Cinnie said:

krayzie said:

What type of crystal meth have you been smoking?!? The suits have no responsibility for this situation? The suits created this situation in the first place. As for wanting to find and develop real talented people. that's the reason why record labels are supposed to have A&R departments. It's their job to develop and cultivate talent. Bruce Springsteen had a huge debut album, but it took several albums after that before he became a multi-platinum artist. Same with Prince, as he didn't begin to become a mainstream commercial success until he released 1999, and U2, while a cult favorite, didn't begin to reach mainstream success until The Unforgettable Fire. Finding an artist who is successful from the get go and has potential for longevity, like Madonna, Mariah Carey, or Alicia Keys, is rare; yet the business model of the current corporate owned record labels consisted of slashing their A&R departments and searching for that needle in the haystack or just creating a bunch of disposable artists in search of the quick buck.

The labels began sowing the seeds of their own destruction by eliminating singles from record stores and by not realizing the switch to digital music by fans. They had a golden opportunity to corner the digital download market, but instead of partnering with Napster and Kazaa, they sued them out of existence instead and set up DRM-loaded download services which were ridiculously overpriced. As for Steve Jobs, his focus was to create a stylish mp3 player that was easy to use, and the purpose of iTunes was to create a music download service that would complement his digital music player (the iPod). Other mp3 player companies wanted to make deals with the record labels to compete against Apple, but the record labels insisted on proprietary DRM-riddled restrictions and overpriced downloads. As a result, people who were downloading music for free just switched to other programs like Ares or BitTorrent while those who legally downloaded their music switched to iTunes.

However, what the record labels really have to worry about now is not iTunes or Amazon mp3 but MySpace and YouTube. In most cases, it's not even necessary to download music because there are aspiring artists online who are bucking the traditional distribution channels and going directly to the fans themselves. What will really happen is that you will have a ton of indie labels created from these social networking communities which will create the bulk of music in the future for the love of it instead of trying to reach Wall Street expectations.

728huey said:

well thats it in a nutshell. It comes down to really investing in artists and labels arent going to do it, and thats why they are failing. They would rather sign someone for a minute have a quick hit or ringtone and then on to the next, now that philosphy may sound like 'good business" but it works for only so long and in the long run you are left with nothing, at least if you invest in an artist and wait for them to catch on and actually lose a little money to begin with, the reward in the end is greater. Prince is an example, up until album 5 Prince was not more than a loyal following at best, but the album built on that, he had people that knew he had IT. Had this been now and PRINCE was coming out, he wouldnt even make it to that 4th album, he would have been dropped after 2 if he was lucky, and would have been forced by some label to become something he wasnt just to sell.