Looks like someone experienced in the music industry is finally beginning to figure out how to leverage the Internet for the benefit of artists. But it still isn’t enough.
What I fail to understand is why it’s taken so long for someone high up at one of the major record labels to figure this out. The future doesn’t bode well for the CD as a music distribution format, at least not the way it’s distributed presently. Already, you can buy players for your car that will play CDs with hours worth of MP3 files, rendering the approximately 80 minute music limit on standard CDs obsolete. More and more people are utilizing some kind of MP3 player filled with entire collections of music. These devices can be attached to home and car stereos and computers, providing even more options. An entire generation of young people would probably prefer to download the selected music they want from the Internet, even at a cost, then to have to purchase it on CD along with music they don’t want.
My major gripe with Jac Holzman’s idea (and similar ones before this) is that he’s marrying the distribution of this new music to specific on-line services (iTunes and Rhapsody). There are a lot of us out here who don’t use Windows or Macs and still don’t get support on Linux or Unix systems for these and other music distribution services. Why can’t they use a model such as the one used by EMusic.com, the low-cost subscription site that allows unlimited burning of MP3 files you purchase, and doesn’t require special software (a web browser is all you need). The hit against EMusic has always their alleged lack of depth: they carry about 500,000 songs from mostly independent labels, although their catalog does include a large number of well-known artists from all genres. For ten bucks a month, you can download up to 40 songs, which works out to 25 cents per file. The company openly brags about its focus on independent music and new artists. They’ll also give you a two week free trial and fifty free downloads just to hook you.
What it is that’s keeping the major companies and online music services from understanding this? If they all went to a standard format and allowed buyers to do what they liked with downloaded, paid-for files, I doubt the world of p2p sharing and torrents would fold up and vanish. But allowing music lovers the freedom to decide how, when and where they listen to their music would go a long way to repairing the damaged reputation those record companies currently endure. Such a move would also provide more revenue, lower distributions costs and greater earnings for the artists.
Mr. Holzman’s idea is a long-overdue first step. Time to see more.
If more record company execs were musicians or true audiophiles like John Hammond Sr., Ahmet Ertegun, or Mac Rebennack (Dr. John), the situation might be different.
I especially like Jac Holzman’s idea of releasing “short three-song clusters every few months…allowing musicians to grow artistically and build an audience”.
How liberating for non-indie label bands accustomed to “betting everything on a single twelve-song album”.
Maybe someday the major labels will realize that what’s better for the independent artistic development of bands is ultimately better for the company bottom line.
Given their prior history of obtuseness to major cultural shifts (the iPod), it’ll probably take a few direct nuclear hits to wake them up (only to discover they’ve been left behind).