blake johnson

I bought Guitar Hero 3 for the Xbox 360 about a week ago (I know, I am a bit late getting on the bandwagon). I find it to be a rather fun rhythm game, less exhausting than DDR (a minus, I like the physical craziness of DDR), but also a less familiar experience (a plus). I am stuck on medium difficulty until I get more familiar with the game.

Something that surprised me, though, as I was browsing the iTunes music store’s best sellers a couple days ago, was that many of the songs I had been playing in Guitar Hero were on the best sellers list. After a bit further investigation, I noticed that almost the entire song list of Guitar Hero 3 is on the 100 best sellers in the Rock genre of the iTMS.

Maybe I should not be surprised that Guitar Hero can revive interest in some great rock classics— it is a popular game and it features some great music. However, it does suggest something else… the makers of Guitar Hero now have a good argument that they shouldn’t have to pay to license songs for future Guitar Hero games, because having your song in their game will create a massive increase in demand for your music.

It also means that we have entered a time when video games are influencing music listening, and not in some minor way. Digital music sales have finally surpassed retail store sales, so when the top sellers on iTMS are from a video game, that indicates a big impact. It would be fun to see some real numbers on sales for these songs.

Just read this article on the New York Times. The way these music executives talk about mp3 players really pisses me off. Check out this quote:

“It’s a major change for the industry,” said David Geffen, the entertainment mogul who more than a decade ago sold the record label that bears his name to Universal. “Each of these devices is used to store unpaid-for material. This way, on top of the material people do pay for, the record companies are getting paid on the devices storing the copied music.”

I also have only 100 songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store on my iPod, but the majority of the rest of the music is ripped from my personal CD collection. Just because I didn’t download it from iTMS doesn’t mean I didn’t pay for it, but it seems like that is the mentality of the music industry.

A neat article on using smart playlists to get more out of iTunes.

I had a reader comment that he thought my post regarding the potential collapse of the music industry was really just an attempt to justify illegally downloading music. Unfortunatley, I accidentally deleted the comment… but I wanted to respond.

I was not attempting to justify illegal file-sharing. Most of the songs I download are songs for which I own the cd or tape, but do not have the cd or tape with me at school. I think this type of use is justified by “fair use” rules. Otherwise, I purchase the cd in a store or from iTunes, buymusic.com, rhapsody, or another online music source.

The intent of my comments regarding file-sharing was to point out that illegal file-sharing is not what is killing the music industry. If you look at the revenue of cd sales for the entire industry in the period 1995-2003 you will notice that revenue has increased every year until cerca 2000-2001, at which point it basically holds steady.

It is not a coincidence that this leveling-off corresponds with the world-wide economic recession. Sure, these numbers might be higher without file-sharing; but the music industry does not have the evidence to even suggest that online file-sharing is the cause of their woes.

I would propose, instead, that the music industry’s problem is that it produces a product which is only appealing to a tiny portion of their possible market. Essentially, the 14-25 year-old segment of the market is the only one interested in the majority of new commercial music.

The music industry is dying because it has alienated its customers. The rest of us are sick of teeny-bopper teen-idol crap. We want music with depth, and we want innovation! If the music industry does not step up to the plate and begin offering a product to those with even a slightly sophisticated palate, then the music industry as we know it may be seeing its last days.

I was reading an article in Wired magazine over break that was suggesting that the music industry may be on the verge of collapse. According to that magazine, CD sales fell by 11 percent last year on top of a 3 percent fall from the year before. I almost hate to say it, because the idea of what I am about to say sounded weird even to me when I first thought it, but I think that the collapse of the music industry would be good for music.

Why do I think this? Well, first of all, the collapse of the music industry would not necessarily hurt the artists. It is well-known that except in a few exceptional cases, musicians hardly make any money off of CD sales. Instead, their major revenue comes from tours. Now, it is true that the music industry often makes it possible for artists to make new music, but it is hard to believe that musicians will stop making music if the music industry collapses.

Second, I believe that the primary reason that the music industry is collapsing is that no one over the age of 30 cares! The music industy has been pointing its finger at the rise of file-sharing programs such as Napster, KaZaA, Gnutella, and the like, but these really are just a convenient scape-goat. The music industry has very effectively captured the teen market in its promotion of Brittany Spears, Christany Aguilera, N Sync, etc. The industy has at the same time, however, completely ignored the development of artists whose music does not necessarily appeal to the instant-gratification desires of teenagers. Sure, there are a few of these musicians hanging around (U2, Sting, and the Rolling Stones come to mind), but there are even more of such musicians singing to local crowds in America’s bars than there are making CDs with $100,000 production budgets.

The Wired magazine article predicted, quite correctly, I think, that the collapse of the music industry would “produce fewer global superstars and more locally successful musicians”. And this is why I think the collapse of the music industry would be good for music.