Creative Destruction
“I have great confidence that we will have the best record company in the industry, but the reality is, in today’s world, we might have the best dinosaur.” Rick Rubin, President, Columbia Records
Having been in Europe last week, I happened to pass by a rack of CD’s in an Autogrill (a sort of European McDonald’s with real food, and a shopping center attached)– and to my wonderment, was actually able to spot the 21st Century dinosaur, right there in living color. Here was a whole section of new album releases by top superstars just in time for the holidays, each available for a mere 25 euro apiece.
Wait. What was that price? 25 euro? Isn’t that the equivalent of almost $40 USD? Like anyone who’s just seen a prehistoric creature rumbling through the shopping mart, I couldn’t help but shout in amazement:
What’s going on?!?
As anyone who’s seen my previous blog, “Water Into Wine”, will note, I’m not a huge proponent of free music, or ad-based models. I think music has a value, and we should be willing to ask people to pay for it. But $40 for a CD? When any 10 year old can figure out how to listen to the whole thing for free with the click of a button? What is our industry thinking?
Incredibly, my wife actually did purchase two new CD’s while we were away, thankfully at a price less severe than 25 euro: the new James Blunt album “All The Lost Souls” and Craig David’s “Trust Me”. While I’m not looking to play music critic, one could politely describe both records as imminently forgettable. They did however bring to mind any interesting question, albeit not a musical one:
Why are we making this stuff?
Not music– I think we can all agree that there’s still some use in that. But why do we keep making 10,12,14 song albums? Just because the Beatles made “Sgt. Pepper’s” back in the Sixties? Because Stevie Wonder made “Songs In the Key of Life” in the Seventies? Because it’s all the industry knows how to do?
This past summer, the Shop Boyz had one of the biggest hip-hop hits of the year, with “Party Like A Rockstar”. On the heels of that hit, they hurriedly slapped together an album, “Rockstar Mentality”, that failed to produce even a follow-up hit, much less any significant record sales. Mim’s “This Is Why I’m Hot” generated an album as well– but not much in the way of subsequent success. Why are we doing this?
What if rather than throwing together an album to capitalize on a hit single, the Shop Boyz or Mims had concentrated on creating just one more hit of the caliber of their initial single, and then selling downloads and ringtones of that new hit? And then doing it again, and again– one song at a time? What if rather than trying to push out an uninspired sophmore album in time for the 4th quarter, James Blunt had put out a reasonably priced, 4 song EP, with one song that actually measured up to his previous hit “You’re Beautiful”? Why keep making albums when there is no indication that an audience wants to buy them, or that an artist actually has enough to say to actually justify a 10 song collection? There is no law that requires this. We can put out any kind of product we want.
I just finished reading Alan Greenspan’s book “The Age of Turbulence”– in it, the former Fed chairman talks again and again about “creative destruction”: the way that capitalism allows old economic models, old businesses, old industries to be destroyed by new, more useful, more efficient ways of meeting consumer demands. It’s time for the music industry to read the writing on the wall at the Autogrill, and put the Long Playing Record album (and its $20 price tag) on the scrap heap– unless an artist’s vision really requires that format, and his or her audience demands it. Otherwise, let’s find new, more engaging ways to package music– ones that are competitively priced, and artistically appropriate.
Like every other business, the music industry is going to have to come to grips with creative destruction. Either we destroy the old dinosaur, and get creative about building a new model– or we watch the old dinosaur destroy a once creative business.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Please– somebody stop the madness!
