only horrible financial decisions are to blame for these companies to be on the verge of bankruptcy. The industries answer to more money to keep them afloat is to find any artist who will sell
this is just not true... the reason the labels are having trouble is due to evolving technology. the music industry is using every outline in syndication it can to become a modern relevance, hence itunes/rhapsody/napster/amazon. these provisionary syndication channels allow for the property to be promoted and monetized on a cost per click basis. it's not a fact at all that the losses by a label have fundamentally ensued as a result of marketing failures. modern marketing has proven to work for record labels (hence justin bieber).
like i said, this is making them money again and the labels are continuing to network the publishing rights with syndication channels. this proves that we can still "have our cake and eat it too" ...if the labels continue to fight off piracy by using syndication networks. the piracy patrons will become less of a commonality. sure! there will always be people who download content illegally... but when content providers like EMI/UMG/SONY etc. work out the modifications to syndication pricing and deals (like netfilx) the content will become a lot more abundant.
example: not many people owned a lathe during vinyl production... (not many people still own one today) so people had to buy records by the studio that produced them... then the tape made it more difficult for the labels and the cd ... then the mp3 and so on (obviously).
we are seeing more label music in television commercials now more than ever. we are also seeing an up rise of more and more indie musicians through the internet... these people are producing/distributing/marketing their own stuff without the help of a label.
hey
umf right?
It isn't about the elegance or class of fine art and we are slowly loosing culture, and among the main corporations being american companies, the claim that America lacks a strongly defined culture I find very true.
it's not wise to base this primarily on music. i have seen more art come out of music now more than ever and this is because of the advent technology.
anecdotal: when i was younger no one in my hood recorded music... mtv still played music videos and there were the same talent agencys and record labels there are today.
also, america doesn't lack culture at all... america is an amalgamation of hundreds of cultures. the reason it appears as though america lacks anything is due to the country's infancy. america is extremely young. (labels work the same way everywhere) business operates the same in all countries with a few minor discrepancies in regards to model.
Music today is not nearly as personal as it used to be. For example, I grew up con country music, and I still listen too many of the classics that I grew up on, and being much older analyzing the music found that the conviction of the art is extremely strong in many of those classics. I was surfing for a country station on my way to class a few hours ago and unfortunately the first station I found was a new country, and with critical listening I discovered that the songs have no substance, they don't tug you around emotionally, they don't make you think and they don't connect with you on a personal level. The same goes for all genres, the pop music I grew up to connects more personally to you than the pop music today, I can listen to RnB from the 50's to the 80's all day long, but hit me with the new stuff, and I am bored out of my mind. Lyrics in more mordern music don;t say much, are just blah and generic, go back to old music I grew up to, just treading the lyrics takes you somewhere.
once again this is subjective and anecdotal... and means nothing to society.
music is apathetic; music is an adaptation of being. if you can interpret art
then its art. if you can connect with only some ...but not all music in some way the fault is your own.
Thats the state of things, the industry used to be a money making business for music, now its a money making business using music.
it depends on who you ask... some people remember differently.