Yorke:Music industry on verge of collapse

He's wrong, of course. If not about the collapse certainly about the timeline. The music industry (like the movie industry) is so entrenched in the psyche that no one can imagine another system that will work.

Ryan, you'd be surprised. Could you imagine a world online in the year 1992? I know I couldn't (that was the year I went to university- without even a computer in my dorm room). And yet, by the time I graduated, I did so with an end paper that was heavily researched online, and composed on my own pc. Don't underestimate the resilience of human culture. I'd say a reboot like this has been a long time coming, and quite welcome too. I have no illusions that it will be back to business as usual in terms of moneygrubbing and exploiting, but for a while there may be some interesting grassroots stuff happening.

Thom Yorke laughs at you, and Colin Greenwood was there to take the picture.

http://pitchfork.com/news/39090-echo...er-thom-yorke/

Maybe the music industry collapse is what the guy at the end of the video for "Just" was telling everyone.... expect a mass of people to be laying on the sidewalk any day now.

This is news? Every signed artist I know has been saying the same thing for a year now.

I worked for a couple of different record labels over the years, and was a music/video buyer for a large retail chain, and even though it's been a while, I doubt much about the corporate mentality has changed, and I'd say that Yorke is more right than wrong.

The major labels are in the business of manufacturing and selling pieces of plastic; the specifics of their contents are nearly irrelevant. And it's catching up to them as content is freeing itself from the confines of delivery packages.

There was a time that a major label offered a musician virtually their only chance to make a living by making music. That time is passing quickly: the career path for anyone in the creative arts is a tough one, but today's musicians have a lot more entry points than ever before.

The only thing the major labels have to offer now is starmaking: they have the necessary access to make superstars. They do it in an incredibly haphazard and sloppy fashion, and while they try to pretend that they have the secret, it's always been a crapshoot. And that's going to continue to fade as the old media continues to fragment.

Unless your sole reason for making music is to become rich, you don't need the majors any more. And if being rich is your sole motivation, there's lots easier and more predictable ways to go about it.

I think he's right for rock. Pop and R&B still sell a lot more records, and benefit from label support. Lady Gaga vs. the last great new band you listened to.

I mostly agree with Jeb but the problem is entry ways are one thing, achieving the success needed to tour outside your immediate is another thing completely. And, let's face it, touring is always where the money is. The key to success outside of your immediate area is advertising and radio play both of which are damn hard to get without a certain amount of money, power and know-how behind you.

It's easy for a band like Radiohead to say abandon the large label mentality because their fuckin' Radiohead. Thom Yorke can wish all he wants about smaller bands achieving the success they had without major labels but he had a label to promote Pablo Honey and radio stations to play "Creep" because of that promotion.

I'm not saying every musical artists wants to become rich and sell millions of records but if you want to be reasonably successful ie) make your living doing it, you have to work a helluva lot harder on your own than you do with a label backing you.

And still, I know quite some bands and artists who have been able to make a living in the music business for years now, without radio play or even a lot of promotion in the traditional sense. A lot of underground scenes have been organized quite well for a long time, out of necessity (and principle- the whole punk DIY thing). If you look at electronic dance music, hardcore, or the whole drone & post-metal scene, there's quite some people producing & playing music, and at the same time running labels or booking agencies, doing graphic work, or artist support, etc... and we're talking a worldwide network, not just some local biz. A friend dj of mine travels all around the world playing clubs, another guy I know already toured Asia twice cause he got good hook-ups as an ambient drone artist there... they're not making millions of course, but they're making a good living doing what they like. As the audience seems to keep on fragmenting, I think more and more of these 'self-contained scenes' will crop up... which is also why I think radioplay is steadily diminishing in importance. Specialized mp3-sites are taking up that role.

Admittedly, it's not for everyone to go and wear different caps, or have the business sense to go with the musical skills. But then again, it won't be less people or less chance to make it, they'll just be different people from before. And frankly, looking at the wasted talent that fell prey to the pitfalls of the current industry, I don't know if that's such a bad thing.

It's totally possible. Pretty damn difficult at the moment, but definitely possible. If you put on a good enough live show, you can slowly build to touring outside your area.

And with the right connections (not including major labels in that statement, more promoters, etc) you can build up a grassroots following successfully.

My involvement in electronic music over the years allowed me to meet a lot of musicians that, while not totally filthy rich, made a decent living and toured almost constantly (if sporadically; not in the huge chunks that traditional rock bands do).

And most do this in an EXTREMELY niche area, musically, with little to no "radio play" or anything like that. Just a form of word-of-mouth on steriods basically. Granted, the costs of touring with a bag of records/laptop vs. a band with 4-5 members is significantly different, but it's doable.

Relatively speaking, it's a small leap between electronic djs and bands.

Live shows will, as always, rule the roost and the bands that are a) amazingly talented, b) have vision and business sense, and c) are willing to sacrifice and invest, and re-invest, and re-invest in their art/show will see success.


ETA: Chef, get out of my head please. Thank you.

I never said it was impossible. It's, as both of you have pointed out, very difficult process. Which is exactly why it's never going to be the industry standard for artists to do it that way. And that's exactly why major labels aren't going to disappear anytime soon.

Oh, I think it'll take a long, long time for major labels to truly phase out. If anything, they'll just scale down accordingly. But they'll leverage a lot out of online sales for a while now, I'd imagine. iTunes doesn't seem to be slowing down too much.

The record companies would probably save a shitload if and when they cut out physical discs almost altogether (with the exception of things like special boxsets, collector's editions, etc.).

ETA: I realize you weren't saying that, Ryan. I just meant "it's not impossible" generally.

The existence of record companies isn't predicated on what artists need, though. It's built on what consumers want.

The model doesn't exist without sufficient demand, and the way that this demand works has changed substantially. As Jeb wrote, the industry was built on the idea that there are packages to move, not that there was content to be distributed. It's unclear whether they'll be able to adapt to account for this or if the package-driven model is intrinsic to the industry, and the paradigm shift will signal its collapse.

Whether artists can envision working without record companies is almost completely irrelevant. It doesn't matter if you're Radiohead, Ted Leo, or some guy recording music in his bedroom - the feasibility of you personally having a music career without label support is irrelevant if the labels aren't there in the first place.