The Internet didn’t exist when Pete Townshend wrote the line, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” But the rock ‘n’ roll philosopher’s putdown of politics as usual, circa 1970, still applies.
For a brief time, the Internet promised a radical reinvention of how music would be distributed, and the multinational companies that dominate the music business were justifiably scared. Anybody who cared a shred for music and the people who make it had to be cheered by this news. The recording industry, after all, was ripe for overthrow: It had created a self-sustaining bureaucracy of middle-men that reduced most musicians to chattle. A network of retailers, distributors, agents, lawyers, talent scouts, radio programmers, marketers and promoters had built between artists and consumers, all demanding a share of the green. The result: Consumers ended up paying inflated prices for record-industry product (compact discs cost about $2 to manufacture yet are list-priced at nearly $20) while musicians were last in line to get paid.The Internet promised to change all that by putting musicians directly in touch with their fans. Bands could cut a new song in their home-recording studios in the morning, load it onto their Web page by lunch, and have fans from Moline to Munich downloading and listening to it by late afternoon. Here at last was a portal for any recording artist to reach potential fans worldwide, unencumbered by record-industry politics.
Or so it seemed.
Into this new-world scenario crept all sorts of old-world problems. As more artists took advantage of the Internet –from the famous (Tom Petty) to the notorious (Public Enemy)–the pool of on-line music quickly expanded beyond the ability of even the most dedicated fans to absorb it. Only years after the introduction of MP3, which enables consumers to download music onto their hard drives, the Internet has become a wild wild West of almost too much opportunity.
Now, more artists than ever have relatively easy and inexpensive access to recording and Internet technology. Yet, the second oldest problem in the record industry has become even more acute: In a culture in which convenience is the new mantra and distractions mount with each new leap in technology, how does any untested musician with music to sell get noticed amid the din of competing voices? It always was and always will be about marketing.
For a century, the record industry has been the primary conduit for introducing artists to the public, and it isn’t about to give up its gatekeeping status without a fight. Music has grown into a $12 billion a year industry because corporations have turned the art of selecting and grooming talent into a marketing science, winnowing down the choices until consumers are presented with the most easily saleable music in countless subcategories. Billions of dollars were spent to build public awareness of these anointed artists, whether it was the 1910 Fruitgum Co. or Bruce Springsteen. Diehard music fans who wanted something a bit less streamlined had to work extra hard to find it, a process aided by the rise of underground labels, media and record stores in the ’80s.
In theory, the Internet has made that sort of underground economy even easier to access. By making almost every kind of music available to anyone with a mouse and a modem, the Internet has become a virtual feast for the music fan, and college students with access to high-speed computers have been gorging themselves. Walk into any dorm room and you’ll find hours of music stored on the residents’ hard drives, most of it downloaded for free. Only problem is that while the students–and their dorm parties–are clearly benefiting from this, the artists aren’t making a penny.
The one certainty in all this is that the present situation won’t last–not out of empathy for the starving recording artist, but because of corporate self-interest. Once frightened of Internet distribution, the record companies are now scheming to profit from it. Far too many jobs and too much revenue are at stake for the old guard to surrender the Internet to a new legion of entrepreneurs. The record-industry lobby is already working with Congress on tightening Internet copyright laws. That means consumers will pay for most downloads, and artists will start getting paid–along with a new configuration of record-industry middle men, this time via a distribution system centered on e-stores, record-label Web sites and sanctioned MP3 downloads.
Certainly the potential still exists for a record-industry end-run, as a new tech-savvy generation of artists emerges. Unprecedented opportunity beckons for artists, especially those with established reputations, to run their own Internet labels and keep more of the profits for themselves–something the Artist Formerly Known as Prince has already attempted, with mixed results.
But for the vast majority of fledgling artists, the struggle for recognition will come down to a familiar choice: Go it alone or plug into a new network of publicists, marketers, agents and distributors, all demanding to be fed. It’s the worst kind of deja vu, as Townshend once suggested, one in which the future looks like just another version of the unpalatable past.
