The Future of the Music Business: video update by Futurist and Speaker Gerd Leonhard

[drummerpaullennox]

P.S; producers are already releasing albums with 'NO PRO TOOLS USED' in the foot notes as an indicator to the integrity and organicness of their work. I reckon this resurgence could also bring the 'concept' album back from the dead. Arguably, Itunes helped kill off the concept album as it allows people to buy individual tracks, promoting the 'immediate satisfaction' mentality that we seem to have adopted. The emphasis on selling albums as you rightly pointed out, has dwindled.

[drummerpaullennox]

Also, the 'session musician' scene seems to be changing also - well in the UK anyways; there are so many colleges now offering 'popular' music courses and graduating thousands of intermediate level musicians that the scene is saturated. New graduates are undercutting professionals as technology means that anyone can edit a good 'take' out of anything. However I do believe humans will want to hear 'organicness' in their music again and I am hopeful this will spark a musical Renaissance

[drummerpaullennox]

Very interesting. I liked the comment about the fact you can write your own book and get it published independently. Home recording is common nowadays and quality is really good. Record companies are not particularly needed to create a great album now. Music publishers are becoming possibly more important. Daniel Bedingfields first album was a bedroom recording and was massively popular and he got a great publishing deal off of the back of the per-assumption it would be a big hit.and it was

[oddball670]

But what will it mean for the artists??

[gleonhard]

@oddball670 I think the next 3 years will still be tough in terms of the 'new music business' getting off the ground - but DIY becomes more feasible than ever before so thats good news. If you want to know more download my Music 2.0 book, free pdf, just Google Gerd + PDF

[moonsugar1]

@gleonhard What do you think the future holds for the album? Ed Sheeran, a UK artist just this week got to number 1 with the lowest record sales ever recorded, rounding up to just 21,000 copies. The digital era seems more focused on singles, but their must be more demand for albums in a country that holds over 62 million than just 21,000 people!

Perhaps the Industry being afraid to take risks on original artists, or expecting them to gather sales on thier own is having an impact? Great vid.