
Results 1 to 15 of 211
Thread: State of the music industry
-
10.01.18, 11:18 PM #1
- Join Date
- 03.31.06
- Location
- Atlanta, GA, USA
- Posts
- 3,107
- Posts Per Day
- 0.51
- Favorite VH Song
Hang `em High, I'm the One - Last Online
10.07.20 @ 11:11 PM - Likes (Given)
- 0
- Likes (Received)
- 5
- Thanks (Given)
- 1221
- Thanks (Received)
- 2020
State of the music industry
People say the music industry is collapsing, but I think it's "right sizing."
I've been looking at the Billboard charts and record sales. It's amazing, Greta Van Fleet is on the radio, on TV, opening for Guns n' Roses in stadiums, and their songs have made the Top 5 on the Billboard rock chart. Despite all of this, their albums have yet to go gold in America! (They've got a Canadian gold, though.)
As you track actual record sales today, an album can debut at #1, but may go on to only sell 60,000 units. Now Spotify and YouTube playlists count toward your chart status these days, so I don't get it. At the same time, I'm reading Bebe Rexha and Florida-Georgia Line's "Mean to Be" has been #1 on the country chart for 43 weeks, purely because it's on a lot of Spotify playlists with a lot of subscribers. Spotify and YouTube playlists hold the kind of power radio program directors once did. If you get on a Spotify playlist with 250,000 subscribers, Billboard counts that as 250,000 actual plays, which counts toward your chart status. Meanwhile Steven Tyler says Spotify is paying artists pennies per play.
I think this all may be a good thing, though. The lure of glamour and easy money is disappearing, so maybe over time you'll have fewer hacks and more truly inspired artists making music. Things are going back to what they were. I've seen an interview where Bob Dylan said when he got into music, there was no real money in it. In the Sun Records era, the stars were touring in station wagons with the bass fiddle strapped to the hood. I think we're almost back to that point. Grass roots.
-
Thanks / Likes - 0 LikesRRvh1 thanked for this post.
10.02.18, 08:50 AM
#2


- Join Date
- 12.13.01
- Age
- 64
- Location
- hanover pennsylvania
- Posts
- 20,006
- Posts Per Day
- 2.59
- Favorite VH Album
diver down - Favorite VH Song
drop dead legs - Last Online
Today @ 01:12 AM - Likes (Given)
- 5442
- Likes (Received)
- 3430
- Thanks (Given)
- 7761
- Thanks (Received)
- 4186







I'm sure the big shots are still cleaning up at the recording companies as usual.
10-6-2020 RIP King of sixstrings.
10.02.18, 11:03 AM
#3


- Join Date
- 03.12.12
- Location
- Dallas, TX
- Posts
- 5,982
- Posts Per Day
- 1.51
- Favorite VH Album
Van Halen II - Favorite VH Song
Dance the Night Away - Last Online
05.08.19 @ 11:10 AM - Likes (Given)
- 0
- Likes (Received)
- 2
- Thanks (Given)
- 13408
- Thanks (Received)
- 3725
I think counting Youtube views and Spotify plays is a good idea. The real goal is to find out what people are listening to after all....not "how many records are sold". When habits change, the measurement has to change too.
I do wonder how Record Companies are finding ways to rip off artists today. Giving the artist 2% of the sales, forcing them to pay to promote the Record Company's product, and even charging the band for studio time to create the product they were going to sell were some of the most ridiculous things possible in the past. How could they get more absurd than that today?
10.02.18, 11:45 AM
#4


- Join Date
- 02.05.15
- Posts
- 17,159
- Posts Per Day
- 5.89
- Favorite VH Album
II & WACF - Favorite VH Song
HAIL & Simple Rhyme - Last Online
10.05.22 @ 05:19 PM - Likes (Given)
- 192
- Likes (Received)
- 761
- Thanks (Given)
- 8553
- Thanks (Received)
- 13417





The record industry used to be a good filter, where you had people on staff that
listened to & understood music and were passionate about it.
But, today, there's no filter.
Any dumbass can record & release, and get likes based on the tween tastes
of the moment.
Graver, Walking Ed, refugee from CVH & proud tone chaser...
10.02.18, 11:57 AM
#5


- Join Date
- 03.12.12
- Location
- Dallas, TX
- Posts
- 5,982
- Posts Per Day
- 1.51
- Favorite VH Album
Van Halen II - Favorite VH Song
Dance the Night Away - Last Online
05.08.19 @ 11:10 AM - Likes (Given)
- 0
- Likes (Received)
- 2
- Thanks (Given)
- 13408
- Thanks (Received)
- 3725
In my mind, it's better this way.
Now we don't have a "filter" preventing us from hearing music that we might love. Some guy in a suit used to make an arbitrary decision about what music the public "should hear". Supposedly they were smarter about music than the poor unwashed masses. i.e.....elitism.
Who knows how many great bands went unheard because some guy in a suit decided they weren't worth hearing? It almost happened to VH don't forget. While the local kids were packing VH shows...that "filter" dismissed VH. Thank god one guy took a chance on them.
Now anyone can be heard. If people don't like it, it goes nowhere. However, if people do like it, then any artist can be successful. If it's "tweens" then that's fine. We were all tweens too when we were buying VH records. Same with Elvis and the Beatles before us. The difference today is that tweens get to decide what they like for themselves.
Thanks / Likes - 0 Likes
RRvh1 thanked for this post.
10.02.18, 12:06 PM
#6


- Join Date
- 02.05.15
- Posts
- 17,159
- Posts Per Day
- 5.89
- Favorite VH Album
II & WACF - Favorite VH Song
HAIL & Simple Rhyme - Last Online
10.05.22 @ 05:19 PM - Likes (Given)
- 192
- Likes (Received)
- 761
- Thanks (Given)
- 8553
- Thanks (Received)
- 13417





Graver, Walking Ed, refugee from CVH & proud tone chaser...
10.02.18, 12:27 PM
#7


- Join Date
- 03.12.12
- Location
- Dallas, TX
- Posts
- 5,982
- Posts Per Day
- 1.51
- Favorite VH Album
Van Halen II - Favorite VH Song
Dance the Night Away - Last Online
05.08.19 @ 11:10 AM - Likes (Given)
- 0
- Likes (Received)
- 2
- Thanks (Given)
- 13408
- Thanks (Received)
- 3725
I have no idea how you measure taste. Get a group of 100 people and have them rank music from each decade and see if you get any agreement. Would probably all be based on when they were born.
I think the 60s sucked most of the time. Of course I love the 70s. But even then record companies were pushing disco hits out the door. The 80s featured record companies pumping out formula bands based on VH and formula pop music ala MJ and Madonna. The music video meant that looks and image were more important than ever...more important than the music really. Then suddenly the record companies decided everyone wanted to hear depressing rock music in the 90s and one female artist after another. What a coincidence, eh?
I can't help wondering what that band who played at the same as VH would have sounded like if the masses had heard them? You know...the one with the fat bald guitar player? Although...it is show business so his looks would have held him back with the public too.
I feel like today there is no "formula". I will give the 70s credit for there only being one Led Zep and Fleetwood Mac. I didn't hear 10 bands in a row that sounded like Fleedwood Mac in 1977. Instead, it would be followed by Foreigner,Queen, Boston, Eagles, Billy Joel, ELO, Chicago, ABBA, Paul McCartney, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Steve Miller, Styx, Heart, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Supertramp. (I actually went and looked at the 1977 charts!)
So even then, you "didn't hear Led Zeps any more" because you only heard it from one band. I think we got back to that today because the record labels are not running everything. At one point in the 90s they were making bands use the same sounds on their guitars and drums....who knows what those bands of the time really sounded like?
The labels had to go. They were an elitist cancer on creativity.
10.02.18, 03:12 PM
#8

- Join Date
- 03.31.06
- Location
- Atlanta, GA, USA
- Posts
- 3,107
- Posts Per Day
- 0.51
- Favorite VH Song
Hang `em High, I'm the One - Last Online
10.07.20 @ 11:11 PM - Likes (Given)
- 0
- Likes (Received)
- 5
- Thanks (Given)
- 1221
- Thanks (Received)
- 2020





I should clarify I think measuring streams makes sense. What I don't get is how Greta Van Fleet can't have a gold album yet under this system, considering how much they're talked about and that a couple of their songs have been #1 on the rock chart.
They're going to have to find a way to measure actual plays, though, not just if a song is on a playlist. The way it is now, the song charts get frozen because the record companies game the system by getting on these playlists, and only being on the list is measured, not whether people are actually listening.
Now that record companies aren't manufacturing and shipping a physical product, they take a portion of your live ticket sales and merchandising. "Do you think you would've sold those 5,000 tickets if we hadn't put our marketing budget and media contacts behind you? Pay up for us making you famous!"
I miss the glamour a bit, though. Before my recent Nashville trip I had read that Ben Folds owned the old RCA Studio A. I took a bus tour, and the guide corrected that he didn't own it, he had leased it for a very long time, because it was in danger of being razed for condos! They also said Reba McEntire owned a studio there, and she used to helicopter in to record her vocals. Now she could do it in a walk-in closet at home, but it's not nearly as dramatic of an image.
I don't remember it in Greg Renoff's book, but I saw a panel with Ted Templeman, I think it was, where they said Herb Alpert (who co-founded A&M) had come to see them, and Alpert said Eddie's guitar playing was "too manic!" Kind of hard to believe Van Halen almost didn't make it because of an over-40 trumpet player.
There was an excerpt from Sound City where Dave Grohl said it used to take $250,000 to record a record, and the gatekeepers made sure only the best got through. That sounds snobby for a punk rock guy, to me. Plus it fails to explain White Zombie and Zodiac Mindwarp.
For some reason the later generations have lacked imagination. I always ponder that I've got more recording firepower in my desktop PC from Best Buy than Jimmy Page had at Olympic Studios, and I've download tons of freeware that can make more sounds with better fidelity than what he had access to. Then factor in there are music tutorials all over the place. But in Page's youth they were hearing everything from Jerry Lee Lewis to Harry Belafonte to Frank Sinatra on the radio, and that gave them a broader mind. If someone's influences are Metallica, Slayer and Dethklock, their music is going to be monochrome.
10.02.18, 03:40 PM
#9


- Join Date
- 02.05.15
- Posts
- 17,159
- Posts Per Day
- 5.89
- Favorite VH Album
II & WACF - Favorite VH Song
HAIL & Simple Rhyme - Last Online
10.05.22 @ 05:19 PM - Likes (Given)
- 192
- Likes (Received)
- 761
- Thanks (Given)
- 8553
- Thanks (Received)
- 13417





I guess i'm just old, but when i look at the charts from the 70's & 80's, there's
diversity and talented people behind the diversity.
Even the young Iron Maiden fan that i was in '82, could understand that Duran Duran
came loaded with great songs: Rio, Save a prayer, Hungry like the wolf...
They had the Justin Bieber looks for the young girls, but they backed it with
actual songwriting talent.
Today, it's like:
Oh my God, he's cute, i love this song!
Yo, he started on youtube!
Before the labels became outright vultures, they had guys with good ears finding the talent,
and giving those artists more than one album to blossom.
Graver, Walking Ed, refugee from CVH & proud tone chaser...
Thanks / Likes - 0 Likes
snowdog thanked for this post.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIyRfki7AxM
Aviation Thread