What Is the Next Big Change in Store for the Music Industry?
The future of the music industry is becoming more and more blurred with each passing year making it difficult to foresee the future. Technology has changed the industry by allowing what was once a digital hoax to be a virtual reality. In the late 90s we were still saying how horrible the digital recordings were in comparison to analog. Now we cannot tell the difference between waves digital plug-in of the Neve console and the real deal. Amazing!
This has allowed someone who has knowledge of engineering and mixing to compete with the best studios in the world in their own living room or now on the road with their laptop. Many artist are recording their albums on the road while they are on tour. A track in a new city and motel. This has given the indie artist the stones to put in his sling shot to slay the big giant industry.
With that being said this does not even begin to tell the future or describe how the need for big studios have come to an end and many of the most legendary rooms are no longer in use. We have a whole generation of kids who have no need for vinyl or Cd’s. They download free from torrent sites. This has made it more difficult for both major and indie labels as CD sales are becoming less and less.
Musicians are now having a more difficult time making a living because of this. Many artist that I have been working with have been discussing the change of media. Will there be a need for CDs at all? Will we just put it on a thumb drive? The White Stripes did a cool marketing deal with a thumb drive that looked like Jack’s girl but it did not seem to sell as well as they had hoped.
So as we look in the rear view mirror to see our past and how CD burners and digital recording workstations changed the music industry what is the next big change for the future? I believe it is the cell phone. The iPhone has revolutionized the way we look at things now. With 4G technology just around the corner we will be able to download anything right to our phones without needing WiFi. Can you imagine? This will change the music industry forevermore and probable television too. Multi media is so easily available to us now. People are not satisfied with just a song now. They want a video or live interaction with the artist. This will force everything to move in a whole new direction and the creative artist will thrive with all the tools in his hands.