Report on Jason King - "Record Producers as Creative Artists in the 21st Century"
To have the current trends of the music industry put into words by Jason King is not a treat to the ears of an aspiring artiste. The talk opened with what is currently happening in the music industry and what experts had to say.
"The best advice that major producers are giving to people who aspire to be superstars is that they should get out of the music industry."
"The perceptual value of music to consumers is now zero. People expect music to be like water from their tap, they can turn it on or off as they please."
Although artistes do not have to get past record labels to get their music to their audience, their fame and hype is very short lived because everyone is doing it, and nobody can make much money out of it. People still need the record labels who promote them through traditional methods. Justin Bieber is a good example that youtube was not enough to propel him to superstardom, he needed to be promoted the in very traditional ways after being discovered.
Apple now owns the biggest share of the music industry, providing the music player, the music, and the artistes do not earn much royalties. Record labels seem to have lost their exclusive claim to distribute music and the record of an artiste is now just the equivalent to their business card. All artistes are expected to become entrepreneurs, and some like Madonna can do it well, but most of them are not able to.
Digital sales are rising but not enough compared to physical sales in the past and previously where there were top selling albums and artistes, there are only top selling songs now. Concerts are the only business that have had a 4% increase, whereas everything else from CD sales to instrument sales are decreasing rapidly.
Without much money take risks with new artistes, record labels are now investing everything into heritage artistes such as Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston etc. An up and coming artiste would be expected to have done a lot of work on his/her own and have a fan base before the record labels would even consider signing them.
Jason addressed 2 major trends as to why people find it so difficult to understand what is going on in the music industry
The first is that people started embracing multiculturalism, post 9/11, with the world becoming "smaller". Singers mixed genres together creating experimental R & B and people are unable to put a finger on exact genre. Pop music now has no specific place since it is highly globalized and dispersed.
Listeners are ready for people from rich ethnic backgrounds and the west is no more the centre. In fact artistes such as Shakira, Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga are coming from all over the world, taking their musical styles, (which may have some western influence) and "spitting" it back to the west. For artistes who want to make it big, they must embrace their cultural ethnicity as a fusion with western music.
The second is a reverse trend from "Rocktimism" to "Poptimism". A belief that pop music empowers people just like how rock music did in the past. People believe in the stories singer/songwriters and extremely complex pop cosmopolitan artistes are getting much attention.
Amy Winehouse brings a sense of Nostalgia, Kanye West a representation of seething anger (especially at the VMAs), Katy Perry, Beyonce, Adam Lambert and shows such as glee a representation of the up and coming Queer Pop.
Such cosmopolitan artistes that are having the world believe in them have extremely cosmopolitan producers. An artiste such as Lady Gaga has very Europop synthesized music with some funk relations.
Jason adds that every decade there is a paper written about the incredible achievements in the music industry but this decade there is nothing. He sees potential in Asian countries where music is not so dispersed (such as korean and japanese music which are specific to a certain area). Things are not where they should be financially for record companies but there is a wide market for creativity and listeners who are ready to accept something new. People who are looking to go into the music business should embrace their culture and be able to bring such an influence as an artiste in the 21st century.
- Reported by Jeremy Khoo
To have the current trends of the music industry put into words by Jason King is not a treat to the ears of an aspiring artiste. The talk opened with what is currently happening in the music industry and what experts had to say.
"The best advice that major producers are giving to people who aspire to be superstars is that they should get out of the music industry."
"The perceptual value of music to consumers is now zero. People expect music to be like water from their tap, they can turn it on or off as they please."
Although artistes do not have to get past record labels to get their music to their audience, their fame and hype is very short lived because everyone is doing it, and nobody can make much money out of it. People still need the record labels who promote them through traditional methods. Justin Bieber is a good example that youtube was not enough to propel him to superstardom, he needed to be promoted the in very traditional ways after being discovered.
Apple now owns the biggest share of the music industry, providing the music player, the music, and the artistes do not earn much royalties. Record labels seem to have lost their exclusive claim to distribute music and the record of an artiste is now just the equivalent to their business card. All artistes are expected to become entrepreneurs, and some like Madonna can do it well, but most of them are not able to.
Digital sales are rising but not enough compared to physical sales in the past and previously where there were top selling albums and artistes, there are only top selling songs now. Concerts are the only business that have had a 4% increase, whereas everything else from CD sales to instrument sales are decreasing rapidly.
Without much money take risks with new artistes, record labels are now investing everything into heritage artistes such as Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston etc. An up and coming artiste would be expected to have done a lot of work on his/her own and have a fan base before the record labels would even consider signing them.
Jason addressed 2 major trends as to why people find it so difficult to understand what is going on in the music industry
The first is that people started embracing multiculturalism, post 9/11, with the world becoming "smaller". Singers mixed genres together creating experimental R & B and people are unable to put a finger on exact genre. Pop music now has no specific place since it is highly globalized and dispersed.
Listeners are ready for people from rich ethnic backgrounds and the west is no more the centre. In fact artistes such as Shakira, Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga are coming from all over the world, taking their musical styles, (which may have some western influence) and "spitting" it back to the west. For artistes who want to make it big, they must embrace their cultural ethnicity as a fusion with western music.
The second is a reverse trend from "Rocktimism" to "Poptimism". A belief that pop music empowers people just like how rock music did in the past. People believe in the stories singer/songwriters and extremely complex pop cosmopolitan artistes are getting much attention.
Amy Winehouse brings a sense of Nostalgia, Kanye West a representation of seething anger (especially at the VMAs), Katy Perry, Beyonce, Adam Lambert and shows such as glee a representation of the up and coming Queer Pop.
Such cosmopolitan artistes that are having the world believe in them have extremely cosmopolitan producers. An artiste such as Lady Gaga has very Europop synthesized music with some funk relations.
Jason adds that every decade there is a paper written about the incredible achievements in the music industry but this decade there is nothing. He sees potential in Asian countries where music is not so dispersed (such as korean and japanese music which are specific to a certain area). Things are not where they should be financially for record companies but there is a wide market for creativity and listeners who are ready to accept something new. People who are looking to go into the music business should embrace their culture and be able to bring such an influence as an artiste in the 21st century.
- Reported by Jeremy Khoo
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