Was the Music Industry Once a Monopoly?

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day about the state of the music industry, and the question came up…do you think the industry is better for consumers today or 20/30 years ago in the hay day of Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, the list continues? His argument was that in the old system music was not a true capitalistic model, that the record labels controlled what was given to consumers who could not freely decide exactly what they wanted. His belief is that today artists can go directly to the consumer. They can do it on their own, put out their music and therefore give consumers more options. The true model of capitalism.

I don’t know about you…but I think that’s a load of crap! I don’t disagree that in the old system, not everything was perfect. Artists got raped by record labels repeatedly, and that was on a good day. Most days it looked more like a gang rape, or a pack of hungry wolves tearing someone limb from limb. But on a whole, it still worked better for artists than the free for all that is going on today.

Let’s treat music like a product, it is one in many senses. Now in any industry in America, there is some form of control, or regulation. For food and medicine there is the food and drug administration. For real estate there is REBY and fair housing. For the president, there is congress and the senate. And in slightly different markets like football, there is the NFL…a league of teams that agree on a given set of principles. And the list continues. Every industry has some sort of bench mark that says “this is good” or “this is safe for you to eat” or “this means that you are now a pro athlete instead of a college athlete.” Record labels used to be that for music. They helped weed through the numerous “wanna be’s” and separated the wheat from the chaff. And the consequences of this breakdown in the system are immeasurable.

Technology has made it such that we no longer pay for music. We share it with each other, download for free and just listen to free streaming on youtube. We’ve almost eliminated record labels…the so called “directly to consumers idea.” What would happen if we started getting food for free? Starting tomorrow you can walk into any grocery store and take a handful of apples and either take them with you…or just take a bite and then put it back on the shelf. Grocery stores would no longer have money to operate and would go out of business, farmers would stop farming because no one was buying their corn, so maybe they’d share a little with their neighbors and then eventually they’d stop farming. Same with butchers, same with the corporations making the cereal you eat in the morning or milk you pour in your coffee. Eventually, we would all starve! Yes, the consumers are the choosers in the end…but without the middle man, without the specialists, and the companies regulating all the choices, we would all have to be our own farmer, our own butcher, our own wheat processing plant, ect ect ect. And it’s the same with music. Eventually true artists will realize that music can no longer be a profession, only a hobby. And the greats will be lost forever to the majority of us. We’ll be left with the music that our friends do. Hopefully they’re good!

Said another way, lets say all of the sudden all the butchers and cereal companies in the country all of the sudden also started producing corn. Corn was everywhere…everyone was selling it, or giving it away. Everyone thought they knew how to grow it, how to package it, how to turn it into products even if they weren’t an expert. We’d have a lot of shitty corn! A lot shitty cereals, the price of corn and all related products would take a nose dive…and eventually we’d have the same result. Corn would lose it’s value, so people would stop producing it…and eventually it would dry up. Or, what if we went from 32 NFL teams to 70, and games were on every day. It would dilute the brand and no one would want to watch football anymore.

And what’s more, today artists have to put out an album every year to even stay relevant. Music get sucked in and spit out so quickly for the new flavor of the month, that unless you are constantly putting out something new, the public forgets about you, you lose your deal and go back to bartending at Chili’s. Does this make for great music? No, it makes for hurried creations that have not had time to live or breath. Like genetically modified corn that’s been injected with special fertilizers and hormones for quick growth. It’s unnatural! A great song like “Imagine” has to be lived. It has to come from experience, for hurt and pain, from real organic shit…and hope, and have time to find it’s voice and it’s life.

Record labels, though imperfect, at least were able to separate the wheat from the chaff. They put money into that really great corn and gave it to the masses; established it’s value and allowed it to thrive…allowing artists to make it a profession and continue producing what people loved. Was it a monopoly? NO, there were handfuls of record labels competing. Pushing dollars into their artists in hopes that America would love them and latch on! They provided some sort of control. How many really great artists have you seen emerge in the last 3 years? Maybe 3? 4? Is this the trend we want to continue? I don’t know about you but I do not want to eat a lot of shitty corn!