Changing The Music Industry As We Know It

Every music artist begins somewhere. Every artist had to do something to get their music out there. No one just automatically becomes famous. Then everyone wants to listen to your music. You start out new and anonymous and become more popular over time. Artist become famous by advertising. Every music artist should be able to advertise.

With the fast rising technology and the closer world community, the music industry has changed dramatically in this modern world. In this case, I will choose an American rock band Paramore as a case study. I will first start with an overview and a brief history of the band, afterwards I will focus on the main four music business areas, which are Artist Management, Record Companies, Music Publishing and Live Performance, examining how they operate in the industry and their relationship between each area and with the band. Finally, I will finish up with a conclusion and my own views.

The music industry is made of companies which produce and sell music. The music industry as we know it was solidified in the mid-twentieth century, where records succeeded sheet music as the primary product in the music business. Record companies were established, but did not last very long until the late 1980s when the “Big Six”, a group of multinational corporations consisting of Sony, MCA, WEA, Polygram, EMI, and BMG controlled most of the market. Initially there were five corporations (CBS and RCA (both now belonging to Sony), WEA, EMI, and Polygram) that had emerged in 1978 to own 60 per cent of the market. (Wallis and Malm, 1984, p. 81)

The current music industry is a hard business for all musicians, whether they are a new artist or even a popular radio artist. Modern times have radically changed the way that musicians now make money. Past musicians used to be able to make a living simply by selling their music and playing a few major concerts to survive and even lives some luxurious lives and not really have to focus on anything except the art that they were creating. The music industry has transformed from being an art to becoming a challenging business job for anyone involved. Today, most musicians have to also be able to handle managerial business to get anywhere and make money or find someone to help them. Current musicians need to do more than just sell music

Popular music is often one of the best lenses we have through which to view our own cultural orientation. Many of the artistic and experimental shifts in popular music have mirrored changes in our own society. For instance, the emergence of Elvis Presley as a public figure would signal the start of a sexual revolution and the growth in visibility of a rebellious youth culture. Similarly, the folk and psychedelic music of the 1960s was closely entangled with the Civil Rights, anti-war and social protest movements. In this regard, we can view popular music as an artifact through which to better understand the time and place in which it is produced. In light of this, the state of popular music today may suggest troubling things about our society.

The band Twenty-One Pilots positively changed people's views on alternative music by using other elements from different genres. A band that started off in Columbus, Ohio has “blown up at top 40 radio, sold out massive arenas and even drawn the ire of millennial­-bashing columnists with an unapologetic mashup of suburban angst, rap and reggae”(Ringen).

The Beatles started as an English skiffle group in the late 1950s. By the time they reached their peak popularity, the term “Beatlemania” was coined to explain the frenzied obsession with the group. A former associate editor from Rolling Stone drew a comparison between the Beatles and Picasso, calling them “artists that broke through their time period to come up with something that was unique and original.” Throughout their discography, the Beatles have time and time again released music that both broke musical trends and engrossed the masses. They have held an “unprecedented top five spots on the

Among The Thirsty is a contemporary Christian rock band that is breaking barriers in the music industry. Band members Ryan Daniel, Scottie Henderson, Brock Douglas, and Gregory Smith all have the same purpose in mind: to present the Gospel to the world. "We have songs for the church as well as the for the hurting, seeking and lost, our desire is to eradicate the line between Christian and secular music" says Ryan Daniel, in a interview with KLOVE. The general message in “Completely” is to keep your heart open for god, never keep anything from him, for he is all knowing and all forgiving. Its shown in the song, by telling a story about someone falling; needing christ to help him stand tall again, and how to find the path to him again.

Nothing is more enjoyable than listening to your favorite song. All over the world, people listen to music on a daily basis. Music plays a major part in a tremendous number of people’s lives. While they are enjoying the music, they do not think about how the song came about. Music is not just the sound you hear or the voices in the background. People do not think about what is behind the scenes of where music comes from. Before the song is completed, someone has to make it happen. In music, there are different careers which are the song writer, the manager, the marketing executive, and the produced. Each of these careers play a huge role in how music is brought to the public.

In this article, Peterson and Berger show how the organization of the popular music industry affects the music that America hears.

It’s not often that a person thinks about the steps that went into creating a song that they hear on the radio. The music industry makes listening to songs by popular artists on the radio possible, and recording companies and music labels, such as Rad Summer, produce these artists that people grow up to know and love. While Rad Summer is still a young music label with many more years to grow and expand, it can’t avoid the everyday problems that face smaller labels and the music industry in general. Furthermore, the larger spectrum of digital technologies drives the key patterns that exist not only within Rad Summer’s music label, but the music industry as well. Rad Summer exemplifies these tensions that exist in the music market with the idea

The central purpose of this paper is to create a platform upon which we can better answer enterprising questions such as, “what is the difference between a ‘one-hit-wonder’ and a Beatles record?”, and “Is there a formula to writing a ‘timeless’ song, or are social trends alone the deciding factor?”. I have chosen this subject due to the relevance it has to the sociological relationship between music, time and audience – ‘new musicology’ as opposed to ethnomusicology. I am using time as a frame of reference upon which I will structure my analysis of the music industry’s trends and the bilateral social influence between songs and people over the decades. I will analyse case-studies from the 1960’s and the relevance of those case studies over our most recent decade. I will do this for every decade except for 2000-present as this would

No one can deny that technology is actively changing the music industry. Production, distribution and sales of music have been affected dramatically within the last 10 years along with artists, composers, and technicians. Most of the changes have been great for consumers, but vastly negative for professionals in the music industry, however a few artists have found ways to adapt to the changing atmosphere of digitally downloaded music and use it to their advantage. We’ve seen music change form from physical, tangible products like records and CD’s to electronic single tracks stored in an invisible cloud. Two major factors in this sudden revolution are online music stores (specifically iTunes) and file sharing websites that allow music to be downloaded illegally.

The music industry has been around for over two centuries (PBS). Its volatility can be measured by its ability to shift and change according to its time period, the technologies that arise through the ages and the public’s shift in musical taste. The music industry is comprised of many different components, organizations and individuals that operate within it. Some of these components include the artists who compose the music themselves, the producers that engineer the sounds created by the artists, the companies that handle distribution and promotion of the recorded music, the broadcasters of the music such as radio

The evolution of the music industry follows the familiar pattern of digitization. Innovation began with the introduction of the vinyl record, transitioned from the cassette tape to the compact disc and landed us in an era of digital downloads. The emergence of music streaming services like Spotify has progressed the industry even further, giving consumers the ability to access music on demand using download-free online platforms. Spotify faces criticism from artists as a result of the overlap of creativity and commerce. They argue that business activities corrupt creativity, transforming it into a tool for profitability rather than an outlet for expression. Artists insist that Spotify deters album sales, favors established artists and fails to support them financially. However, Spotify was created for consumers. It delivers an accessible alternative to purchasing and downloading music. The interplay between creativity and commerce is changing the nature of the music industry. Spotify has adapted to this change, providing a platform that supports both artists and consumers. Through analysis of the market, artist’s revenue, record labels and consumers, I will argue that artists should accept the evolution of the industry and support Spotify.