couldn’t remake the invested money and were dropped from the label. Power artists such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Michael Jackson made a fortune for the labels. This gave them plenty of breathing room to take chances with new artists. It’s all about the money with the record la-bels. These executives made an obscene amount of money off the successful bands. Sure, they were necessary at the time, but the times have changed and the ball is now in the musician’s court.

Several cultural shifts have led to the slow demise of the music industry. In the sixties, seventies, and eighties there was no satellite television, no dvds, no smart phones. Peo-ple had a limited choice of entertainment and many chose music. Even non music fans were hip because it was a pop culture thing. Now, the market is saturated with so much crap that music takes a backseat to reality television and so-cial networking. Most of all, for better for worse, the inter-net has had the largest impact on the music industry. Sud-denly, distribution is no longer in the hands of the record labels, but controlled by the musicians and the fans. All sorts of content is available on the internet. Fans can listen to songs, watch videos, and read bios for free. They don’t have to buy a record to hear their favorite song. Compact discs are still for sale at the stores, but hardly anyone buys them anymore. People don’t tune in to the local radio, they listen to satellite radio, internet radio, or their ipods. The record labels have lost their power.

Labels have continued to sign musicians in the past de-cade, but these musicians have not seen the kind of reve-nues that were common to the past century. In fact, Linkin Park and Lady Gaga are the only artists that debuted in the twenty-first century to break fifty million record sales, a feat not uncommon for many twentieth century bands. Many blame this on illegal downloading, but the true problem lies in the single. In the days of yore, fans would purchase an entire album based on the appreciation of the single that’s on the radio and television. Now, fans can purchase the single for a dollar online. That’s about ten dollars in lost revenue that an album purchase could have brought. Many casual fans just want what they hear on the radio so they might as well buy the song they like instead of spring-ing for an entire album.

Some musicians have tried to stray from the model, implementing all sorts of gimmicks. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails gave away his new album for free online. Ra-diohead charged their fans “whatever they want” for their latest album. These guys have faced the facts that there is hardly any revenue in music sales anymore and decided to concentrate on concert tickets and merchandising sales. This could be a step in the right direction, but the prob-lem is these artists already have a built in fan base. They have been playing for over ten years and fans check regu-larly what their favorite bands are up to. This simply can-not work for the musicians struggling to become known. No one gets excited about a free album from a band with which they are unfamiliar.

Technology has alienated the executives not only from the consumers, but the musicians as well. Twenty years ago, a band had to pay a hefty sum to get a decent quality recording. Even if musicians could actually afford it, they would have to distribute their albums physically at con-certs and street corners. Now, for about a hundred bucks

any band can cut an album in their garage. Even profes-sional quality music videos can be shot for next to nothing. This cuts out a huge part of the label investment. So with a website containing videos, an album on itunes, and social networks connecting the bands to fans, is there even a need for a label? After all, any money made is kept by the band. Well, a band can pretty much make itself through the in-fantile phase, but outside help will be needed to make that next step. This outside help will be the key factor in the next generation music business model.

Connections and networking. They play a pivotal role in any business, but especially in the entertainment indus-try. No matter how good an album a band has, they will continue to play local level gigs until someone important starts to work for them. Tour managers, lawyers, publicists, and pretty much every other clown in a suit is provided by the labels, but if band wants to make it without a label, they need to hook up with these people somehow. These pro-fessionals that used to work for labels need to go rogue and freelance themselves to promising acts. It would be benefi-cial to them too because the less people involved, the more revenue each contributing member gets to keep.

The music business has been turned upside down. Ev-eryone connected is suffering, but the labels will be the first to go. Because they don’t have the power anymore, everyone is clueless. All a record label does is invest in a band and furnish it with connections. If a band could find investment money elsewhere and hire their own suits, they could rule the world without going near a record label. Plenty of people have money. It’s just a matter of finding the right agreement, much more in the band’s favor than the label’s contracts, and going for it. Large companies could sponsor bands and aside from the investment, leave the band to do all the work. Label interference has been a concern in the past, but will be no more. The dawn of a new era is upon us and music is slipping, but it can still be saved. The internet might have killed the record labels, but it bestowed the power unto the bands. It’s just a matter of forging a new frontier, making new rules, and discovering what works.

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