Phil Tripp's Immedia has added Hank Bordowitz's tell-tale music industry document 'Dirty Little Secrets of the Music Business' to its online catalogue.
Bordowitz, a veteran music industry scribe, is now head of the Music Business Program at West Illinois University.The book talks about all of those industry niceties that those within the inner circle are fully aware of but few of the general public would know.
The release of the book, with the major labels in demise, is interesting timing indeed, but Hank sees a place for them in the future. "I don't think the majors will go away entirely," he tells Undercover News. "There will still be artists that sell millions of records and need big spigots and help coaxing that music out of the spigot. The nature of the spigot is changing, though. While in loosing close to a third of their sales in the US (the only market I can really speak to right now), the music business still sold over 600,000,000 units last year, and the bulk of those were hard goods, and the bulk of THOSE came from the majors. The majors are retrenching, however, and where at one time they would sign artists for prestige, now they're signing solely for sales. This has left a gaping hole in what music fans want that the indies can jump in and fill profitably if they do it carefully".
He also sees a place for both majors and indies to survive together without the indies becoming the new majors. "New majors? No," he says. "They are becoming an entirely different beast. The indies know how to make things work so that both artists and recorded content companies can survive, even thrive on sales of under 100,000 units".
However, the music industry will continue to survive with new dirty, little secrets. "The recorded content business will need people who can bring music to market and develop new ways to monetize music, jobs that the majors did, albeit poorly over the last few decades," he says. "Look for large music marketing companies to start ascending. Sadly, as has long been the case, the deeper pockets will continue to get the most play".
Dirty Little Secrets of the Music Business is now available in Australia through www.immedia.com.au
