An interesting read...

[Mike]

...from John Mellencamp.

[ohio_eric]

I had no idea how vile Soundscan and BDS were.

Great article and he's dead on about everything.

[darren]

That was a great piece.

It pisses me off how the record labels have been so quick to point the finger at piracy as the cause of the music industry's decline. But with radio being so irrelevant, how else are people supposed to get exposed to new music? Word of mouth, and try-before-you-buy.

I've downloaded a fair bit of stuff... not a huge amount by any stretch of the imagination. But the stuff i've liked, i've generally bought afterwards, out of respect for the artist and to support them in creating more of their art.

It's not the artists that have "sold out"... it's the record companies. They sold their integrity to shareholders for the highest bid. They're no longer accountable for artistic integrity or putting out quality product. Their sole purpose is to make money, not art. The shareholders don't care how that's achieved.

[Professor Squidbeard]

i've downloaded nearly everything i've listened to in the last 8 - 10 years, that being said, i've got a large library of cds, records and tapes to choose from.

look at what nine inch nails is doing with their music to "change with the times". you can literally download anything but if you're a true fan, you'll buy it when you get the chance.

[eleven59]

Originally Posted by Crucified

i've downloaded nearly everything i've listened to in the last 8 - 10 years, that being said, i've got a large library of cds, records and tapes to choose from.

look at what nine inch nails is doing with their music to "change with the times". you can literally download anything but if you're a true fan, you'll buy it when you get the chance.

Though, I was depressed to see the changes they made with the "Tour Sampler" they just released. When they released "The Slip" they had a 192/24 version with a message explaining that it was "only for true audiophiles familiar with hi-res audio", with the sampler, the highest quality option is 44.1/16 with a message explaining that it is "only for true audiophiles familiar with CD-quality sound" They're realizing that there's a large number of people no longer familiar with CD-quality sound, nor the full capabilities of CD audio.

Hell, if you took a poll of everyone on this forum, 90% of people would say they can't hear the difference between mp3 and CD, and a few might say they think MP3 sounds better (I've seen it happen).

[Drew]

While he raises a lot of good points, this:

Prior to 1991, the Billboard charts were done by manual research; radio stations and record stores across the country were polled to determine what was on their playlists and what the big sellers were. Thus, giving Oklahoma City, for example, an equivalent voice to Chicago's in terms of potential impact on the music scene. BDS keeps track of gross impressions through an encoded system that counts the number of plays or "spins" that a song receives. That number is, thereafter, multiplied by the number of potential listeners. SoundScan was put in place at retail centers to track sales by monitoring scanned barcodes of units crossing the counter. A formula was devised whereby the charts were based 20% on the SoundScan number and 80% on BDS results. The system had changed from one that measured popularity to one that was driven by population.

...is dead wrong. He's making the same logical fallacy that conservatives love to make about the American electoral system; that in 2004 Kerry won counties representing maybe 1% of the area of the United States while Bush won 99% of the counties by area.

Popularity IS a factor of population. If one thing is popular and another isn't, then more people like the first than the second.

Soundscan and its ilk were no more "evil" than the Billboard survey system which gave equal weighting to cities regardless of the number of listeners. This had a distorting impact on the charts itself, strongly downplaying regional tastes in areas with lots of people, relatively speaking, and strongly elevating the impact of tastes in regions with comparatively few people. Really, the remarkable thing is that country (popular primarily in more rural markets) was the genre he singles out for its subsequent success, rather than rap (which undoubtably benefited under Soundscan from its greater urban popularity).

I mean, the whole system was skewed anyway. It was just skewed in a manner that was probably more beneficial, and certainly more familiar, to Mellencamp.

I agree with him that the focus on profit margins and marketability definitely hurt the industry. However, I think tyring to attribute it to the industry, being perfectly honest here, finally getting the per capita weighted taste problem right is sort of missing the point. Any other subject, if a commentator tried to argue that data was flawed about a demographic groups' taste because it was weighted by member and not by geographical unit, and we'd rip them apart for poor methodology. This is no different.

[noodles]

Originally Posted by darren

It pisses me off how the record labels have been so quick to point the finger at piracy as the cause of the music industry's decline. But with radio being so irrelevant, how else are people supposed to get exposed to new music? Word of mouth, and try-before-you-buy.

CD sales were up 33% overall between the time Napster was launched, and it was ruined by the music industry. The real kick in the pills was the kings of the tape trading bands were the ones to kill it. Thanks, Lars, you stupid fuck.

[noodles]

Originally Posted by Drew

While he raises a lot of good points, this:



...is dead wrong. He's making the same logical fallacy that conservatives love to make about the American electoral system; that in 2004 Kerry won counties representing maybe 1% of the area of the United States while Bush won 99% of the counties by area.

Say what you want, Drew, but it is hard to argue with the results. After all, the current system ensures that hardly anyone is going to break out of a place that is not highly populated. Music isn't all about the number of people living in a certain area--certain climates have a profound effect on the artist, and the type of music he or she is going to make. Unless, of course, you're prepared to argue that Dulleth, Minnesota (birthplace of Bob Dylan) doesn't matter because their population density is low.

[Drew]

Originally Posted by noodles

Say what you want, Drew, but it is hard to argue with the results. After all, the current system ensures that hardly anyone is going to break out of a place that is not highly populated. Music isn't all about the number of people living in a certain area--certain climates have a profound effect on the artist, and the type of music he or she is going to make. Unless, of course, you're prepared to argue that Dulleth, Minnesota (birthplace of Bob Dylan) doesn't matter because their population density is low.

Correlation doesn't imply causation, dude. The switch to Soundscan just happens to correspond with a period where the music industry became more corporate.

Now, I forget, where did Dylan first make it big...? Wasn't it the Greenwich Village coffeehouse scene...?

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Drew

I agree with him that the focus on profit margins and marketability definitely hurt the industry. However, I think tyring to attribute it to the industry, being perfectly honest here, finally getting the per capita weighted taste problem right is sort of missing the point. Any other subject, if a commentator tried to argue that data was flawed about a demographic groups' taste because it was weighted by member and not by geographical unit, and we'd rip them apart for poor methodology. This is no different.

I think his choice of words was slightly confusing, but I think his point is sound: instead of the music industry finding hits by seeing what's playing well in various Peorias, and then expanding the marketing effort on that, they're not just seeing what's playing well in New York and L.A. If your record doesn't do well in those markets initially, you're toast.

You're looking at it quantitatively - a measure of current popularity by population size. He's looking at it qualitatively - the fact that smaller markets keep playing something that LA and NY aren't probably says something about the quality of the product. Statistically, the new methodology is sound - and great for selling songs in the short term - but it's not as good at producing good music over the long term, because it ignores everything that's not a major metro area.

His use of Country - where initial low Soundscan numbers were, until recently, no match for an A&R guy with a good rep when it came to keeping recording deals - as a contrast device underlines this. Rock (and especially Top 40) were good at building hits - Country was good at building careers, like the rock music world was in the '70s.