Many of you have made some extremely intelligent points regarding ways to better the current climate of the record industry. The truth of the record industry is that as a whole, nobody has figured out the complete solution to this tremendous decline over the past few years. However, two of the points you have been hitting on are being very closely examined as we speak.

First off, either the SRLP (suggested retail list price) of cd's will be lowered shortly, or the value of your purchase will change. Ex. DVD/VCD music videos included with every cd, making of the album featurretes, or a complete change in format which would mean SACD (Super Audio CD) or DVD-Audio. However, because of the lack of record sales altogether it is most likely the labels will have to start by simply just lowering the SRLP- because SACD and DVD-Audio have been in the stores for some time now, and the "general" public is not going to welcome a new format with open arms when they are not even buying music to begin with.

The second point hit that is being examined closely is promotion. The big five labels spend more on promotion than could ever be explained. This money is often spent/wasted in ways that do not truly impact the artist's career as planned. It is way too often that the various video, print and multimedia advertising has little or no impact on the artists career. This is likely because the public will make the final decision if they want to like something, regardless of the labels slamming it down their throats. They may hear it and see it everywhere, but they don't have to like it; no less buy it. However, word of mouth has had some serious impact on some truly talented artist's careers. Case in point- India.Arie - my friend Jack Ponti managed her for some time with virtually no top 40 radio play, and few spins on urban format stations as well. However, word of mouth was playing a huge part around the industry and then BAM! Out of nowhere India.Arie is nominated for eight grammy awards, more than any other artist that year. Then suddenly the top 40 stations start spinning the single, and people went out and bought the album. It was not the money spent on promotion that made her, it was the talent and word of mouth from respected individuals that directly affected her success. Case in Point- Norah Jones- I was at a NARAS conference in 2002 in which Arif Mardin (legendary A&R rep, executive producer of Norah Jones's album) spoke of her career beginning; there were few of us that knew who she was...however those that did had some incredible things to say. Immediately Arif gained millions of dollars in promotion by exposing us to her. She was talented enough to make an incredible impression on us and we spread the word....FAST. Same thing this past year was with Norah. Several grammy award nominations and sudden radio play. It is positively a fact that the big five labels have underestimated word of mouth; however, they are seeing the effects that it can have by watching artists such as Norah Jones and India.Arie skyrocket to success.

So as a whole, the labels are paying much more attention to what matters most- the end of the food chain- the ones that determine the fate of recording artists- the consumers.


__________________
Chris Wiseman
President/CEO
Wiseguy Entertainment LLC

Chris,

As soon as I saw Wiseguy LLC I knew it had to be you, lol. Couldn't have been put better. An example of why your company is seeing success. Bravo.

True. I think that now with the internet people will discover the "real" music thats out there but has never been accessible before. There was no way in hell i could listen to an underground artist from another country 10 years ago. Today with the internet i can. Thats why people are downloading more and more music today. We are discovering music we where not able to listen to before.

Also, people spend more and more time sitting around with their computers, so downloading music is a 1000 times easier and cheaper then going to the record store buying it, if it's even possible to purchase.

There is no way you can stop the downloading of music. You can make it illegal, you can protect the cd's or whatever. There will always be people who will break those stuff. The internet is a new era. I think the record industry will have to find out a smart way to work with it, instead of fighting it.

Good points indeed MJW.

Regarding Nora Jones, you're leaving out the fact that her mom is a big Concert promoter, not to mention her dad (Ravi Shankar) and the details of where that promotion money went, namely Michele Clark Payola, who claims she can make a single rise in the charts with a single phone call, and pretty much has a stranglehold on the AAA format.

I've talked to label owners that claim what she does is extortion.

I feel that the music industry is making the megabucks, but damaging itself in the process. I mean, they could do certain things that would give them a tad less money, but would foster artistical growth in the music industry for years and sow great rewards. I mean, you look at all the bands in the 70s, and realise that these guys grew up with the 60s music industry, which at the time was fresh and revolutionary. It's no wonder the 70s were such a great decade for music.

The record industry isn't run by many who know anything about music rather biz folk that those old cool labels sold themselves to.


"The whole climate of the music biz has changed in the last few years -- it's become so corporate and quarterly result driven that they only seem to be able to focus on the massive stuff, which they can now sell more of, but they can't deal with anything else, hence the migration of many artists to other means of survival.

A great record label like Capitol was founded by singer/songwriter Johnny Mercer to make money, of course, but also to sign and nurture great talent, and they knew it when they saw it - Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Les Paul, Peggy Lee. At some point in the 80s, companies tried a new method, because they'd lost the ability to talent-scout - instead of signing 3 acts in the
hope that one would stick, they signed 30 acts in the hope that 2 would stick, and it worked! Too bad about the failures, among them really good bands and solo artists, who missed their one shot at success, and would never have 2 or 3 albums to develop their potential, and would probably go back home to Ohio, dispirited and broken.... And now Capitol Records, as part
of EMI/Virgin, are selling off everything they can to pay for some dickhead executive's monumental cock-up in trying to sign Maria Carey ($30 million compensation). Among the items on the block - Abbey Road Studios!"


-Richard Thompson

The following article is good to.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...fect/corp.html

There's some serious issues when it comes to the music industry.

Music in the past (up to the mid 90s) was constantly growing in genres and what seemed to happen is that once the trend for "retro" started to appear, labels realised that they could sell new and old previously forgotten material to this new audience. Retro is cool!! Or so they thought.

The problem is, with this being excellent for the record industry instead of promoting new bands that are doing something exciting and different they focussed on ones that could bring retro in more, possibly from a different era and hence bands like The Strokes and The White Stripes.

The problem with this is that there's nothing new to excite the soul of kids out there today. Back in 1989 I used to wonder what was going to come out of music in the future, what would it be like. Do kids do that now? Or do they wonder what games will come out for their PS2 instead?

ps2 sucks

Now your talking my language. And why does music have greater prestige than video games anyway? Either way your sitting on your arse not getting out and about (assuming your listening to music, and not dancing). Older people only dislike video games because they dont understand them. Anyone remember rap music being called "evil jungle-rythyms" and such like? Just grumpy gits with too much time who dont understand the kids.