The title of Sunday's New York Times Magazine cover story was "Can Rick Rubin Save The Music Business?" The answer, apparently, is No, although Columbia Records, of which Rubin is now the co-head, would like to believe otherwise. Rubin, as well as David Geffen and Columbia exec Mark DiDia, who are also quoted in the article, have a great sense of what's wrong with the music biz, but not a lot of great ideas about how to fix it.
Rubin has made a career out of selling records by artists who don't normally sell records. In the '80s, he helped put hip-hop on the white suburban map with the Beastie Boys' zillion-selling debut album. In the '90s, he turned the Red Hot Chili Peppers into superstars by encouraging them to branch out from their funk-rap roots into pop fare like the ballad "Under The Bridge." He took the moribund recording careers of Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond and almost singlehandedly revived them by having them make records that appealed to a new, different -- and younger -- audience.
But almost all of those records were made in an era when people who listened to music also bought music. Today, when that audience is just as likely to get its music for free, either by home CD burning or illegal downloading, Rubin's as clueless as any other music exec about how to grab people by the wallet as well as the ears.
In the article, Rubin claims the way to save the business is the oft-touted subscription model, in which customers would pay for access to a downloadable library of music. Eventually, this probably will be the dominant mode for acquiring music. But it's a solution for years if not decades from now.
The immediate concern should be to slow the erosion of CD sales -- a proven cash cow -- as much as possible, while at the same time getting the major record labels to sit down and figure out exactly what's needed to make an online subscription service work. How to get the majors to even talk to each other, let alone agree on anything? Rubin doesn't have any better idea than I do.
Rubin's most boneheaded plan is to create Columbia's "word of mouth" department. According to a Columbia-sponsored focus group, word-of-mouth is how most tweens and teens find out about new music. No surprise there, considering that with the demise of radio and the music press, and MTV's evolution from a music channel to a lifestyle channel, there aren't many other outlets left.
But Rubin thinks word-of-mouth can be artificially created by a multinational conglomerate. The whole point of it is that it's NOT manipulated by the powers that be -- it's free of the bogus hype that labels like Columbia are known for. That's why marketing-savvy (and viral marketing-savvy) kids believe it. Co-opt its integrity, and you lose the appeal as well, not to mention the audience.
In the end, though, Rick Rubin is right about one ingredient that's necessary for the music business to survive, and one that he's proven to know a thing or two about. In the words of David Geffen, "... the top priority at any record company has to be coming up with great music. And for that reason, Sony was very smart to hire Rick." Now it's just a matter of figuring out how to sell that music. Maybe Sony still has Clive Davis' number handy?
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I can recall almost twenty years ago that Todd Rundgren and a few others were saying that the industry was going into this online direction, and that it would have to adapt in order to survive.
And now the people who will do the adapting are old farts like Clive Davis, Rick Rubin, and that club?
They're a big part of the problem, not the solution.
To which I say, YAAAY!
Give control of the music back to those who actually MAKE the music, and away from the fat cats who can blow money with the same level of skill that Boney James and his cohorts can blow a sax. It's about damn time.
i've not read the interview but the words "subscription" and "columbia" brought back memories of the "columbia record club" via the US mail. it was a scam then (First record only 25 cents!), and will be a scam now, if given half a chance. sure, you can subscribe and pay a monthly fee to ostensibly have access to "a lot" of songs - but um, which songs would that be? by artists you like or artists columbia wants to promote?
in the old days, no one under 18 was allowed to partake in the columbia record club because it was "contract" to agree to buy a certain amount of records per month. you were given a "choice" of records to choose from at premium prices; if you did not buy for that month, you still owed for that month.
a friend of mine at the age of 13 wanted a 25 cent album. later, when inundated with bills and THREATS to pay for albums she didn't order, she had to have her folks write a letter stating that she was underaged and therefore this was an unenforceable contract. it worked. she got off the hook, as did her folks.
this is, in essence, what rick rubin proposes as the savior of the music business in the 21st century? everything old is new again? including the scam therein?
look, the music industry became "the industry without a clue" when napster was invented. that they then hijacked his model is obscene. i am 59 years old with 2,000 plus vinyls in my collection. i had very few CDs until napster came along and i was able to sample new american artists and a shitload of international artists i'd never heard of AND I THEN BOUGHT THEIR CDs.
once napster and the offshoot, gnuella (i think that's what it was) were sued beyond recognition, I STOPPED BUYING CDs.
get it, record companies? THAT WAS YOUR WORD of MOUTH.
morons.
Then come the predictions which are merely the extrapolation of what's already happening.
In the music biz we're waiting for somthing to happen.Then when it does happen everyone sho knew nothing will claim to have seen it coming.
This might well mean YOU.
"It's the songs stupid"
Rather then Joe Cool, VP Bean Counter Division or Robert Brown, VP Artists Hedge Fund and Investments Department.
The industry has been dying for years, the industry is made of greedy old men making money off the young, either the artists themselves (who sometimes are also now greedy old men) or the market they are trying to capture. They should just give up, stop trying so hard to shove worthless horrid music down our throats and let the music happen. The creme rises to the top, let it, stop stirring the pot to keep that from happening.
Online downloading of songs, instead of whole albums is the future of music, the sooner they embrace it, the sooner they'll be making money again. Don't these idiots remember cassette/cd singles anymore?
Then, when your favorite group comes to town, they want 100 bucks for a ticket to their lip synched poor excuse for a concert, which for some reason they think will sound good in a hockey arena.
Here's how you revive the record industry.
1. Fire all the A&R people, especially the ones who think Britney Spears is talented. Hire people who actually understand the art form.
2. Require your signed acts to be real musicians, composers, artists, then don't fuck them. Don't try to manufacture them either. (psst: it's really obvious)
3. Make sure your acts spend their time doing concerts, air-breathing humans playing real instruments, at a price people can afford.
4. Make CD packaging worth buying the CD for. It should have great liner notes, artwork and can be used as a rolling tray (like the old double LPs).
5. Finally, wake up, man, because the only thing that will never change is the fact that everything changes. I am in my 40s, grew up with LPs and 8-tracks and now I get 90% of my music from the subscription model (emusic.com, etc). The rest I get...well, free.
Amen and amen, RickO!
(Man, do I wish I'd SAVED those great album covers with the artwork and liner notes!!!!!)
And of course, bands manufacture CD's - DIY bands sell them at every all ages show I've ever been to. They're typically priced between $5 and $8 and they move if the band is good. Real music fans are happy to support bands they like, especially if the price is right. How else would you have them supplement income from merch sales and ticket sales? Give the music away? Sell a track at a time on a dedicated web site? Yeah, that'll work.
Just because a trendy magazine says something's dead doesn't make it so.
but maybe you wanna buy my Apple TV?
They have value to some collectors but as far as music the market now prefers digital. I have instant access to my ENTIRE collection on my 60gig Ipod while traveling to include video content as well. I could never carry that many CDs and DVDs with such ease.
seriously, you need to get out of the time warp.
CD's are dead. Bands don't make DAT masters anymore and don't manufacture CD's.
but maybe you wanna buy my tape deck?
dexxjones' point re: subscription services is well taken. Unless the labels in aggregate are forced to make ALL their content available as part of the deal, the model will end up being a ripoff for the consumer. The labels could simply choose to load up the subscribers with crap and still sell the "good" stuff a la carte.
I'm also not convinced that Rick Rubin has the answers to anything other than what Rick himself likes to hear. Don't forget that Def Jam had its share of clunkers as well as hit makers (Oran "Juice" Jones and Blue Magic spring immediately to mind). Further, even if Rick likes it, there's no guarantee that Columbia will know what to do with it once it has it. Once the music leaves Rick's hands, it becomes the property of the same people that brought the biz to its current state to begin with.
Gotta be real careful with that "word of mouth" stuff. The minute the kids think that WOM is manufactured by the label, they'll never believe another thing you say to them.
Finally, the answer to all of this may simply be that labels, in the strictest definition, are no longer part of the equation. A band that has access to Pro Tools, a basement, some borrrowed cash to make a DAT master and manufacture CD's, a great local live show reputation and a van can, in theory, clear more for itself than the traditional label route of going into debt for hundreds of thousands, only to be dropped if the first disc does not meet the label's expectations. Bottom line, if a Rick Rubin likes you enough to sign you, you can make a heck of a lot more doing it yourself. this kind of creative freedom just might save rock and roll.
Record companies long ago stopped giving a shit about music. They're run by huge conglomerates who give all the decision making jobs to accountants.
Thus, we get "accountant music". All they know how to do is jump on a trend until they beat the life out of it.
We all know that a system like itunes is the future of getting music to the masses but the greedy execs cannot steal enough money to maintain their lavish lifestyles from this format so they are constantly looking for news ways to continue screwing the consumer.
Soon they will run out of options and will have to join the digital world.
Check out this book by Kashif: "Everything You'd Better Know About The Music Business". It recommends the same thing - most of the time, you will make more money putting out the record yourself and promoting it properly than depending on one of the big 4. And you own and control the copyrights.
Sounds like a nobrainer to me.
One of the best channels for discovering NEW MUSIC is, surprisingly - NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO -after I heard their interview with Michael McDonald, I rushed right out and bought his Motown One and Two CD; I bought a Dixie Chicks CD because of an NPR interview; I've bought Keb Mo for the same reason.
NPR is NOT constrained by vapid, idiotic playlists of the same 10 songs - they interview interesting artists, new and old, play some of their music, whetting the appetite for more.
As a 1958 baby (yah, do the math) - I used to listen to WIOQ-FM 102 FM in Philadelphia, which played album-oriented rock: Little Feat, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, etc, etc.
If radio stations would play LONG cuts from artists as well as feature interviews - people might actually WANT to purchase a CD!!!!!
obvious reasons CD sales have dropped is the
rip-off price. It wasn't that many years ago
that Sony and some other big companies were
convicted of collusion in the high pricing of CD's, and had to repay consumers who filed with their respective states for refunds. There
were only a relative handful of artists who ever questioned the pricing (Pearl Jam, maybe?)
by the mega-bucks corps, so I have never really
had much sympathy for artists who feel under-
compensated. I'm sure some are, as there always
have been in an industry controlled by the fat
cats. But a CD for $15-20, or even $25, even if
it's a quality artist, is hard to swallow. This
is all stone-age stuff to the younger set. I know it's a brave, new musical world out there,
but I'm still buying CD's because I want to hold something in my hand when I buy it, and get some pictures and other info about the artists as well. Call me old-fashioned, but I like liner notes and who's sitting in from another band, or whatever. You can't get that stuff from the on-line music services, can you? I'll probably jump into the new system sometime, whatever it is, but not until I have a much better idea of what's going on.