April 04, 2003

CD Sales are Down. Here’s How to Fix It.

From Reuters:

Music industry group sues college file swappers

LOS ANGELES, April 3 (Reuters) – A music industry group on Thursday said it has filed lawsuits against the operators of private computer networks on three college campuses where it claims the networks are being used to illegally trade copies of digital music files.

The Recording Industry Association of America said its member companies filed suit against two students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and against one student each at Princeton University and Michigan Technological University.

CD sales are down. Everybody in the music business is saying it’s because of people swapping MP3’s over the Net. But it’s really because the music companies got out of the music business.

For 10 years the music biz experimented with taking the music out of music. You don’t write new songs – you just sample old ones. You throw out the melody and harmony altogether, and just rap… or, in the case of thrash and metal music, just scream the harshest sound you can. And you don’t want much sound anyway – you don’t want a lot of instruments playing or anything like that – because it distracts you from the video. Everybody knows movie music isn’t supposed to distract you from the picture.

MTV seemed perfect when it started. The product was the ad; the ad was the product. But then the music started to change to better suit the ad, which meant – less music to distract the eye. MTV was the first to realize something was wrong – they mostly got out of the video business and started airing original shows in their place. But the music biz didn’t figure it out. Instead of changing the ad to suit the product, they minimized the product so it didn’t interfere with the ad.

So without realizing it, the music business got out of the music business and into the video business.

The music biz blames low sales on file-swapping. But why should people spend $18 to buy a CD that’s had all the music sucked out of it?

The music biz can do something about this by finding producers, songwriters, and arrangers who can invent a new pop sound for the millenium. The biz will have to be pro-active, like Berry Gordy was with Motown in the 60’s – like all the great producers, from George Martin to Dr. Dre. They need to build great chord changes, fun lyrics, and big harmonies into every track.

Eminem and Dr. Dre are a good example of this. They’re not sampling old songs – Dr. Dre is writing and producing new music, that sounds awesome. And if you listen closely to Eminem, you’ll notice that the notes he’s rapping on sound really good with Dr. Dre’s music. It’s a secret – don’t tell anyone – but Eminem’s singing.