The future of the music industry

All the fuss being made lately over Prince giving away his latest album, Planet Earth, free as a covermount with the Daily Mail of all papers, has made me wonder on the future of the music industry imparticular recorded music. A spokesman for Prince gave reasons for his move on his site...

"Prince feels that charts are just music industry constructions and have little or no relevance to fans or even artists today."

Quite a big statement so will this be the opening salvo in a new battle beteewn 'true' artists and the established record labels? A free music revolution if you will.

It's well known that acts get very little income for themselves from album and single sales, the real money is earned, for the artist at least, through touring and record deals themselves. It is of course not the first time Prince has given away albums for free, he gave away his 2004 release Musicology free at live shows for his lucky fans. Radiohead also famously considered giving away Kid A, when the album was leaked on to Napster weeks before its official release, Thom Yorke commented in an interview with Time magazine. "it encourages enthusiasm for music in a way that the music industry has long forgotten to do."

So...can we expect to see artists giving away their latest album on their offical websites in order to gain as much exposure as possible? Well no not really. The 'big four' and all record labels alike won't have to lose any sleep over some sort of free music revolution lead by artists such as Prince. Big labels are still required for distribution and putting the spotlight on artists, only a few veterans with an already established fanbase could reasonably expect to tell their record label what they intend to do with their latest album. Starbucks aren't going to tell Paul Macartney where to stick it if he decides to give away his next album for free, he is too much of a asset to their brand. The same is true at the other end of the specturm, tiny unknown bands are already giving away their music for free at gigs and on the internet and have been doing for probably decades now that will never change.

It is the staple 'average' reputation bands that would realistically have to demand change for the status quo to change in favour of the artist, but groups like Kasabian, Bloc Party, Arcade Fire and Editors can't propose to give away their latest album with the Daily Mail or they would be out of a job well at least find themselves a few rungs down the ladder with a smaller label. Artists such as these need their music to provide a living unlike unknown bands they dont have a normal 9 to 5 job to fall back on, (And they probably wouldnt want one anymore) unlike Prince/Madonna/The Rolling Stones they haven't accumilated enough money to make money on real estate or have enough reknown to release their own brand of cooking sauces.

So basically in conclusion, nothing will change. Not for the time being at least, the internet has and will continue to shift the power in the recording industry away from the established labels and towards up and coming artists. That is already evident from the number of unmanufactured acts that have rose to prominence over the past few years.

With it being cheaper and cheaper to record music to a decent standard in your bedroom, upload it to your bands myspace and use your mates CD burner to produce a few hundred albums, on some cheap discs you got down Tescos, It has never been a better time to be a new artist.

Music should always be an artform and form of entertainment first but it is unreasonable to expect established acts to sacrifice themselves for this cause, they also need to make a living from their trade. Its unreasonable to expect these artists to 'stick it to the man!', martyr themselves for creative freedom and give away their music for free. Anyone suggesting this makes them sell outs obviously has a very unrealistic view of how music works nowdays. Maybe we will look back on Prince's actions as the start of the free music revolution but more likely we'll look back and see it as another action in giving us cheaper more accessible music.

Which isnt bad is it?