The first reference to Edison’s phonograph seems to be this satirical piece from November, 1877. At least, I hope it’s satirical:

There is good reason to believe that if the phonograph proves to be what its inventor claims that it is, both book making and reading will fall into disuse.
…
The politician, instead of howling himself hoarse on the platform, will have a pint of his best speech put in the hands of each one of his constituents.

I’m not sure I’d want a pint of anything offered by a politician.

The Times’ first description of Edison’s phonograph appears in March of the following year, recounting the demonstration to “an intelligent audience” of a six-tabled array of mysterious instruments.

A June, 1878 article discusses David Hughes invention of the carbon microphone, an “astonishing instrument or apparatus, which opens to our ears a universe of sounds hitherto inaudible.”

Berliner’s gramophone was first mentioned October 24th, 1890.

Jul 19, 1897 saw the earliest reference to Marconi’s “contrivance for wireless telegraphy.”

an electrical machine on a stick with an electric wire wrapped around it. Electric vibrations are transmitted to another stick attached to a receiver. An electric hammer records the dots and dashes.

There’s no reference to Fessenden’s invention of AM radio, nor his first “broadcast” on Christmas Eve, 1906. (Though we wouldn’t really expect one. Fessenden wasn’t recognized as the inventor of modern radio until much later.) However, the prevailing favour of Marconi’s approach is evidenced in this OpEd piece from December, 1907, championing Marconi’s accomplishments from across the pond: “Of ten dispatches from our correspondent in America, nine have been delivered correctly.” Apparently, the “can you hear me now” guy has historical precedent.

Finally, the earliest reference to a music industry I could find appeared February, 1921. Musical instrument manufacturers argued in favour of a uniform sales tax, and against excise and surplus income taxes. Draw your own conclusion from that one.

The article rehashes so many clichés and myths, I’m surprised anyone took it seriously. Yet a quick look about the ‘Net shows popular sites like Coolfer and BoingBoing linking the article with no mention of its flaws. And its flaws bear discussing. Given the WSJ’s authority, their argument that MP3s and iPods are ruining pop music could affect thousands of independent artists who depend on the technologies for promotion.

Myths and Clichés

I’ll address a few of the article’s specific flaws before discussing their significance. First, this quote:

Those who work behind-the-mic in the music industry — producers, engineers, mixers and the like — say they increasingly assume their recordings will be heard as MP3s on an iPod music player. That combination is thus becoming the “reference platform” used as a test of how a track should sound.

This blanket statement is misleading because, at most, it’s true in only a handful of cases. Some engineers might use the iPod/Mp3 combination as their only reference platform. But it’s disingenuous to imply the format is becoming “the reference platform.” Remember that virtually all pop music passes the ears of a mixing engineer, a producer, and a mastering engineer, before release. The idea that all three would work with the album through nothing but earbuds is just silly.

But because both compressed music and the iPod’s relatively low-quality earbuds have many limitations, music producers fret that they are engineering music to a technical lowest common denominator. The result, many say, is music that is loud but harsh and flat, and thus not enjoyable for long periods of time.

Forget the unsubstantiated blanket attribution to “many.” This passage not only attempts to rewrite history, it contradicts the article’s premise!

Modern pop music may sound harsh, but it sounded that way before iPods and MP3s. What’s The Story Morning Glory, from 1995, and Californication, from 1999, are generally offered as definitive examples of the loud, harsh, flat sound. (Though check out The Arctic Monkeys’ Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not for a great example released in the age of iPods.) The “modern pop sound” has little to do with MP3 compression, or any particular playback device, or even an engineer’s considerations thereof.

In fact, loud pop music sounds just as abrasive when heard on an iPod, the supposed reference platform. Didn’t the article just finish claiming that engineers now mix songs to sound best on the iPod?

The process of boosting volume, though, tends to eliminate a track’s distinct highs and lows. As a result, contemporary pop music has a characteristic sound

Brickwall limiting and mix compression, standard ways to boost volume, certainly affect the sound of a track, but not by “eliminating” distinct high or low frequencies and dynamics. Attenuating, perhaps, but not eliminating. Even the most egregious in-your-face mastering job still yields music. And while Californication may have been truly crushed, it has a beat, great melodies, and will induce ear bleeding with the tweeter cranked.

As for the characteristic sound, the same could be said of Merseybeat, disco, hair metal ballads, or any of the hundreds of genres through which pop has evolved. It’s those characteristic sounds that put the pop in pop music!

Why do I care?

Notwithstanding the title, Mr. Gomes’s article actually strives to make an insidious point, namely that music doesn’t sound as good as it used to, and this is the fault of ignorant recording artists and mixing engineers, and their MP3s.

I take issue with this for the obvious reason: I’m a recording artist and a mixing engineer! But I also feel strongly about his argument because, as I said above, the article rehashes some common myths and falsehoods, and popular acceptance of these myths serves to hurt independent artists.

Listeners

Average listeners and consumers of music will conclude one of 3 things if they take the article seriously. That:
1) MP3s and iPods are bad.
2) Audio engineers and modern artists are deliberately destroying music, and this is bad.
3) Things aren’t the same as they used to be, and this is also somehow bad.

The first two are ludicrous. The third is subjective, and at best open for debate. But all 3 foster the false notion that the technologies indies now depend on for promotion are, in reality, hurting music.

Are MP3s and iPods bad? MP3 compression and iPod players are tools, and as such are neither good nor bad. They can be misused like all tools, of course, but then the blame for any “bad” they cause should lie with the (mis)user, not the technology.

Assuming you’re an indie artist, consider how you’d respond to a fan demanding you offer WAV files on your web site because MP3s have destroyed music, or a fan who refuses to buy a CD because you obviously didn’t mix it with her iPod in mind. Those are the messages, ridiculous as they appear, that the WSJ addresses to regular, non-tech-savvy readers.

Are audio engineers and modern artists deliberately destroying music? Sure, some might be. Artists, and creative people in general, often act unconventionally. Heck, Ry Cooder mastered his last album with iTunes software, so the idea of producing an album that only sounds good on an iPod isn’t so far fetched.

In fact, counter-intuitive approaches like these are a hallmark of pop! The art and science of pop music production progress exactly because of such deliberate acts of destruction. And the discipline as a whole grows as we keep the techniques that work, and throw out or recycle the rest.

Will we add “mixing an mp3 on an iPod” to our future arsenal? I doubt it, though it’s too early to say for sure. More importantly, though, I would never lament the possibility just because I don’t personally like the sound. And I’d certainly never write off the whole format because it doesn’t conform to my understanding of convention.

Things aren’t the same as they used to be: But any discussion of pop culture which ignores the fleeting nature of trends is absurd. Change is a constant, in pop music especially, and anyone who tells you otherwise has bought into the oldest cliché in pop culture: Ageism.

“Kids these days don’t know what REAL rock sounds like.”
“Old rockers wouldn’t know a phat beat if it dropped on their balding heads.”

If either of these describes your opinion, for some perspective dig out a copy of The Ronettes’ Be My Baby. The track is heralded as the perfection of Phil Spector’s Wall Of Sound, but after a good critical listen, I expect you’ll reach the same conclusion as most people: By modern standards, it sounds like crap. Quiet, constricted, thin.

And well it should. Specter mixed the track to sound good in a car, in mono, BROADCAST OVER A.M. RADIO!

This raises two obvious questions. First, if Be My Baby only sounds good through mono car speakers, how did it ever become a hit? Second, if Phil Spector could generate hits with such a narrowly focussed listening audience in mind, who are we to judge modern producers trying the same approach?

I don’t know the answer to the first question, though I suspect hit songs ultimately depend far more on quality writing, performance, and promotion than on production. The second question is rhetorical.

I’ll note, however, that while I dislike Spector’s work, my opinion on the matter is, as Steve Martin pointed out, a bit like dancing about architecture. And despite the impressive resume of an aging producer who declares pop music harsh, flat, and dead, his opinion amounts to the same thing.

Unfortunately, people disregard this, and take him seriously when he assigns blame to MP3s and iPods.

Amateur Engineers

These misconceptions affect listeners’ acceptance of a technology, and by extension, artists’ options for promotion. But the artists themselves, especially those who self-record and produce, also need to be wary of the claims in Mr. Gomes’s article.

Amateurs, in any field, learn from the wisdom of professionals as much as through hands-on experience. Because most people conclude from the WSJ article that compromised sound is a fact of life, some could decide that it’s now pointless to record and mix the best possible track.

Let me repeat a message I’ve shared before: You should always mix for your listeners. But unless you are absolutely certain that all your listeners have iPods, and listen through earbuds, you’d be a fool not to check your mix through other systems before releasing it.

There are few truths so important to an indie artist as “you only get one chance to make a first impression.” Or in the case of musicians, two first impressions: Songwriting and recording both need to impress, at least insofar as the recording must support the song.

So believe, if you wish, that MP3′s quality shortcomings will hide your music’s flaws. But don’t automatically assume that’s the only way your music will ever be heard.

Disservice

The Wall Street Journal is widely read and respected, and its authors have the power to shape public perception. Even if we allow that Mr. Gomes wrote his article with the best intentions, he still advances myths that do no good lodged in our collective consciousness.

I don’t know if modern pop music has been ruined. I don’t even know if such a thing is possible by any objective standard. But I do know that MP3s and iPods have given independent artists valuable control over how they distribute and promote their music. And I’m certain that by telling people these technologies have had a negative effect, The Wall Street Journal has done a disservice to thousands of indie musicians and engineers.

Columbia didn’t want Rubin to punch a clock. It wanted him to save the company. And just maybe the record business… It is Columbia’s belief that Rubin will hear the answers in the music — that he will find the solution to its ever-increasing woes. The mighty music business is in free fall — it has lost control of radio; retail outlets like Tower Records have shut down; MTV rarely broadcasts music videos; and the once lucrative album market has been overshadowed by downloaded singles, which mainly benefits Apple.

The article, though, also skirts an important question, one that leads to a lesson for independent artists and labels: How can Rubin, and Columbia, possibly restore the industry’s grip on our perception of value?

Trying Something Different

In their fawning over Rubin as a producer, the Times missed the most puzzling element of the story. Bob Lefsetz, however, minces no words getting to the point:

… I couldn’t stop scratching my head and wondering what the fuck Rick Rubin was DOING at Columbia. I mean if he really wanted to revolutionize the business, make a difference, would he have taken a job at a MAJOR LABEL?

On one hand, it’s easy to sympathize with Columbia. At least they’re trying something different. (Perhaps the whole “sue the fans” thing hasn’t panned out as expected.) But at the same time, Rubin’s hire suggests a surprising circumstance: Columbia has bought into a persistent myth, a myth they themselves even helped promote.

The myth of the record deal

Success in pop music, financial success anyway, has never really been about the music. The idea that a band succeeds simply by having talent and getting discovered by a record label is a myth practically as old as recording technology.

From the music industry’s perspective, continued acceptance of the myth has had no downside. Bands lined up, indeed spent their careers, hoping their talent would snag them a coveted recording deal, and in the process provided an endless supply of product for the labels. Fans, for their part, believed that because record deals are so exclusive, the labels must truly be filtering the most talented artists.

Fan opinion on the matter has obviously changed in recent years (thanks very much, Kris Kross.) But bands, by and large, haven’t given up the idea that talent plus representation equals success. And with a “music guru” now in charge of business affairs, the execs at Columbia seem, implausibly, to be saying exactly that. As though their main problem this last decade was simply a lack of really talented artists.

A David Geffen quote from the NY Times article illustrates how wildly off the mark this is: [emphasis mine]

Only 10 years ago, companies wanted to make records, presumably good records, and see if they sold.

10 years ago, the Spice Girls and Hanson topped the charts. One needn’t look any further for definitive examples of marketing-over-music, style-over-substance promotion. The antithesis of “presumably good.” And while we also heard OK Computer for the first time in 1997, Capitol deemed the album commercial suicide. Hardly an example of a company “wanting to make a record.”

Had Geffen said “10 years ago, companies wanted to market carefully selected product to a captive audience,” we’d have a far more accurate depiction of the music industry’s history. In fact, by 1997 the major labels had refined the process of maintaining a captive audience, an environment in which they could dictate the value of their product to consumers.

Historical Context

For 3 generations now, record execs and their A/R men have done one thing best: Sell us what we want to hear.

But note, the emphasis has always been on “sell” instead of “what we want.” Rather than serving as filters for the good stuff, the major labels built their empires by understanding consumers, then signing artists they could most easily market to those consumers.

An act’s talent mattered only insomuch as it affected the label’s ability to effectively market that act (<cough>Milli Vanilli<cough>.) That’s not to say talent was irrelevant, of course. But since the labels had ultimate and final say over what we heard, an artist’s talent was but a factor to consider. The much more important consideration remained, for most of the industry’s history, whether the label could dictate to us how we’d perceive the act’s value.

The power to control our perception of value, it turns out, was crucial.

For all their blustering about theft and rights and suffering artists, the major labels are still among the most powerful marketing forces on the planet. Witness Linkin Park’s latest release if you doubt this.

But Napster changed one – and only one – thing: Unfettered access to music meant that listeners suddenly had a say in what constitutes “value.” No longer hindered by the financial burden of purchasing every new release, we picked and chose the acts and songs that we wanted to hear. In effect, we each became our own A/R department.

What does this mean for independent artists?

In most ways, the basic “rules of the game” haven’t changed. The path to success in any creative endeavour has always been (persistent myths notwithstanding,) “create valuable content, convince people of its value, then charge people what they’re willing to pay.”

Rick Rubin probably understands this. And he may even yet save Columbia. But in the meantime, the record industry’s free fall has one ongoing ramification for indies. As long as the major labels strive to dictate value, they’ll remain irrelevant – we no longer need them to do that. And as long as the majors remain irrelevant, indie artists and labels needn’t be distracted by the majors, and more importantly by their once-tempting promise of the almighty recording contract.

Columbia’s lesson for indies, then, in short: Forget about mythical record deals, and focus on creating content of value.

If you haven’t read it, my interview with Andrew Dubber touches on what this means in practice, and his 20 Things You Must Know … series goes into far more detail on how to be relevant and valuable as an indie artist.

See Also: Ways I’ve made money as an indie artist, Opportunities for indie artists

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I thought it’d be fun to use Last.fm statistics to try to devise a measure of “audience devotion.” Using the most popular act in the Last.fm database (The Beatles) as a comparison point, I looked up the total number of listeners and the total number of plays for 49 other acts. They include some of the biggest names in “indie” rock, some fairly unknown local acts, and a few various names from my iTunes library. I divided the number of plays for each artist by the total number of listeners to create a “plays-per-listener” ratio and then ranked the spreadsheet by that number.

As the article notes, it’s hard to game this number, so it should be a stable indicator of popularity. If your music is tracked through the last.fm database, this could be a good metric to track your own success.

Tangentially related, Coolfer has another analysis of trends in album sales, this time highlighting the continuing shift from an industry dominated by a few top sellers:

As the theory of the long tail would predict, the Top 200 accounts for a lower percent of total album sales today that it did three years ago. Between July 2004 and June 2007, that percent dropped about five points to about 35% from 40%.

There’s that long tail again…

Lego [...] realized that their proprietary code was loose on the Internet and debated how best to handle the hackers… Some Lego executives worried that the hackers might cannibalize the market for future Mindstorms accessories or confuse potential customers looking for authorized Lego products.

After a few months of wait-and-see, Lego concluded that limiting creativity was contrary to its mission of encouraging exploration and ingenuity. Besides, the hackers were providing a valuable service… Rather than send out cease and desist letters, Lego decided to let the modders flourish; it even wrote a “right to hack” into the Mindstorms software license.

The end result of Lego’s “right to hack?” Mindstorms became their all-time best-selling product.

Fast-forward to 2007, where a Digital Media Survey tells us that, of 1700 people questioned: “86% have used a social networking site this year, up from 74% in 2006. Four out of every ten social network users have music embedded in their personal profiles, rising to 65% among teenagers.”

In short, social networking sites are fueling music consumption in all demographics. And given Facebook’s popularity, it surprised no one when the Facebook Audio application appeared, allowing users on that site to stream eachother’s playlists.

Now, let’s give the RIAA one thing: They’re consistent. While many are learning the lesson that Lego’s executives took to heart, Big Music sticks to the same old party line: Facebook Audio met the same fate as dozens of other music-streaming applications.

Red-hot social networking service Facebook has pulled the plug on a popular music application in a bid to avoid legal problems with the recording industry… While no lawsuits had been filed by the recording industry against the service, playlist swapping on Facebook didn’t go unnoticed by the major labels. A source at one label alleged the company was engaging in “massive infringement.”

Facebook was probably wise to pull the application, given the RIAA’s litigious nature. But does anyone really believe that the major labels are further ahead because of the move?

Tangentially related, but too good to miss:

Archie has become a tool for the RIAA

The very first story in Archie #577 (September 2007) is a cautionary tale for kiddies called “Record Breaker” wherein all those leechers (and wannabe leecher kids) out there are taught that they’re the ones responsible for driving their favorite artists into penury and worse perhaps.

There’s a scan of the comic at the link above.

It called to mind my favorite Archie comic. Archie has goofed, and is banging his head against a wall in frustration when Jughead happens along. Jughead asks why Archie would hurt himself like that, and Archie responds “because it feels so good when I stop.”

I’ll bet there’s another lesson in there for the RIAA …

Lavigne and her co-writer didn’t rip off The Rubinoos. Not even close. Yet most of what passes for discourse on the subject takes the form of sarcastic, kneejerk reactions like this one:

Those songs are basically the same. Hilarious! Avril seriously has the songwriting skills of a 1970s folk artist. She’s Woody Gurthrie reincarnated!

As a writer, it bothers me that anyone thinks the case has merit. But as an amateur producer and songwriter, it particularly troubles me that my peers think there may be something to it. To explain why, I’ll start with the reasons Lavigne is in the clear.

Historical Precedent

Look at the standard of proof used in one of the most famous cases, Bright Tunes Music Corp. v. Harrisongs Music, Ltd., more commonly known as George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord vs. The Chiffons He’s So Fine:

The Court noted that HSF incorporated two basic musical phrases, which were called “motif A” and “motif B”. Motif A consisted of four repetitions of the notes “G-E-D” or “sol-mi- re”; B was “G-A-C-A-C” or “sol-la-do-la-do”, and in the second use of motif B, a grace note was inserted after the second A, making the phrase “sol-la-do-la-re-do”. The experts for each party agreed that this was a highly unusual pattern.
…
Harrison’s composition used the same motif A four times, which was then followed by motif B, but only three times, not four. Instead of a fourth repetition of motif B, there was a transitional phrase of the same approximate length. The original composition as performed by Billy Preston also contained the grace note after the second repetition of the line in motif B, but Harrison’s version did not have this grace note.

Listen to both and hear for yourself how similar two melodies must sound for a judge to side with the plaintiff. Now, check out this video which attempts to make the same case against Lavigne:

The video’s title on Youtube is “Avril Lavigne Steals From The Rubinoos,” so the author’s intentions are clear. But if anything, this back-and-forth contrast of each song makes the opposite point! Girlfriend… and Boyfriend… share 4 words and one note. That’s it. And bloggergirl has a comprehensive collection of songs that use the same “hey hey, you you” phrase. There are many!

So by any rational assessment, there’s no case here, and I suspect (read: hope) the first judge who hears arguments will toss the whole affair back to the street where it belongs.

OK, but who cares?

As the joke goes, both songs actually suck, so why do I even care?

I care for two reasons, one important to amateur producers, and one important to all songwriters.

1. Qualified producers know the allegations are baseless.
The best pop songs sound just similar enough to feel familiar, and just different enough to be novel. Lavigne’s song succeeds as a pop song for exactly this reason. Along with the chorus, I hear at least half a dozen standard pop arrangement techniques in Girlfriend …, from the lockstep kick drum and bass guitar, to the hand clap back-beat.

In fact, many pop arrangement elements are so overused as to be cliche. Think of the chord progression in Stand By Me. And the drum beat in Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life (or, if you prefer, Jet’s Are You Gonna Be My Girl. Or is that The Decemberists Sporting Life?) And how about these lyrics: “I can’t live without you,” “I’d die for you,” and “give me one more chance?”

Pop music is often nothing more than creatively repackaged cliches. And it sells because people feel comfortable around the familiar.

Now perhaps you despise pop music. But every genre, popular or not, has its own cliches, which successful music production depends on exploiting. As I said above, Lavigne’s song and the Rubinoos’ song share nothing more than one of these cliches. So if you think that makes Avril a thief, in short if you believe she ripped off the Rubinoos, you might not be cut out for music production.

2. Copyright issues affect ALL songwriters.
Have you ever used someone else’s melody without their permission? I know I have. I didn’t copy the melody wholesale like Harrison with He’s So Fine. But I noticed after my song was finished that a particularly catchy section was similar to an Arcade Fire song.

When I realized this, I didn’t change the melody. I certainly didn’t call anyone to ask if it was OK. In fact, I didn’t even feel guilty about it. Because I know that all art is derivative. It’s art’s very nature that as musicians, writers, and painters, we play with, and hope to improve upon, what came before. Copyright law in most of the world allows for this. The standard a plaintiff must meet to win an infringement case is strict enough to ensure that artists aren’t punished with capricious lawsuits simply for practicing their craft.

But whether you’re a mixer, producer, or songwriter, these lawsuits have the potential to hurt us all. When the music-consuming public watch videos like the one above, many will conclude that Lavigne really is a thief. This fosters an image of songwriters as plagiarists, and worse, it cheapens our art.

And consider this: If a case as tenuous as Rubinoos v. Lavigne is allowed to proceed, does that mean we’d need to start policing ourselves as songwriters? Ponder how your writing would suffer if you had to …

For that reason, I feel it’s important that we keep informed opinions of the issues. I’ll close with some of my favorite resources for doing just that: Copyfight, and The Recording Industry vs. The People are regularly updated clearinghouses of copyright-related stories, and both pay particular attention to the music industry. And for a Canadian perspective, DCC and Michael Geist’s blog are must-reads.

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The book claims to be “for people who want to record their own compositions and get them out to the World” and “for people who want a career making music for films, TV, and video games.” It’s definitely more the former than the latter: Long on technical details (aimed squarely at beginners,) and short on anything I’d call “career” advice.

That said, the book is worth checking out for the thoughtful introduction to songwriting, and the closing commentaries. (Chapters 1 and 12.) One of my favorite quotes: “You can’t become a better or more creative musician if you listen to only one thing, all the time, and write it…“

I daresay most indie artists experience a visceral glee while reading these words in Rolling Stone:

Just a few years ago, many [music] industry executives thought their problems could be solved by bigger hits. “There wasn’t anything a good hit couldn’t fix for these guys,” says a source who worked closely with top executives earlier this decade. “…Now, very few of those people are still heads of the companies.“

(Emphasis mine.) When Rolling Stone gets on board the record industry is dead train, can the record industry actually be anything but well and truly dead?

So who killed the record industry as we knew it? “The record companies have created this situation themselves,” says Simon Wright, CEO of Virgin Entertainment Group … [M]any in the industry see the last seven years as a series of botched opportunities. And among the biggest, they say, was the labels’ failure to address online piracy at the beginning by making peace with the first file-sharing service, Napster. “They left billions and billions of dollars on the table by suing Napster.”

The article also has an incomprehensible quote from the RIAA:

The RIAA maintains that the lawsuits are meant to spread the word that unauthorized downloading can have consequences. “It isn’t being done on a punitive basis,” says RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol.

That’s right, the RIAA aren’t trying to punish the stroke victims, kids, and dead people they sue. They’re simply charging a premium for a basic lesson in cause and effect.

Riiiiiiiiiight.

Sales of Green Glue must be through the roof after their reference in Wired’s How to Soundproof an Apartment to Muffle Your Wife’s Drumming. The article mentions a few products, so it comes across a little sales-pitchey, but it also has some great tips on soundproofing an apartment:

Noise problems are typically complex and multifaceted, and as our acoustic consultant told us, sound is like water: block it from traveling along one path, and it will simply find another.

To make matters worse, applying almost any soundproofing measure is harder in practice than it seems in theory.

Soundproofing materials can be difficult to work with, contractors aren’t always familiar with them, and the quirks of existing construction can derail even the best-laid plans.

Finally, a quick interview with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, in which he discusses some of the tools they use:

we don’t do anything with the computer apart from record and edit. The computer’s a tape machine for us, so it just comes back out into the desk. I like harmonic distortion, and when you take away a tape machine you take away about seven tiny layers of harmonic distortion

Can Music Survive Inside the Big Box, from the Wall Street Journal, discusses the increasing power of Walmart, Best Buy, and Target over the (traditional) music industry:

For his part, Best Buy’s Mr. Arnold says the blame for waning consumer interest in CDs lies with the record labels, not with stores like his. “Music has become a commoditized item,” he says. “The CD is perceived by the consumer to be a $10 item, and the manufacturers continue to release new titles at $15 to $18.98.” To remedy that situation, he says he has urged labels to move to a “paperback-book model,” with no-frills packages priced cheaply for most customers, and more deluxe presentations for die-hard fans.

The Album, a Commodity in Disfavor, from the NY Times, discusses the demise of the record album in pop music:

… fans are buying fewer and fewer full albums. In the shift from CDs to digital music, buyers can now pick the individual songs they like without having to pay upward of $10 for an album. Last year, digital singles outsold plastic CD’s for the first time. So far this year, sales of digital songs have risen 54 percent …

This short article from Bob Baker, The Truth About Music Industry Upheaval, caught my attention because it reminds us that history repeats. Sometimes, over and over:

We tend to think that whatever changes are taking place in the present moment are the biggest and most impactful ever. While it’s true that change occurs at ever increasing rates, and the music shift going on today is truly dramatic, it’s also important to realize that it’s nothing new.

It happened with the invention of the gramophone. It happened with swing and big band. It happened with Sinatra, Elvis and The Beatles. It happened with the introduction of the cassette and the CD. It happened again with the widespread use of MP3 files and iPods. It’s happening right now.

It seems at times that the major labels’ current woes are an entirely new challenge, unimaginable before broadband and Napster. But change is a constant in the music industry. Those best suited to capitalize on whatever comes next are the folks who recognize the patterns.

Carrie Underwood’s Big Accomplishment could be significant for indie artists, even if she’s the furthest thing from indie herself:

Before this week, the only way to get into the Billboard top 100 was to have a massive record distribution model that included major retail stores like Wal-Mart, Target, Tower Records, Sam Goody and the like. It required a ton of advertising money and an full on radio assault. But now we have a proof of concept that an exclusive online download can reach the sort of customers that only traditional record sales have reached in the past.

Sure, Underwood had the help of 30 million Idol viewers to reach the charts. But even a couple of years ago, her accomplishment would have been impossible. Underwood is mainstream writ large, and the appearance of her track on the Billboard chart illustrates broad mainstream acceptance of iTunes, and more importantly downloadable music. That’s a good thing for indies, large and small alike, who depend on digital distribution to reach fans and sell their music.

Finally, Andy’s conclusion in The New Music Industry resonated with me:

Bands can now release content at a more fevered and consistent pace, churning out a song every couple of months from the privacy of their own homes.

No longer will the artist need to write “filler” in order to artificially elongate their album. No longer will fans be forced to purchase 9 songs they don’t like in order to have 3 songs they love. No longer will fans have to wait years between albums. Fans will get a new dose of the band they love every time they write a new song.

Early adopters of this idea will benefit greatly by keeping their band in the media more often.

Especially for indie artists, music is a long tail market. As an indie, you’re not likely to sell a million copies of your album. But you might sell individual tracks a few hundred copies at a time. Grow your catalog of tracks, and suddenly a viable business presents itself. And add to that the increasing mainstream acceptance of paying for downloadable music (thanks, Ms. Underwood,) and it starts to look like a whole new business model …