The Post-Napster Music Era: Easier Or Harder?I just finished reading Steve Knopper’s Appetite for Self Destruction: The spectacular crash of the record industry in the digital age. It’s a riveting account of how the record industry destroyed itself by avoiding new technology.
One of the author’s conclusions is that the record industry is in very bad shape and will get worse if it doesn’t find viable digital business models. The other conclusion is that individual musicians are in better shape than ever because they have more say over their careers now.
I agree with that. However, one piece of logic which doesn’t follow from that is that it’s easier to be a successful music artist today. I think it’s easier to decide to become one, but it isn’t necessarily any easier to be successful than it used to be; not just in music, but just about everything else that’s been heavily influenced by the Web; like startups.
There’s the impression out there that because the world is a lot more connected and technology has gotten cheaper, that it takes less hard work to produce success. This mentality is pervasive in the software startup world. Everyone thinks they have a shot at being the next YouTube or Facebook because it’s gotten so easy to host and design a website. In the music world, everyone thinks they’re going to be the next band that gets 1 million views on YouTube.
I think the frequent stories in the media and blogosphere about the 22 year old tech millionaires who got rich overnight by slapping up a website are largely responsible for giving us the impression that we just don’t need to work as hard today as we did 15 years ago to make it at anything worth having. And the reason I say anything is because the fundamental equation that says hard work=success is universal and constant, no matter the historical time period.
The reason for this has something to do with the law of supply and demand. The less rare something is, the less value it has. People who want it easy are much more common than people who work hard. It’s too easy to be someone who wants it easy. That’s why get-rich-quick schemes are so rampant. The kinds of things that people who want it easy produce don’t have much value. The kinds of things that hard working people make are much scarcer and better, so people want them more. That gives them value. It also gives the people who make them wealth, which can be converted to money.
But there’s a parallel idea that feeds into this equation. Hard work=success doesn’t necessarily mean that hard work will always equal success. It just means that it can. You could work hard at something, but do it wrong or not be good at it and nobody will want your product.
Hard work is a prerequisite to making things people want, but working hard doesn’t guarantee that you’ll succeed at making something people want because there are so many complex variables involved. Understanding how they all fit together isn’t easy. That’s why I don’t think it’s any easier to be a successful music artist today than it was in the record era. Creating a music brand that people will pay you for is still every music artist’s goal, but the variables involved in getting you there have dramatically changed.
Do it yourself means investing time to discover what works today and any music artist can tell you how hard that is. The resources invested in trying to make the right connections to get exposure during the record era have been exchanged for the time investment required to learn how to use technology to get exposure.
Nobody should be under the illusion that hard work in and of itself has any real value. The way you can tell it doesn’t is by observing that you can’t buy it on the market. It’s like ideas. Nobody who knows what they’re doing buys or sells ideas on the market. But that’s not to say neither is crucial to success. They are. But it can be dangerous to believe that your hard work has stand-alone value if it lulls you into a false sense of complacency. It’s better known as busy work and it wastes precious time.
The two things that need to be added to the hard work equation to make it formidable are persistence and flexibility. If you resolve to never give up and to try anything, eventually you’ll get what you want.
February 9th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Mikia,
I totally agree. I’m now a fan of yours because you “get it” and understand what’s happening in this new Internet-fueled music environment. And you are able to articulate your ideas well.
I’ve been a musician for years, and have experienced the initial exciting hope that the Internet would provide me with an easier road to financial and artistic success with my music. And I have also come to the conclusions you have that it’s just as hard as it was before. In fact, it feels more frustrating, because the new recording tools have allowed me to make music that is better than I have ever been able to produce before. Really fine stuff (if I do say so myself). Yet people can’t find it. There is too much competition for their listening time.
But I still see so many musicians posting the hopes that they can do it themselves. They will arrive at the same conclusions you and I have, eventually. It takes time for the reality to sink in.
I am already seeing more and more posts by “music thinkers” coming to the same conclusions that you and I have. That you still need mass exposure, you still need radio, and that’s especially true today when there are so MANY good musicians out there competing for attention. And also because there is so much amateurish “me, too” stuff made in the bedroom on a laptop with drag and drop software tools, and it is creating distracting noise.
February 9th, 2010 at 11:25 am
Glen, I think lots of music people secretly agree that it’s still just as hard today…though, I’m not sure mass exposure through radio and magazines is the answer. The problem with mass media is that the world has gotten so fragmented. People’s attention is so broken up into little chunks these days. Mass media doesn’t get you much traction anymore. Everything has just gotten smaller and niche-oriented. Instead of an uphill slug to get mass exposure through a label, it’s an uphill slug to get niche exposure through smaller media outlets. The challenge is learning what works. What’s changed is the medium. But at least everyone can give it a shot today.
February 9th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Mika,
You make a good point about mass exposure becoming more niche oriented.
I was surprised when I read an article showing the HUGE number of “listens” that radio can generate weekly, versus online streaming on, say, Spotify. The numbers were so different in favor of radio. Even today.
It seems people need to hear a new song a good number of times in a relatively short period of time, say a month, before they learn to like it and want to return to it.
I just don’t see how you get that exposure with streaming online services. Particularly when people are deciding in advance to hear only things similar to what they already like.
It’s probably worth a longer article and analysis. But as far as gaining a following, it’s critical to know how it works.