To be clear, I love where the modern music industry is moving. It's awesome. The fact that artist control their own destiny and copyright is amazing.
That said...
> In the digital world, all artists can be on infinite digital shelves with infinite inventory waiting to be discovered, heard, shared and bought.
Awesome, the problem is discovery. Is social media the answer? If so, that doesn't necessarily mean good music -- good music being a relative term, of course -- gets discovered. It means bands and artists that do the most leg work get discovered.
The old guard in the music industry exists to solve a very pressing problem: actually marketing music. We're at a weird point in the industry right now where an artist can certainly "make it" on their own. The cost to sell and promote music as an independent artist is very close to nothing, monetarily speaking, and the technological hurdles of distribution and connection and licensing are no more.
But the cost of promoting yourself is time. Time that could be spent practicing or improving your craft. Is that worth it? Is it worth it for a musician to spend time away from her craft in the hopes of appeasing the new consumer gatekeepers: bloggers, redditors, hacker news folk? Or maybe they should spend time away from their craft producing a funny video to win the "going viral" lottery?
That said...
> In the digital world, all artists can be on infinite digital shelves with infinite inventory waiting to be discovered, heard, shared and bought.
Awesome, the problem is discovery. Is social media the answer? If so, that doesn't necessarily mean good music -- good music being a relative term, of course -- gets discovered. It means bands and artists that do the most leg work get discovered.
The old guard in the music industry exists to solve a very pressing problem: actually marketing music. We're at a weird point in the industry right now where an artist can certainly "make it" on their own. The cost to sell and promote music as an independent artist is very close to nothing, monetarily speaking, and the technological hurdles of distribution and connection and licensing are no more.
But the cost of promoting yourself is time. Time that could be spent practicing or improving your craft. Is that worth it? Is it worth it for a musician to spend time away from her craft in the hopes of appeasing the new consumer gatekeepers: bloggers, redditors, hacker news folk? Or maybe they should spend time away from their craft producing a funny video to win the "going viral" lottery?