The Death (?) of the Music Industry
I hear that the music industry is in the throes of expiry. Some say it died some time back. Others say that innovation is anathema to the industry. Some say that there hasn’t been any good music since fill in the blank. Is it really so cut and dried? Or are things more subtle and having more depth?
If we consider guitars, and their associated products for a moment as a microcosm of the industry, we can think about this if willing. We’ve seen credible makers of fine products go under. We’ve seen prices for what are referred to as heritage manufacturers continue to climb into the stratosphere. We’ve seen the best quality and playability in gear from non-traditional building areas ever, with lower costs of acquistion than ever before. We’ve seen tons of “new” instruments from the big names and at the same time a reduction in new products from other big names. What does all of this actually mean?
It has very little to do with the products themselves and everything to do with money. Both Gibson and Fender know very well that they can release the same thing over and over a hundred times with the only difference a tag and a shot of paint and if they don’t overscrew the pricing make a lot of money. They make the money, not their dealers, with whom they have a love / murder relationship. Reducing in the flow expenses, inventory loading and version control is part of any successful manufacturer. Don’t make more than you can sell, build just in time to fulfill orders and create demand through marketing or at least the illusion of demand.
Sometimes, the instrument is even a joy to play, but that is the last item of concern based on a substantial review of what exists.
Another way to increase the maker’s margin is to change the area of mass building to one of lower labour and materials costs, particularly when the location of the buyers have no idea what the build costs actually are. Certainly continue to tout your “homegrown” builds, but not because they are the best, because are they really, but because by appealing to jingoistic fervour, you can convince buyers that they are supporting the local economy and their peers. It sounds beautiful but really how true is it?
Musicians are often content with having multiple instruments. They are less so inclined with larger and heavier pieces such as amplifiers. From an innovation perspective the only innovation in recent years has been the no amp answer, and many of these are indistinguishable to the average player from the so called “real thing”. But if your amp modeller can be 100s of amps and do a decent job, how many do you need? How much do you need to pay when the $500 unit for all lumps and warts sounds as decent as the $2500 unit once run through a PA? The marketplace has already answered. There’s a glut of expensive modellers holding down shelves while the low cost units keep showing up with regular software upgrades and fly directly from maker to buyer.
Certainly musicians need consumables like strings and despite some issues on some online storefronts with fraudulent products, you can get what you want from Amazon in a day or so, likely as inexpensively as in your local music store, presuming one still exists, and even then the music store makes less profit from the sale. So we see more and more really unnecessary crap in the market to encourage the “add-on” high margin sales. I get it. This is not a new idea. Car makers did it for years, then customers got angry at being nickeled and dimed so makers limited their add-ons, to “kits” and reduced the number of variants, while making even more money because the cost of the pieces in the kits were way below what they could sell them for. When you pay an extra $5000 for the Platinum package are you getting $5000 more value? Not in your lifetime.
I’ve also heard that the pedal market is dead. Certainly dead to me. I have way too many pedals on boards that frankly never get used. Yet there’s a new version of the same old pedal from a different maker every month or so. How many oil can delays does anyone actually need? Who is paying for this stuff? Live music doesn’t pay the way it used to. How much in the way of power supplies and switchers and programming do you need to keep all this stuff running and in the long run is it even adding anything to the music? Sure I’d still love a Miku, not because it is useful, but because it is just so damn stupid. I really think that MXR did a great job on their Rockman pedal. But seriously, if I am not in a seventies Boston cover band, how bad do I need one? In hindsight, nowhere near to what I paid for it.
Record labels are not creating new music by A&R, they are just running the copy machine at full tilt, churning out more of the same shit. In the Seventies, MUZAK was a thing that played annoying and tedious tunes in elevators so people didn’t have to talk to each other. Now anything that I hear that is “new” makes me miss MUZAK. And between the record companies and streaming services, only the musicians are getting reamed if they make something that doesn’t sound like humping bass, grade two lyricism and misogyny.
Is the music industry dead or dying? Without innovation, it’s well on the path, but I fear it’s worse. It’s become static, tedious and boring and fewer and fewer people give a shit at all.
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