The old school industry may have been bloated, but it kept artists and shops in business
The music and film retailer HMV is calling in the administrators for the second time in six years, with 125 branches and 2,200 jobs at risk. Just like that, a slice of mainstream pop-cultural history, 97 years in the making, threatens to implode. Aside from the widespread retail slump, the general public isn’t buying DVDs or music in the way it used to. Where music specifically is concerned, people have lost the habit of owning it or paying for it properly (if at all). At some point, music morphed from being the once-deplored “commodity” (remember when we used to moan about that?) into something far worse – a virtual or actual freebie.
Of course, just as people still make money from music, others continue to buy it – and some aren’t even embittered, out-of-touch former music hacks such as myself (my daughter asked for a turntable at Christmas). Still, the idea persists that purchasing a physical record/CD is hipsterish and quaint. In such a climate, even buying full albums from iTunes borders on eccentrically folksy. Fretting about this, and how eerily narrow and zoned modern music is starting to look (in my view, almost as dominated by a smug clique of multimillionaire mega-artists as it was back when punk exploded), is to out yourself as a fogey who doesn’t fully understand how capably the new-style music industry model generates “income streams” for artists. (Be still my beating heart.)
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2GOcTvG
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