Class notes 9/21/10

We began today’s class by finishing our discussion of the changes in music production and distribution from last time. Here’s the text from the slide I showed with short summaries of each of the 3 articles we read on this topic — each author’s name links to the article. Remember that your blog posts should include a short summary of the reading you choose to write about.

Article Summaries

• In this article Malitz reviews the Radiohead album “In Rainbows,” which was initially available only from their website as a free download.

• Elton, a former music industry executive, discusses the many services that major record labels offer to support their musical artists.

• Jones explores the growth in popularity of music groups on independent record labels, using the Arcade Fire album “The Suburbs” as an example.

For the rest of the class we discussed Web 2.0. Below are the words we wrote on the board when discussing the 2 articles we read (click to see a larger version of the image):

And here’s the text from the other slides we viewed during our discussion:

1. Conversion to digital (both text and non-text media) –> ability to INTERACT with these media

2. Issues w/participatory media?
• Quality
• Expertise
• Economics
• Organization (findability)

Record labels losing there touch

Ok so today i read an article from “The New Yorker” called The Dotted LIne written by Sasha Frere-Jones. (link: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2010/08/16/100816crmu_music_frerejones?currentPage=1) In the article it addressed the issue on records labels not being able to do much for their artist now that the world is evolving. Since the new way to listen to music is through mp3 and music files. the way of burning cds is slowly coming to a hault. “Now that the outsized profits of the CD era have disappeared, the music business is rapidly retrenching. With a limited amount of money to make—a sum dwarfed by movies, video games, and sporting events—many bands may figure out that major labels’ publicity budgets are an unsustainable luxury.” (page 2)

i feel Sasha has a great point in that line for the simple fact that record. sales have dropped over the years and doesnt seem like its goin to slow down. and this is simply because more and more music fans have converted to downloading music rather than buying the actual cd. Record labels whole reason for being is to help promote their artist and sell records. If they are not selling records then how can they call theirselves a “record company”? Thats a question you should take into consideration.

-Kenny

Subject headings:

M – Music

TS – production management