Content Matters

While people claim there's no way to make money in the music industry anymore, that's clearly not the case. The obvious way to make big money is to become a music industry attorney. The billable hours at counsel for the RIAA are shooting up again this week as they shut down music mashup site muxtape. Muxtape was a simple yet cool site that allowed you to create digital mix tapes; basically you upload a bunch of songs and your muxtape will play them in the reverse order of upload. The issue that the RIIAA has with Muxtape is that once created, you can share that digital mix with friends. In other words, it works just like the mix tapes that I made for dozens of friends back in college, though without all the tough work.

This news comes just as Pandora founder Tim Westergren, in an interview with the Washington Post, stated that the Company was close to pulling the plug on its music recommendation engine unless there is a change to the royalty fee structure for webcasting. Under current rules, online radio and webcast apps are set to double by 2010, providing a huge advantage to terrestrial radio. The timing couldn't be worse, as Pandora and Last.fm are among the most popular downloads for the iPhone and are really poised to take off. But music royalties could kill both their models.

At the same time, the record industry is killing its own business. These recommendation engines drive new music sales. I've downloaded dozens of songs from iTunes and, more recently, Amazon, after hearing them on Last.fm or Pandora. More than once I've gone back and bought a full CD after paying to download a few tracks, in essence, buying the music twice. Kill these engines and you lose a free marketing engine. Meanwhile, the record business continues to promote mostly lame pop acts from TV reality shows. That's not going to bring back your business no matter how many lawyers you hire.

Meanwhile, I find it interesting to note that the two most recent "albums" that I've purchased were digital download-only offerings with virtually no commercial support. Just this morning, I downloaded the new David Byrne/Brian Eno album "Everything That Happens" and a month or so ago I downloaded Feed the Animals from mashup  DJ Girl Talk.  The Girl Talk album was available at a "pick your price" option, while the Byrne/Eno CD was available with various options including FLAC. While this isn't a music review site, I'd say that the Byrne/Eno album on first listen is just as good as the stuff they collaborated on more than twenty years ago. And, for those who like a dance beat, Feed the Animals is one of my favorite albums of the year.

For a quick flashback, here's a clip one of my favorite Byrne/Eno songs from the past - Crosseyed and Painless from the great Remain in Light album.