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When Vivendi SA took over Universal Music Group in 2000, the industry was riding high on bumper sales of CDs, though the investment soon soured as illegal downloads surged. CD revenue plunged by two-thirds over the next decade, and by the early 2010s, unloading Universal would’ve been a tough sell; who would pay a premium for a company whose main product—pop songs—was widely available for free? But today, Vivendi is considering the sale of a stake in Universal that could value the label at more than $25 billion.
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The rebound can be traced to the same boogeyman that almost killed the business in the first place: the internet. These days, music fans have largely shifted from illegal downloads to paid streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Prime, and Pandora, which generally charge $5 to $10 a month for unlimited access to millions of songs.
Have record labels, like zombies, really returned from the dead?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday February 07 2019, @04:55PM
... Because 95%+ of people don't want to explore and discover new artists by browsing themselves. They don't want to suffer through 95% bad performances (or the 5-10% of that 90% decent performance of music the listener doesn't like) to find the ones that are worthy of being listened to (and again). Give me a radio station that plays a lot of music I'm familiar with and slips in new stuff that a label and the station think I'd like to hear, that's how I'll find the few new songs every year I want to have in my permanent collection.
Labels perform three basic functions:
1) They're a winnowing, a sort of audition. I don't need to have America's Got Talent audition several thousand acts, I just need a label with a decent A&R department.
2) They advance money to artists to deliver work that may or may not be successful, and they make their business by being an economy of scale (support 95 bad artists to get 5 that make all that money back and then some). One can bemoan how much of a cut they get, but one never had to deal with them in the first place, even when they seemed like the only game in town.
3) Technical services for production with experienced people with track records. Yes, anyone can buy the software and produce their own album. "Anyone" does not necessarily have insight about how to bring the best sound out of a band using that software. And further a sound that is still the band but likely to be popular. Of course there are exceptions. But talented backline people can in fact be helpful.
Corollary: Record labels aren't there to make an artist money. Never have been and it's a lottery fantasy for an artist to believe otherwise. ("Gee, if I only get a contract then I'll be set!") They are there to get an artist exposure and to get an artist popular enough that he or she makes a living from touring, and to make money for the label by doing so.
Both me and my best friend used to make casette mixtapes off the radio. When I think of all the hours we wasted doing so.... of course we didn't have the money to buy the albums (the whole point of creating the mixtapes). When I got to the point of being able to afford them did I keep doing mixtapes? Of course not.
Omnibus: The record industry is a system that serves the consuming public, and the public will in fact pay for such services. Why that should have been surprising is what's surprising.
This sig for rent.