Throwaway Download Culture

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   as quoted from Bob Lefsetz' lefsetz email newsletter of October 1,2009". this is his conclusion after a run through of the sales ending 09/27/09 (see the whole thing at :
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2009/10/01/sales-week-ending-92709/)

"CONCLUSION

No one seems to realize you can't get rich anymore.

You 
can't sell enough albums, you can't sell enough high-priced tickets.

The 
music industry is functioning like it's still the 1990s when a revolution has 
taken place.

It's not about stopping P2P theft, that won't make album 
sales go up dramatically.  The public just doesn't care.  Who could, about 
manufactured crap or stuff that's too hip for almost anybody's room.

And 
they may never care, not for years.

So it's back to the 
bunker.

Yes, you've got to be in it for the music.  You've got to love to 
play.  You can't want to become rich, because even a Top Forty hit generates 
little cash.  It's about having a career.  But those with careers are not flying 
private and buying Lamborghinis unless they made it in the seventies.  And no 
one wants to overpay to see those dudes one more time.

Major labels have 
fired the worker bees.  It would be like Facebook being run by an overpaid Mark 
Zuckerberg, and him alone.  But these big tech companies have tons of 
infrastructure.  There's no infrastructure at a major anymore.

And with a 
tech company it's all about scale.  Can it grow?

The majors are 
anti-scale.  It's how can we cut enough overhead and get enough rights so we can 
still pay our presidents millions?  This is a recipe for the future?

And 
the formerly brain dead touring industry can't see there's a problem.  Used to 
be the agents and promoters lived on the backs of the record companies.  The 
labels spent to build stars that people wanted to see.  Now, the labels don't 
have that kind of money, albums don't sell well enough, hell, they want some of 
that touring industry money themselves!

So what does the touring industry 
do?  Raise prices!

But the audience has had enough.  And they don't want 
to see new bands, why should they?  It's more fun to play games on your iPhone, 
cruise for dates on Craigslist, which is positively free.

If the money is 
coming back, music has to drive the culture.  Going to the show must be a 
monthly occurrence, not a once a year event.

Breaking bands takes a long 
time.   Oh, you can try a short cut, with a hit single, but that doesn't 
generate a career.

So, the turning point has come.  Everybody in it for 
the money is experiencing his last hurrah.  Finally, the stage is set for new 
players, doing it only for the music, to rebuild the industry.  Because there's 
just not enough money in it for the old powers to continue to reign.  And only 
interested in the biggest sellers, who don't sell crap anymore, they're leaving 
a ton of crumbs on the table.

Majors should get out of new music 
production, they do it poorly, the risk to reward ratio is horrible.  They 
should just be catalog houses.  When will they admit this to 
themselves?

Live Nation's problems are worse.  There are no stars to fill 
their buildings.  A merger with Ticketmaster brings talent, but does one expect 
Irving to just hand over acts on bad terms?  And those ancient acts can't sell 
tickets like they used to.

Holy f**k.  While everybody's been focusing on 
people stealing the music, the whole business imploded.  The album model has 
been destroyed.  You're better off selling one hit single on iTunes and having 
no album!  The concept of a hit driving fans to hear the other nine tracks is 
laughable.  People know the rest is crap.  They've learned this over decades.  
It will take years to convince them otherwise.  But you've got to start with 
great music, that's the only way out of this.  And there's just not enough of 
it.  Because the industry is leaving the consumer out of the equation.  Labels 
sell to radio and indies are so busy trying to look hip, most people don't pay 
attention.  A sorry state of affairs, but not terminal.  Just like Facebook 
eclipsed MySpace almost instantly, music could be revived again.  But not by 
Rupert Murdoch and those f**ks at MySpace, they're too old wave, but by 
innovators.  You might decry Twitter, but there's more action there than there 
is on this chart.  Twitter is everything music used to be...immediate, 
thrilling, satisfying, educational...and you could be a part of it!  Interscope 
doesn't care about fans, it cares about lifestyle, that of its executives, and 
the fans know it.  I don't see Jimmy inviting Black Eyed Peas fans into the 
building to romp and participate.  It's us versus them in the music business 
whereas online we're all in it together, the customer is truly 
king.

History has wiped the landscape clean.  We're at the dawn of a new 
age.  Thank f**king god."