An Open Letter to the Music Industry.

An open letter from the co-founders of the Restoring Music Foundation.

There is more music available than ever.  The ability for anyone to easily produce music at low cost coupled with an increase in available distribution channels, makes scarcity and control of music a thing of the past.  This is compounded by the proliferation of online piracy, that has made a significant dent in the revenues of the music business over the past decade.  Competing with “free” music is a challenge.  This has resulted in a devaluing of music, which has affected every stakeholder in the supply chain, from the record company to the musician.  This devaluation is the central reason for the Restoring Music Foundation.

In 2009 we defined the economic crisis with the help of our wonderful network of music industry supporters.  We want to personally thank all of you that pitched in your opinions and helped us ask the big questions.  The campaign was a massive success and it was all because of you.  We hope you will continue to stay involved in the ongoing Restoring Music Dialogue.  Thanks again!

Here at The Restoring Music Foundation, our goal is to create and implement solutions to the crisis and in turn, create an economically sustainable road map for the restoration of the music industry.

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A Sustainable Future in Music? Bet your sweet a*** there is!

Look don’t get me wrong and please don’t think I’m moaning! that’s exactly what I want to have a say about. I am either losing it big time (possible!) or just need to get a bit more of the positive in the Music Think Tank space…..

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Music Marketing DIY - Amanda Palmer tells All

Recently Hypebot readers, myself included were able to put questions to indie artist Amanda Palmer about here approach to DIY promotions. The interview took place on November 19th at The State Theatre in Falls Church VA. Jim McDermott (a former major label digital and artist development guy) hosted this special event.

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Radiohead Sets Another Example by Saying Good Riddance to the Album

Okay, so the traditional album is dead - Get over it. The album died when the physical product of a CD, cassette, etc. lost prominence and importance amongst the average consumer. This may make the true music fanatic question the artistic integrity of a musician - Singles? I want a body of work. But what does this really mean?  The album, for all practical matters, is just a figment of our imagination - created by the limited amount of storage space on a CD and an industry standard set by hegemonic major labels. Most albums contain a few hits and the rest acts as almost a filler. There are definitely albums that can be considered an entire piece of work, take Dark Side of the Moon for example, but these albums are few and far between. Today, consumers seek out something from artists that couldn’t be produced at such scale before the advent of the internet: content and lots of it.  

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