Music vs. the Modern Machine

By John Lascko

 

  Some people are too young to remember the days of waiting for a band’s newest vinyl (LP) record to be released. Everyone would go to the local music store to buy it. Eight-track tapes and compact cassettes came next. If you weren’t buying new music in cassette form you were eagerly buying blanks and recording your old record collection to tape, or making mixed tapes. It was a smaller and less cumbersome version than records, and cars started coming equipped with a radio that had a tape player built into it which had an immense appeal to the public. Then came the most current form of music that we are all familiar with: the digital compact disc (CD). Regardless of which or all of these options you bought, you still contributed money to the artist and the label.

  Each one of these product changes had gradually altered the way we listened to music. This was not a bad thing. Through research, technology, and experimentation we found new ways to enjoy sounds while preserving and producing them with better quality than ever before, but no one could anticipate the next, most financially damaging music medium that would affect the industry like nothing it had ever encountered before: The Internet.

  The world wide web brought with it the ability

to access and share information with great ease.

It connected people across the entire world. It

also brought with it the technical term "open

information sharing". This has become the loop

hole term that has financially damaged musicians

and record labels severely. One person in the

entire world can purchase an artist’s album and

put it on their computer. After that it becomes

easily accessible to the entire world, and most

importantly it also becomes available to the

world free of charge. It would seem that the days

of an artist selling 10-15 million copies of a

record have vanished.

  Lars Ulrich (the drummer from Metallica)

received media and public backlash when he

took on Napster in the year 2000. Many were discrediting him by saying he was doing it for financial reasons. In retrospect, he was correct. As time has gone by it has proven to be a legitimate argument that has continued to affect the industry. Battles like this are still continuing in courtrooms because various programs and websites allow copyrighted songs to be downloaded without purchasing them. It is legal theft and will probably never be able to be stopped.

  However, the industry has been finding new ways to survive by using campaigns and tactics which are slowly helping to counteract this huge problem. Two major record labels have recently joined up with a website called FreeAllMusic. Users will be able to download music for free after viewing a 15-30 second advertisement. This arrangement will help the musicians, labels, advertisers, and the website generate revenue.

  Record companies are also sinking more money into the live concert performances. Bands are touring with heavy show promotions and offering the audiences a huge visual exhibition of stage lighting and LED screens projecting moving images to keep the crowd entertained. The real music fans are being treated better than ever before because the live performance has become a crucial point of financial income.

  Please support your favorite local and national acts by going to their live shows, and/or purchasing their albums at the stores or through legitimate websites like Rhapsody, iTunes, and Amazon to make sure that the money reaches the artist.