changing music

Ok, time for my ranting. I’ve always been a music lover.  i try to stay a bit ahead of the curve, don’t try to listen to what everyone else is listening to and get a hold of new music when ever I can and let me friends know about it.  Well, that’s what these time kind of exciting.  The internet is changing music, whether big music labels what it to or not. They have been behind the 8 ball for a while, while the public wants their music in electronic format and labels against it.  Apple, of all companies got them to give…a little.  99¢ for a song, around $10 for an album, normally.  Apple really isn’t into this game for us, other then trying to give the user what we are asking for. That and sell their products.

That’s fine and well, hell the iPod has pretty much changed music, even if you don’t own one.  They are pretty much the modern time’s Walkman.  I’m sure something will replace it in 5 or 10 years anyway. (iPhone?)

Anyway, the labels still have one thing wrong, copy protection.  Sure, they want to protect their copyright, I as a photographer understand that, but people will always find a way to copy music if they really want to.  They are using same argument as when tapes first hit big.  It’s going to kill music, whatever.  Tapes didn’t kill the music industry and .mp3, .wma, or .m4a are not goign to kill it either.

But the internet, that might be a different story.  But I don’t want to say the internet will kill music.  Music will always be alive and kicking, just as it was before there was a music industry.  The internet may just kill the record label as we see them now.  Which I’m not going to complain about.  Lets look at a few things.
*Myspace has more bands on it then one can count.  You can listen to full songs for free, videos, learn more about bands right in one place.  Bands on major labels and unknowns are all becoming more popular because of this and other social networking sites.
*Bands can now set up their own distribution and marketing online, without the “need” to sell actual copies of cd, bands can easily set up their own sites for users to pay and download their music.  Myspace, websites and a little word of mouth goes a long way for a good band without a name to make a big splash.  Without the middle-man-record-label.
*Home recording systems have gotten cheap, hell, I own a copy of Pro-Tools, which is what prob 90% of records have been mixed on.  For under $1000, heck even $500 a band could really record and produce a deceit sounding album.
*Bands traditionally have never made much off of album sales, where they make most of their $ is touring.  Look at the Grateful Dead, they really didn’t care about making albums in the studio, let their fans record and trade their music as much as they wanted.  They became one of the biggest names out there.  Fans followed them around for years and where hugely successful.

The computer and more so, the internet is changing music, the recording industry will not be the same in 10 years.  It’s kind of exciting and I for one don’t care if the labels have to take a back seat to the actual performers.