
Invariably, the answer is “horses for courses.” Which is kind of vague and annoying for conference-goers because that rhetoric then gets bandied around a lot. But when you think about it, is very open. Which is nice. Because it means that you, as an artist or artist manager, have options. Where previously, there was but one definition of success. You were signed to a major label, big advances, massive tours, mass-media campaigns and stadium shows and platinum records, all the while being disconnected with your fans.
I don’t think that there will ever be a culture of the super-mega-massive-superstar ever again. Career artists, sure, big shows and festival headliners, sure, but certainly they and their labels will need to be thinking innovatively and being ahead of the game to survive. They will need to be connecting with fans as well and certainly not being inaccessible as before. There may be big success for a time, but being ignorant of connecting with fans through live performance and technology could so very easily push them away.
Luckily, in this new environment, it kind of comes down to something that Seth Godin was talking about on his blog a few weeks ago - making decisions. There are endless options in terms of distribution of your music, touring, marketing, publishing & licensing, the whole gamut of industry options. By being a decision maker, you set yourself goals and you define who you will be and what you will and won’t do in your career. There is no one path anymore, so making decisions about how you feel about certain paths/options will take you on your own choose-your-own-adventure music industry tale.
You can literally decide what levels of success you wish to achieve and how you can create your success, whatever that is for you. That’s not to say that an artist should not understand the current models within the industry, but decide to work within them, around them or invent new ones.
You can decide how to record your music, you can do it yourself at home or you can record at a studio, you can choose to give it away on a disc or sell it at whatever price point you want, you can choose to give it away online or sell it in whatever stores you choose or a webstore of your own, you can choose to have merchandise or make merchandise and sell it in webstores who can print-on-demand at no cost to you, you can set up your own digital label and distribute not only yourself, but other bands you like as well, using a digital aggregator like Musicadium. You can decide how much you spend on marketing, if any budget at all. You can choose how to access your fans and the level of interaction you have with them.
There are literally as many answers to the question of “What the future for musicians and artists?” as there are people in the world. It is open to interpretation.
The next big thing in Music? Could be you. Make the decision to make decisions.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Finally! Someone is talking some sense! Or, at least outlining a point of view that I agree with. We need to embrace change and start acting on what is happening now.