Research for Music Video... The state of the Music Industry 2012

The music industry has changed dramatically within the last 10 years. In class we studied an article from 'The Guardian". It was based on the music season and what changes are being made and what bands are actually beginning to suffer as well as why. We studied an article called "Music is thriving, but the business is dying. Who can make it pay again?" I could not agree with this more as as we all well know because of websites like YouTube and programs such as YouTube Converter there is no need to buy CD's anymore.
Despite all the hype about Brit awards and digital revolution the music business is serious financial trouble. "Sales were down 7% last year in the UK and by nearly 10% in the United States" these figures are drastic, the music industry needs to be coming up with something and quick, music no longer seems like a great business to get yourself into, of course there are special programs created such as iTunes that encourage you to buy your music  and the thing that persuades them is the fact that iTunes promises best quality recordings. However, the question is was iTunes that big a success considering that they are destroying the notion of an album. The music industry has HALVED in size as there are hardly anymore purchases of "Physical" Sales. "The US, where all music business trends start, download sales growth has stalled, posting just 1% growth throughout all of 2010". These numbers are ridiculous, this just accentuates the amount of trouble that the music industry is in even in Britain 60 HMV stores had to shut as digital sales hope to save the industry.

Take That, with Robbie Williams maybe be one of the few bands that can still sell large quantities of CD's. "It is Radiohead that point the way to the all-digital future. Radiohead released their second album The King of Limbs as a download". Their style of self-promotion has been called a 'logical progression' from the 'honesty box' approach - this is where the listener can buy the album for what they think that it's worth. They also planned a physical release with special additions, comprising a CD, two 10-inch vinyl discs and a "host of artwork on sale for a healthy price of £33."
The main problem is, Radiohead's approach can't work for every artist therefore each record label needs to be coming up with a clever way of distribution. The X Factor winners are unlikely candidates to be selling albums for £33 the main way of making money now is performing live music as people still have to pay for the tickets. Another example of making money is Ellie Goulding, "she likes to run as much as she likes to sing" therefore she created an event with her fans that was supported by Nike, and through Facebook organised a race on tour in seven different cities with selected fans.
"Many hope that music subscription services, such as Spotify in Europe and Pandora in the USA can generate new, meaningful forms of revenue." Of course this is just a test so far If you were to listen to spotify for free you would be bombarded with adverts that would make it impossible for you to enjoy music, so now they have come up with the solution of 'pay £10 and you'll have no adverts, they are now looking for "broader combinations of ways to make money."
The main solution bands now have is selling out tickets to gigs and shifting to merchandise instead. Lady Gaga's telephone video featuring Beyonce has roughly 121million view on YouTube. This helps create her image - controversial, half naked and a bit freaky. It obviously attracts attention this makes the song spread as it soon becomes VIRAL. YouTube advertising revenue gets the artist extended profits that may fit into her sales, also this video in particular was a massive thing as a mini movie for a music video created a massive event and aroused interest for the viewers.

The differences between now and then:

• THEN there was more fuss created about the music and it's sound rather than the promotion of the actual artist. NOW it almost seems that the music doesn't even count if you love the image of the artist you ought to love all their music.
• THEN the industry only needed to advertise the music with posters and maybe radio, this would create interest and people would go to music stores to get hold of a copy of the song. NOW technology so so developed that it has become a threat to the music industry YouTube, music channels, social networking, nobody even needs to own a music player to get to play music. Most people don't even need a record label because they can record and put their music up on YouTube, as soon as it becomes Viral and creates a big enough fan base... we have a new 'star'. 
• THEN computers were not so well developed, there was no such thing as illegal download, NOW that technology is developing, so are we. Illegal downloads have been created and who wouldn't use them, you get to have thousands of songs that you love and listen to them whenever you like.