The end of The Muisis Industry - the Ultimate Sellout

Experience has shown that ‘free’ products have often backfired as a marketing strategy. Take for example ‘Linux’ a free windows alternative. No one's buying it, and perhaps it's because no one has to pay for it. The accepted thinking is that people don’t trust anymore, its too good to be true - if they’re giving it away there must be a catch. This might not always be the case - perhaps if the music industry was run by the ‘Amish’ it might have a little
more credibility, a lot less excitement, but we'd trust it.

There’s an old story about an island where the streets are littered with diamonds. At first the new visitor scrambles to fill his pockets with them, but pretty soon realizes that here on this island, they have no more value than common stones – simply because they are available, plentiful and free.

There’s another reason we might lose interest in free music - respect. We used to look up to the artists, Dylan, Lennon, Neil young. These guys were real – no bull. If nothing else, at least the music was true and buying the album was like being a part of it, supporting the often anti-establishment cause in some way.

When Radiohead released their last album ‘In Rainbows’ for free, they asked their fans to donate money if they wanted to which was a great marketing strategy. People don’t want to throw their money but they do want to support a cause and it’s the
music and artist that represent that cause. We are happy to pay if we believe in the message and the product. But what happens if the artist sells out -can we still believe in the message?

Now we all know that no ones going hungry over the abundance of available online free music, but where the money coming from? The advertising industry.The artists have sold out to the advertising companies, to the same establishment it was raised to protest against(at least in the marketing). That may be nothing new but now they’ve dropped all pretense. Now they’re just selling ad space.

It’s the final stake in the heart for the music industry. The revolutions come full circle and eaten itself from behind. How is this going to effect the music, just turn on your radio (if you’ve still got one). The demise of radio was not caused by video, but by the fact that music just turned bad, it lost its credibility. We just couldn’t buy it anymore.

Now I’m no pessimist, in fact I think it’s a good thing. The music’s been dying a slow death for years, its time to relegate the last fifty years of music to history - Its time for something new. And it will come – it always does – the new thing. Something that will rock the boat again.and shake the industry out of its slumber. It won't come through music owned by add companies and multinationals but from some ADD kid in a suburban garage.

And when you hear it you’ll know and you’ll be running to spend your thirty dollars. In the meantime you might as well grab some free music because after all, we all sell out sometime.
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