Music Industry Blog 01
Music Modernization
By: Matthew Mazer

Artist Ocean
The introduction of home-based multi-track recording (through software) and MIDI standardization, has opened the doors for nearly anyone to make a quality production from their own home. This is a good thing, but also brought along some problems. It has flooded the underground market with an unlimited selection of talent, making artists less valuable. Think of it like the stock market. If the industry is worth X billion dollars, and there are only 1000 participants (professional artists), there is plenty of money to go around. When there are 4,000,000 participants, everyone is only getting pennies. This means today's challenge is not writing good music, it is standing out from the millions of other artists, and winning over a dedicated fan base.

Even Less Money Now?
Not only do record labels have a larger selection of talent to choose from, but they have less of a budget to do it with. You can thank technology for this problem too. Pirated music has bit off more than 30% of record label net profits in the last 5 years. Because of this, they have less money dedicated for new talent discovery, and they are signing less artists. There are less A&R's, scouts, and managers than there were 5 years ago. However, there are some positives that have recently affected music as well. MySpace and ... uh... OK, well... uh... At least there's MySpace!

Keep Your Head Up!
Don't be discouraged. In future postings, we will show you how you can make money with music and not be dependent upon a record contract. Because, when you start takng a large enough piece of the pie, they're gonna want your slice.