Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Learned more from a 3 minute record
I'm an iPodder!! Very exciting - I got one for Christmas. This was a gift from my wonderful wife, spurred partly by her guilt at my birthday present collection. If I recall correctly, the pile of presents yielded a torch, a bright orange bathmat, a duvet cover, and a half eaten bar of chocolate. The last of these my daughter was particularly pleased with, promptly laying claim to the little that she hadn't scoffed pre-wrapping. The boss's guilt was further enhanced by the fact that she forgot my birthday as she snoozed that morning - until the kids came charging through to help me unwrap.
I didn't mind really, approaching the beginning of my life as I am, but was more than happy to lay it on a bit to secure the little black box under the tree. Now I am a reborn muso, (which come to think of it, is where we came in), I am boring anyone who'll listen - or read - with my theories on the "new" music industry. So: the poor undernourished music executives who forced us all to switch from vinyl to CDs a few years ago, now have another channel through which to sell us music. The problem is, it makes the problem that used to be home taping much larger. People are (whisper it) sharing music, and listening to things they haven't paid for.
My theory, such as it is, is that this has got to be a good thing for the music industry. The massive success of, and interest generated by, iPods and the like mean that people like me, who grew up with some great music and now - in theory - have the income to enable them to indulge in a big way, are re-discovering their old music, and discovering a whole lot of new stuff. That convoluted sentence means that the market is growing. Yes people are nicking things off each other's iPods, but that just sends them to the web or the CD shop to find more. It's an addiction. I downloaded 2 free Arctic Monkeys tracks, could probably get a lot more for free, but just downloaded the whole album from iTunes.
If you can't see that the Arctic Monkeys effect is a good thing, then you shouldn't be running a record company. Move up and let me have a go.
I didn't mind really, approaching the beginning of my life as I am, but was more than happy to lay it on a bit to secure the little black box under the tree. Now I am a reborn muso, (which come to think of it, is where we came in), I am boring anyone who'll listen - or read - with my theories on the "new" music industry. So: the poor undernourished music executives who forced us all to switch from vinyl to CDs a few years ago, now have another channel through which to sell us music. The problem is, it makes the problem that used to be home taping much larger. People are (whisper it) sharing music, and listening to things they haven't paid for.
My theory, such as it is, is that this has got to be a good thing for the music industry. The massive success of, and interest generated by, iPods and the like mean that people like me, who grew up with some great music and now - in theory - have the income to enable them to indulge in a big way, are re-discovering their old music, and discovering a whole lot of new stuff. That convoluted sentence means that the market is growing. Yes people are nicking things off each other's iPods, but that just sends them to the web or the CD shop to find more. It's an addiction. I downloaded 2 free Arctic Monkeys tracks, could probably get a lot more for free, but just downloaded the whole album from iTunes.
If you can't see that the Arctic Monkeys effect is a good thing, then you shouldn't be running a record company. Move up and let me have a go.
