The Daily Swarm

The Morning News:

Five years ago, people bought 636 million CDs and 25 million digital tracks; in 2008, it was 360 million CDs, 1 billion digital tracks. What will the music business look like in 2014?

Matthew Perpetua: It will still be around. I’ve been reading comic books since I was a kid, and that industry has been in steep decline since I was around 13. But you can still buy comics. In fact, even though comics sell far less than in the old days, you can find them in most mainstream bookstores and they have a lot less cultural stigma, so there is a trade-off. Anyway, people are going to keep making records. That’s not going to stop. Some money will be exchanged, I’m sure. I don’t see this ending, so much as dwindling down to niches like everything else.

Andrew Noz: I don’t know if comic books are the best point of comparison because there hasn’t been a viable digital distribution model. I sincerely doubt we will be able to buy physical music at non-boutique stores by the end of my life. I assume most of us live in major cities where that won’t be a problem, but trust that CDs will be all but unattainable to towns with only one Wal-Mart. And that’s depressing.David Gutowski: The trend toward more digital sales will continue, but I think that more companies will offer all-inclusive music streaming services for one set price, as some consumers will slowly buy into that model.

Sean Michaels: Come 2014, labels will still sell at least a hundred million CDs, vinyl records and high-fidelity downloads each year. But the vast majority of music consumption will be through subscription services offering downloads and streams. Some of these will be funded by advertising, though most will just be rolled into our internet/phone plans (and seem free).

David Gutowski: I have been saying this for years, that eventually, our iPods will actually be rolled into our phones, and the telecoms will be offering music subscriptions and sales, and eventually this will become a major revenue generator for them, if it isn’t already.

John Seroff: I think there will continue to be some ongoing deterioration in “real world” sales but there’s a bottom ahead. Plenty of people simply like having physical items that represent the music, and plenty more don’t have access to the technology. I believe pretty strongly that the next frontier lies in monetizing live performance. My hope is that we’ll be subscribing to artist’s output directly in five years; something along the lines of $20 for an album, four live shows, and access to ongoing projects all for the download. More likely outcome: We subscribe to Live Channel services to watch daily shows on our integrated skull phones. Andrew Noz: I’d like to think that people will stop paying for zeroes and ones. Probably the labels will push for something more along the lines of a subscription service or charging licensing fees to the sites like Rapidshare. It would be nice to have physical products continue to exist in deluxe/limited/collectors editions (especially on vinyl) but I don’t know how realistic of an expectation that is.

Oliver Wang: There will still be physical product in five years—there’s still a healthy, albeit niche, market for what Noz is talking about. What I’ll be curious is to see is when and if a major recording artist releases an album digitally but not physically. I don’t mean some special, side project. I’m talking about Toby Keith or Beyonce deciding, “You know what? I’m just going to sell this digitally.” Personally, I don’t see the CD being abandoned in five years (10—maybe).

I am a terrible prognosticator but I think it’s safe to assume we’re going to see a precipitous decline in CDs sales and a considerable increase in digital tracks. As to what that ratio might look like in five years, though? I wouldn’t even hazard a guess given how quickly things are changing in terms of patterns of media consumption and distribution models.

Blog Campaigning:

Matthew Perpetua, who writes Fluxblog.org, says, “I am glad to get records sent to me because sometimes I get something that I really enjoy.” However, as a hat-tip to the growing importance that PR pros are placing on reaching bloggers rather than traditional media, Perpetua adds, “I work for the regular press too, and aside from my experience with New York Magazine and Pitchfork, the difference seems to be that no one really cares about what I write for money, but they are sometimes very invested in what I do for free.”

When asked if they read other music blogs, the panellists said almost universally that they did not. I feel like this kind of mentality is what has set them apart from other music bloggers and is similar to my suggestion that PR props stop reading PR blogs.

And as great as all that is, I think that this round-table discussion is more important to understand the opinions of these bloggers about giving away content for free and the future of the music industry.

via Largehearted Boy