Thoughts On: The Music Industry. Gary E. Andrews, February 17, 2023
Perhaps it was never what we thought it was, discovering and delivering artistic product, but...back in olden days it seemed there was an eclectic mix of songs, a delightful variety of creations, as opposed to a...perhaps... manufactured synthesis, almost an Artificial Intelligence of sameness, which seems easy to ignore.
Full disclosure, I'm not listening any more. If I get a little radio it's National Public Radio for objective news reporting, occasionally a rock radio that plays 'oldies', which are mostly songs that came out after I stopped listening.
I got to ask a question, or...pose a test the other day; "Sing me a..." and I named several 'famous' musical persons..."Sing me a song by..." and they couldn't. I can't. These 'famous' 'acts' whose names have gotten into my head have not put their music in my head.
Pretty girls will always get my attention. I'll know their faces, be able to match up their names, but the songs they sing don't 'hook' me, don't earworm, don't entertain.
Back in olden days there was a phase called 'Bubble Gum Music', implying it was 'aimed' at the 'tweens, the young music consumer between childhood and adolescence, who, by the way, control a billion dollars in disposable income. It's good 'business' to know your market, and reasonable to 'target' them with product you have reason to believe will appeal and garner their favor in the coin of the realm, dollars and cents.
However, the 'industry' is capable of manufacturing the product, and the market, literally telling the people, children, adults, what they like and sticking our noses in it.
That means those famous to infamous A&R People, the 'Arrangement & Repertoire' 'experts' who roamed the country 'discovering' the one-hit wonders and the talented 'artists', performers, song-writers, who labored in obscurity, playing small towns and small clubs in large metropolitan centers, and bringing them to market. We got to find music we didn't know we'd like. The industry found it in places we'd never get to go and discover it for ourselves, and brought it out of radio and tv and made us aware.
And it didn't 'seem' to fit a formula or be simply an aspiring performer, trying to imitate and emulate what already existed, or supplied with 'sounds like' product to try to sustain a 'hit' with another hit.
The formulaic country industry has been the most 'offensive' with manufactured product, trying to 'sound' country with laundry lists of things they think 'fit' the genre, "Old Dogs and Children, and Watermelon Wine", good poetry but... there are other 'lists', pickup trucks, snuff box rings imprinted on the back pocket of jeans, little white tank tops, tractors, slap a cowboy hat on his/her head and it's country. 'Western' disappeared from Country & Western.
I remember hearing a song and being intrigued by the bland line after line of lyric and then THE Hook, the title line, which was halfway interesting. I recognized the manufactured 'writing' of lines that logically lead up to that title line. I remember thinking that one good line should probably have been the first line in the lyric, and a song written from there. But that 'method', finding an interesting phrase or line and trying...sometimes succeeding, perhaps...in manufacturing a song around it, can often fail to reach artistic merit, in my opinion, the only opinion that matters when you're trying to get money out of my pocket, into your hands...the industry.
They're out there, those one-hit wonders with wonderful songs that have 'classic' potential, songs we could hear and remember fifty years from now, songs other artists could 'cover' in ten or thirty or fifty years, and have a hit with. They're out there, the truly creative artists with a larger repertoire of songs that could make them stand out in the 'industry' by appealing naturally to the 'market' with the same criteria that made them appeal to the song-writer.
The industry may not be looking for them. They may be waiting at the office for the aspiring 'act' to come in the door, trying to 'penetrate' a market they don't really comprehend; they just know where those doors are.
The industry may be struggling to stay in 'business', signing somebody because if they don't...they're out of business.
The industry may be trying to monopolize the market, getting their own product, product they wrote, or 'own' rights to Publishing Royalties, Song-Writing Royalties, Master Recordings they 'own' and can market for Synchronization Licensing. It doesn't take a genius to realize where revenue streams continue to be profitable and where they are no longer profitable.
Record Labels used to take all the profits from record sales and tell 'artists' to go tour and make their money out there. Artists did it. Some were better than others at 'commerce', selling the company's records, but having their own revenue streams through live-play pay, from simple restaurants, bars, clubs, larger venues, doing concerts in theaters, up to arenas, and the outrageous ticket prices. Some learned merchandising, selling anything they could think of, pictures, hats, t-shirts, bumper stickers, sew-on patches. What else? If you were 'out there', on the road, and setting up your 'Merch Table', what would you sell? That revenue stream could be equal to or greater than' your music revenue, the venue pay, a cut of the door, ticket sales, and any dribs and drabs the 'industry' trickled down on you.
In 2023, YOU are the industry, if you're 'marketing' yourself, your music. You have to be 'the one' to make the big decisions on what you play, where you play, and what all you can sell. If you get good at it, generating numbers, units of sales of various things, creating a natural buzz in the consuming public, other 'entities' may want to be your 'industry', blowing you up larger in the global public eye and ear, promoting you, getting you on tv, if you haven't done that for yourself, getting you 'distributed', on radio, streaming, if you haven't done it yourself. Then, you have to watch your back, watch your signature go onto pieces of paper that 'give' the 'industry' rights to share in your revenue stream.
Have you studied that? Have you spent as much time learning how to be a company, engaging in commerce with consumers, and engaging with other companies, management, labels, distributors, publishers, as you've spent writing your songs? If you're a babe in the woods the wolves and sharks can turn you into a big fish they can attach their suckers to and leave you drained at the end of the ride.
Or...are you a song-writer, aspiring to make a living playing and 'selling' your songs, and not really cognizant of what success can mean, what success will demand of you, if you are to maintain control of your Intellectual Property, Copyright control, Master Recording control, ownership, legal, formal ownership? Your 'industrious' work, your 'studious' attention to commerce, 'business', can make you 'the industry' for all intents and purposes. Whether you are 'the industry' is up to you.

There will always be another song to be written. Someone will write it. Why not you? www.garyeandrews.com