Go back 10 years ago and all the big companies with the serious money were the media companies who owned the record labels. They had the money in the bank to research the internet and get their own streaming solutions in place, instead they got overtaken by the tech giants who saw the future and decided to change how we listen to music. Now these companies are the ones at the top of the stock markets and can dictate what happens.
It will be interesting see what Amazon really do with the Premiership after their two sets of matches because I doubt Sky or BT will be able to compete if they decide to become serious players in that market.
Watching my grandkids on Xmas day asking for songs through their Echo Dot we bought them and watching them enjoying music is far better, and worth the money I pay for the service, than having to drag them around HMV and try to buy 10 cds or ask the brain dead assistants for help finding certain titles.
To an extent I agree, the tech is here and today is today. There are pluses and minuses, I’ve noted a few and so have you. I do feel the overall losers are music lovers and stand by the lessening in quality and value I concede the tech has brought about a vastly more convenient way to consume but then again so did McDonallds and they are bad juju.
This is the thing, as music lovers, we all access to a lot more music, more conveninetly. I can’t see that as a bad thing!
In terms of quality, yes, perhaps in terms of who gets the big bucks, but I think that’s more of an industry/cultural issue. If people didn’t want this shite, then no one would make it/publish it.
Society ain’t what it used to be? Perhaps we’re just gumpy old men, lol. (but I agree, the consumer culture is not healthy and not just for music - see environment, etc.)
One of the examples that springs to mind of a record company using its considerable ill gotten gains to give an artist time to develop (and therefore make even more money off them) is Prince. Warner Bros gave him a ton of studio time, more or less complete control over what he did with it and didnt interfere with production. You could argue that the period and albums between ‘78 and ‘82 were just sunk costs to see where this ridiculously talented musician might go with it with the faith that it’s not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things even if he turns out a dud.
Then he comes out with 1999 and Purple Rain.
Huge kerrching
But they’d have dropped him and written off their ‘investment’ if it didn’t work out.
The arguments only really started to happen when Prince with full artistic control, and now success behind him, wanted control over what he released and when, with multiple triple albums backing up in the vault. Of course that all ended well
Veering off topic but in terms of fostering talent that shaped cultures Ahmet Ertegun really did something amazing (See Led Zep / Aretha Franklyn etc) Aretha for example was signed to Columbia and her records weren’t really setting the world on fire, (Today she would have been dropped) musically she was not clearly defined. Ahmet signed her and allowed her to develop her ‘sound’
(but I agree, the consumer culture is not healthy and not just for music - see environment, etc.)
