Re: [ARSCLIST] Record Business vs. Music Business: The Shakeout Continues.

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wow, Bob, this is so true. And the big problem is that by commiditizing the entire commercial 
recorded music history of the U.S. and Europe and beyond, they have killed the engine that financed 
the risks a company takes on a new artist.

If you look at almost any list of "the greatest recordings of ... (name your decade or century)", 
many of them were not instant hits. In fact, who remembers the instant hits of yesteryear unless you 
happened to tape Casey Casim each week? That disposable hit junk was financing the few gems of 
lasting art. And then, as the lasting art took hold, it became an annuity that helped finance the 
latest hit-makers' development. This cycle continued for decades but fell all apart over the last 10 
years or so.

I still think the biggest parts of the trouble are: 1) Big Music mega-glomerated into public 
companies controlled by accountants and lawyers and subject to the whims of Wall Street, and Wall 
Street is obsessed with "new media" and thus under-values anything that's not a near-profitless 
dot-bomb "business."  2) as others have stated and I have agreed, aural-only entertainment may have 
been a short cultural blip against a longer recent history (since before Roman times) of primarily 
visual entertainment (think everything from Greek plays in large ampitheaters to the Roman colesseum 
spectacles to Shakespeare, to jousting tournaments to Victorian theater to Broadway to movies to TV 
to YouTube).

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Olhsson" <olh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2007 11:20 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Record Business vs. Music Business: The Shakeout Continues.


<snip>
> Once you get past all of their flowery, romantic populist sounding
> propaganda about the internet, the Silicon Valley investment banking
> community has killed the goose that laid the golden egg in order to float a
> few more initial public offerings fueled by offering yesterday's music for
> free. The biggest losers are tomorrows music fans and the next generation of
> gifted performers.
>
>
> Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
> Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
> Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
> 615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com