Illustration Composition on the Changing Music Industry

The Internet in the modern world is used for everything from buying a house, paying your bills, taking classes online, or buying the newest album from your favorite music group or artist. With the single push of a button you can have an entire discography of a famous artist or group such as the Beatles or a single that you like from a local band you heard playing at the bar last weekend. Artists and bands like the Beatles did not have this new tool called the Internet to get their sound out into the world. They relied on their record label to produce, record, advertise, and distribute their music. Unfortunately, your favorite local band does not have a record label to do this for them. Thankfully, since the invention of the Internet and the explosion of the digital format of music, social networking sites, and online music stores, artists can now create, advertise, and distribute music on their own without having to rely on big record companies. Not long ago artists had to spend hours in a studio recording a single song and even more hours editing and tweaking that song. With the digitization of music, artists today do not need a record label or a professional music studio to record decent sounding music. This can now be accomplished by basically anyone who is somewhat musically talented and has access to a computer with basic recording equipment. With these items one can write, record, and edit a song in no time. If an artist is prepared, they can create an entire album in one day. Once this is done, the song or album can be placed directly onto a CD, or just be created into a digital music file and uploaded to the Internet. However, this is just the first step in circumventing the need for big record companies. Social networking sites such as MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have recently launched small time bands and artists into superstardom. Today, MySpace is all but extinct. At one time it was a decent place for getting recognized as an unknown band or artist. Some up and coming rappers caught big breaks due to MySpace, including B.o.B who pays homage to MySpace in his song “Airplanes, Part 2” with a short line in the second verse by saying “Before I ever got on MySpace, before they ever noticed my fame, so let’s just pretend, and make wishes out of airplanes”. Currently, YouTube is probably today’s most used site for an band or artist to get their name out into the world. The most recent Grammy award winner Goyte got most of his momentum when he uploaded his song “Somebody That I Used To Know” to YouTube and it went viral. Not much original content is uploaded directly to Facebook or Twitter but, that does not mean they do not play an intricate role. After a song is uploaded to YouTube the band or artist can post the link on Facebook or tweet it on Twitter to all of their fans. If the song is liked fans will then share, like, and/or retweet the original link to their friends and so on and so forth. This is free advertising that the band or artist has at their disposal. Once a band or artist has their name out there they will most likely want to get paid for their talent and hard work, enter the online music stores. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of sites on the internet to purchase music, some more prevalent than others. Apple’s iTunes, Amazon’s Marketplace, and Google’s Play Store are the most common places consumers go to purchase their music. The biggest draw of online music stores versus brick and mortar stores is simple. As stated before, you can purchase anything from a single song to an entire discography with the single push of a button, and you can have it immediately whether you are sitting at home or in an airport in Japan. As long as you have internet access you can purchase music. The draw for independent bands or artists is they get a bigger cut of the profit by cutting out the middle man and are not required to be under contract to create a specific amount of music. No matter how it is delivered to you there is one thing that stays constant. Music has been here for a long time and it’s not going anywhere. Out of all the positive aspects stated before, there are still may people that do not agree with this new system. One may argue that the recent changes in the music industry is for the worse because they feel like more mediocre music gets published and released. I feel that this is an absurd argument because if you don’t like it don’t listen to it and certainly don’t buy it. Kid Rock said it best: “If it looks good you’ll see it, if it sounds good you’ll hear it, if it’s marketed right people will buy it, but, if its real you’ll feel it”. Whether you are for or against it, today’s music industry has defiantly changed from the ways of old and can make anyone ask themselves the question, “Am I the next big thing?”.