major labels will be gone within 10 years. look at gnarls barkley who had a #1 single just based on downloads alone.
A band with (sadly) the image, the means, an internet connection and a decent song can take over the music industry without ever walking into a label's office. Look at these little MySpace superstars who have no major label, no label at ALL and are gracing the covers of magazines because.... well... they're myspace superstars. That's all it takes now.
Hip-hop artists are the new rockstars. They've got the big houses, fast cars, porn star girlfriends, but soon enough, that'll take a backseat to how many MySpace friends you have.
It's a scary thing, but soon enough MySpace is going to take over "hanging out" with your friends. Look at any 15 year old girl on the site. My cousin, for example, is 15 and posts about 20 bulletins a day, changes her picture on a daily basis, and has people coming to her site all the time. Why? Because she's taking the time to get into people's heads that there's "a change" and getting people to come back and see what's different.
Bands are doing the same thing. They'll add a new song to the site, post a bulletin, put up a new image supporting the new song, etc etc.
The only problem is that ASCAP/BMI/Whoever doesn't treat MySpace plays as a "public performance" like a radiostation would, so you're not getting any royalties off it. Once either a site like MySpace or MySpace in general start doing that, you wont need the radio, you wont need TV, you'll just need MySpace and YouTube and you'll be able to live off the royalities of "on demand" music. Why call your radio station and request the song when you can just hear it for free on a MySpace page or see the video on YouTube?
|