The Future of the Music Business (and a bit of the past too)

Whenever you hear that the Music Business is in big trouble you're not hearing the entire truth. What you're hearing is that the Corporate Music Business is in big trouble. But if you're not signed to a major label, it's a wonderful time to be alive. Sure CD sales are down, nobody is listening to radio, etc. But that crap only makes a difference if you want to be a rock star. On the other hand, if you but a humble arteest trying to get your music to the masses with the endless possibilities of the internet the business is only getting better.

(I need to interject something before I go on. While this is an exciting time for musicians as artists who want to write and release their own material, musicians who are often in the employ of larger acts as backing musicians are experiencing some lean times as a result of the downfall of major labels. There is never Yin without Yang.)

We've heard how the internet is killing the music business and while I staunchly agree that pirating is wrong the internet is the solution, not the problem. The Music Business voiced the same concerns when printed music began to be published and sold widely, when recorded music came along, and when cassette tapes came in to fashion. For some reason the music business has trouble adapting. But now its much easier for artists to take matters into their own hands. Seriously, you think one of my songs could have been included on a Japanese compilation 20 years ago? No way somebody in Japan finds out about my music without worldwide CD distribution.

Take the case of Julia Nunes. I discovered Julia via the YouTube widget on my Google homepage which shows me the most viewed videos of the day whenever I log on. Weather she knows it or not (I expect the latter) Julia is a music marketing innovator. She's a singer/songwriter who plays ukulele and guitar and makes these adorable videos of her singing covers of anything from "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys, to "Build Me Up Buttercup" by The Foundations, to "Survivor" by Destiny's Child. She overdubs her own backing vocals and the videos are cleverly shot and edited. But her best videos are of her original songs which are melodic and well-written (check out "Balloons"). She's a YouTube sensation with over 36,000 subscribers and her videos regularly have hundreds of thousands of views. I think she's great.

She has a CD out which she links to in all of her videos. So I don't know how many she's sold but I wouldn't be shocked if it were 5,000-10,000 including downloads. I bought her record on iTunes but I must say I was a bit disappointed. The recording quality was a bit poor and it wasn't mixed very well at all and all of the great harmonies she overlays in her videos was missing. But that's neither here nor there.

Julia is a glimpse of the future. Or is that the present? She's established herself not through touring or hawking demos to labels or entertainment lawyers but by putting herself out there on YouTube (which is a lot less hassle and a lot cheaper). People come to see fun covers of songs they know by a cute girl with a uke but discover her original music at the same time. Its brilliant. From what I can tell she's well on her way to becoming an established artist and I would be appalled if she didn't have interest from record labels and management.

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Since I'm talking music I have to mention the monumental comeback of The New Kids On The Block rising like a fiery phoenix from the carnage and debris of O-Town, N Sync, 98 Degrees, and other fallen boy bands.

NKOTB was the bane of my existence as an eleven year old boy who watched every cute girl at his school fawn over the pre-pubescent sex gods (dig that phrase!). I hated them, they were the dorkiest most un-cool band in the history of the universe.

But despite all of my adolescent hostilities I must admit *gulp* I like this new song. The Kids have receding hairlines and a couple of them look like they've had some work done, but the song is good pop music and they aren't trying to re-live the past or be something that they are not. For once, NKOTB is respectable. Right?