Another Musexpo has wrapped up in West Hollywood with a pretty unanimous picture of the music industry ... it's pretty fucked up.
"You can have a number one record today and nobody knows it," industry commentator Bob Lefsetz proclaimed.Lefsetz, publisher of the popular newsletter The Lefsetz Letter, made some chilling observations about the music industry of the 21st Century. "It's now a disposable world and we move quickly. Music no longer drives the culture. Shows like Law & Order now drive culture more than music".
The comments may be debatable but they do paint an ugly picture for an industry that fought technology 10 years ago (for whatever reasons) and is now paying the price.
Digital music pioneer Ted Cohen confirmed the mentality of the industry was not improving when he gave an example of a phone call from a major label that he had taken just a few hours earlier discussing music video delivery on mobiles. "They wanted 50% of the revenue," he said. "I said "but the carrier will take 50% as well". There was nothing left for the publisher or the provider in the model. "We are fucked if record companies can only think about extorting money," he said. "We need as many digital shopfronts as we can get to replace the empty Tower Records down the road."
One concept that record companies need to wrap there heads around is think of "music as a service not music as a product".
One manger during question time told the room that his artist now only makes 2% of revenue from record sales. "Tickets and t-shirts is where the money is" he said.
One message that came through was that "the little scores are what matters, not the sales".
Ted Cohen will speak in Sydney at the 8th AustralAsian Music Business Conference at Acer Arena in August.
Dates for the conference are August 16-18, 2007
Get more info at Immedia
