Agree, interesting article. However, the anecdote you mentioned sounds fishy to me... I think the teenagers would have been glad to take home free CD's (and rip them to their iTunes or whatever) -- IF they were CD's of music that they wanted.
I go to occasional yard sales and see records/cd's/tapes that are free or almost free - I rarely ever take any home, since they aren't ones I want.
A co-worker just unloaded her entire collection of cd's on me a couple months ago. I sorted thru - I kept ONE. And passed the rest of the collection of crappy music on to others...
Not hard for me to imagine some clueless record company fatcats and marketing people setting out "free" cd's, that did not match the musical interests of a given group of teenagers.

Ha! You beat me to it! I was planning on posting a link to the same article. Interesting yes- perhaps a little depressing too. On the other hand, the scope of the article can't track all the potential trends, and as we've seen there is starting to be a resurgence of a sort in physical playback, including vinyl.

Be that as it may- when I read an article from the economist (to which I subscribe BTW) I take it pretty seriously. Perhaps the whole "music industry" needs to shrink a bit. SO much is just utter garbage that maybe it's time for the bubble to burst and re-think things a bit. It's not that we need quantity, it's just some compelling quality to give people a reason to buy. Still- sometimes it's pretty sad when I look at the landscape today. I like a lot of new stuff, I really do, but where are the talented giants of times past? Who today can come close to the range and staying power of a Ray Charles, or Beatles or early Stones? U2, REM and a few others have had some staying power, but those other guys used to crank out album after album of fantastic stuff every year for decades.

I still have some original records my dad used to listen to in the late 50s! There is something to handling and listening to a physical item that meant something to someone 50 years ago that a digital file will never carry. "Here son- here's a copy of my hard driver; enjoy!" Hmmmm.

My son is only 19 months at this point, but loves all the music I play for him, from jazz to blues, rock and progressive(no kid's stuff in our house! Yanni can play somewhere else thanks). Most of it's on vinyl, so maybe he'll grow up appreciating the sometimes intangible but real value of certain "formats."

Demise of the CD? Does that article really say that? It says sales of CDs and even Downloads are down. It does not say Downloads or any other medium have over taken CDs so I don't see anything that suggests we won't have music on CDs in the near future. If anything the article suggests that the music industry needs to consolidate and reinvent themselves which is what they seem to be doing.
However I can predict that the moment Flash Memory costs as little as a raw CD, music will come on 1 Gb SD cards like those used in cameras. Imagine a multiple CD box set on a 4Gb SD card.
If the record labels get smart they won't wait too long and start offering this already as the savings in postage alone would cover part of the flash memory cost. Getting that music to a HD or something like a Transporter or a Sonos is just a USB reader away. Looking forward if a DAC was the size of a pocket camera then all you need to do would be to stick in your SD card and you have it all.

Bill and all: it's funny about crappy music. i will scout the local goodwill for vinyl and often, what is there is not to my taste, but it is almost always gone the next time i show up. i have made some major finds there though (for almost free).
we live in an American Idol age. The rolling stones, beatles, clapton probably wouldn't have made it past the first round. but none of my kids has ever bought or ripped anything by any idolette that i am aware of, they have however ripped my entire dire straits, steely dan, pink floyd and other old timer greats. as much as i like scantily clad nymphettes, we really don't need another one that a big label packages up and says can sing. i think the music public other than pubescent girls is catching on to this too. even though you don't hear it on the radio (i wouldn't anyway), independent labels are popping up again, vinyl is resurging, and xm, serious and digital are providing outlets for some new artists.
the traditional music companys have become bloated, self-serving, ego stroking dinosaurs at this point.
rant over, cooling off, ahh normality again.

tom

this seems a good development to me.

Quote:
we live in an American Idol age. The rolling stones, beatles, clapton probably wouldn't have made it past the first round.

While I don't dispute that we live in an American Idol age, we always have. The Beatles, Stones, etc. were just as much a result of media as any recording artist today. In some ways even more so than today; the press made little effort to look behind the "official" stories as they do now.

partly what i meant by that comment is that everything is very cookie-cutter these days. then, there were many independent labels and independent radio stations. i think the internet is starting to bring that back to us a little and challenge the mcworld concept.

tom

I have to disagree- the ground-breaking work by the early rock musicians is NOTHING like the Idol packaged pop wannabes of today. Those guys worked hard and grew, organically, into what they became. Sure, business is all part of any endeavor, but those groups were not created from some slick ad agency guy turned music exec. I grew up after all that was dead an buried and punk rock was giving the music industry the well-deserved middle finger. Since then it's been hit or miss and a constant fight to NOT get sucked into the "music machine." But give the pioneers their due, at least for where they got to before they turned into self parodies.

As with any time in musical history, there are now people who obtain financial success with little talent. However, even those without much talent have have generally worked their tails off for years. Of course, some have both worked hard, have talent and have succeeded.

This is as it always has been. Music has always been entertainment first, art second.

There is no question that the Beatles, Stones and others of the '60's had talent, as did some others. There were also those with success and little talent.

The big acts of the '60s were just as much a function of the best media manipulation that could be mustered at the time as anything else. This doesn't take anything away from them, but rather simply recognizes the existence of other forces as well.

We need to recall however that both the Beatles and Stones were originally just British club bands performing covers of simple blues-inspired 50's rock. They weren't even very good. But they were lucky and developed their talents with the extra time the attention they received granted them.

Many equally talented never were able to quit their day jobs, just like today. It's just they way the world works.

There was never a magical time in history when talent alone guaranteed success, or when hype and meeting popular demands for comfortable familiar entertainment wasn't part of the formula. The history of classical music is replete with innumerable stories of the talented jilted for those with better press, connections, the ability to sate the popular palate.

The bulk of music created during any period was derivative, uninspired dreck. Time does have a nice way of filtering out a lot of junk however.

Thanks for the more complete clarification Elk- you present a more three dimensional view. You're right esp. about that talent alone (at any time in history) can't make for success or popularity. Anyone remember that Mozart guy that died penniless?

I wonder which contemporaneous groups, if any, will be later considered by history to be equivalent in talent/impact as the Beatles. We rarely recognize the really good artists when they are in our midst.

Easier to recognize talent at the time, than it is to project the social impact - or the eventual sales figures.

Here's a band I recommend to anyone - the Drones.
Their talent/vision/performance/commitment/songwriting/intensity: HUGE.
Sales/popularity currently in the USA: TINY.