Elbows Music Blog Community

I believe so, yeah - I would love to have access to sale stats to back that up, but I don't sadly.

argh, the internet ate my previous post. It was manifesto of future internet music...hah... (joking, it was the usual long rambling)

so anyway

- I think the scale of major labels is still important. I am not sure about "economic of scale", some fundamental aspect of core music business, like recording/distribution, management, managing performance, etc..., but their ability to throw money at a)television, radio, established print outfit. b)corrupt politicians c)they still have the overwhelming manpower. marketing d) bargaining power against new internet companies/digital distribution. General thuggery, political racket and exploitative business practice.

- however if you look around, what they get for said expenditure is pathetic. Compare their recent output, what they released in the past few years. compare college radio chart vs. top 40, see what music on television... compare this to the crazy amount of music that flows on the net.  the big labels have definitely lost cultural relevancy and influence among core music listener groups. (15-35)

- and finally, large organization is vulnerable to adverse economic situation... and we know how the last 5 major labels dropping dead one after another in relatively short period of time. Their economic size now is truly miniscule compared to larger internet media. Their traffic, their key web presence are not that impressive compared to scrappy new comers online. 

- Technologically, they are beyond relevant. In fact they are the number one roadblock to new tools and business models. Obviously, this is the part where their so called "economic of scales" fails. It doesn't matter how much money or people they throw at a problem, people simply refuse to buy into their new devices and internet schemes. They couldn't sell a single file without going bankrupt 3 times over.

............

...soooo... we know all that. We've been observing this in the past 4-5 yrs. I think the blog has been doing a pretty good job in this area. We also can sense how these idiot will behave, continue to behave, what sort of stupid/corrupt/dirty plays they are going to pull. How all these are dragging good music at large, majority of musicians that we know create good music are not getting their dues, corrupting politics.... etc... etc

...but what to do to rectify this situation? There should be a systematic approach to completely eliminate big labels, convince larger public of the situation, and brought about next phase of mass music listening.

basically, time to start convincing the public to stop buying product. (directly advocating public to stop purchase of one or two key items... public campaign.)

give public all relevant facts, list of bad behaviors, point why certain item is a target, advocate change of consumer behavior ..... going straight where it hurt.

I think at this point, the blog know a whole lot about, techniques, target audience, alternative sound for each music category, how to present content, understanding public preference,  large enough audience to affect larger public.... etc etc...

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so yeah... probably it is time to actually check with direct action if big labels "economic of scales" really ends. Time to see if their size and influence can't save them from angry mob and dissatisfied public. 

True, but that piece was more about the media in general than specific to music. Also, whilst for music enthusiasts I completely agree you still need something physical - but I wonder how many physical sales there were on the latest JLS single for example? If your entire audience is under 18, how much of a hit would you take (ignoring the Xmas gift market) by going digital only for something like this? (I really don't know - I'm curious).