MCOM 63: Weekly Blog Post

The subject for my blog post this week comes from some articles I read in the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine. The magazine had a lot of news about how online technology is changing the face of the music industry; in particular how music is distributed. Over the last year or so some major artists have been dispensing with their record companies and distributing their music more directly to their fans. In the past artists have often bemoaned the level of control their record companies had over them; in areas such as creative control, royalties and album prices. However, in the past there was never a viable alternative for the artists. They needed the distribution and promotional power of the record companies.

That was before the advent of digital music and the ability to distribute music online. In the past year Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have all done away with their major labels and released music directly to fans via their website. They both made substantially more money than they would have done on a major label. Nine Inch Nails made more in a week than they have in total to date from their last album released on their major label. Radiohead went a step further by allowing their fans to decide how much they wished to pay for the album. Despite this, the band has still made $5 million.

Whilst Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead are major artists with established fan bases, this method of distribution is also now viable for emerging artists. Community sites like Myspace mean that an artist’s music can spread quickly over large geographical areas.

The result of this is that the record companies no longer hold all the cards. If they are to remain powerful in the music industry then they are going to have to make some serious adaptations to the new media world we now live in.