The Happy Decline of The Music Industry

This week’s headlines have been overwhelmingly predicting the death of the music industry, which as they report, may only have months to live.

Nick Neyland of Prefix Magazine, among others, reports that Radiohead singer, Thom Yorke, has predicted that the music industry has months rather than years to live.

Glenn Peoples, Billboard.biz, goes on to state that even with some upward movement this past quarter, there is an “overall falling [of] physical recorded music revenues.” Digital Music News additionally reports in “Worse Than Worst Ever? Tommy Boy Starts Number Crunching Again…” that the last week of May saw the worst album sales in decades.

With an overwhelming number of headlines predicting the fall of the music industry, what must the rising graduates of Full Sail University and other schools for music creation be thinking about their futures? And what are the wonderfully talented independent artists who are working passionately to bring their gifts to the world going to do? While it may be true that certain statistics are indeed worrisome, some bright-minded visionaries believe that the music industry is simply and necessarily in a state of change.

Visionary Bruce Warila of the Music Think Tank authored a white paper in 2009 about this next phase of music industry development. He describes a new type of company which has several points in common.

These companies:

• are probably not selling music
• are eventually selling music-related product
• are not capturing any rights
• are fee-based artist services companies
• are also consumer-facing companies
• are not solely dependent on advertising for revenue
• have marketing / promotion costs that are minimal to none
• are operating outside, parallel, but complementary to the royalty / publishing ecosystem
• are fully capable of producing / spinning out hit songs
• are not using major label content in any manner that requires negotiating with labels
• are also an essential learning tool for artists
• are operating at high velocity with minimal friction 

Another visionary, DJ Parker, agrees. Parker has been involved in the music industry for 13 years—first as an artist, second as a producer, then as an owner of an independent label and advertising firm, Carolina Blew Records. Parker has personally witnessed the pain of artists and producers and the pitfalls facing managers and label owners as they try to create professional music products and find ways to monetize their creations.

But Parker is different. Rather than just sing the same “the sky is falling!” song, he sees the decline as a welcome opportunity to act. Parker has birthed a very specific industry growth model that, unbeknownst to him at the time, incorporates Warilla’s new company descriptors. Parker, Chairman and Chief Visionary Officer, has created iDreamTM Studios, Inc—all digital sound recording studios that offer: (1) professional services at truly affordable prices, (2) a social network for artist and fan interaction, and (3) digital distribution services for artists, producers, church choirs, school bands, music organizations, families, etc.

His studios will reach musicians in 49 US cities, starting with the first location in 2010 in Greensboro, NC. iDreamTM is created for those begging for access—the creators of this time, and benefits them tremendously. “There are four stages to creating a song: Writing, Recording, Marketing/Distribution, and Live Performance.

An artist can virtually run his own record label through iDreamTM’s proprietary digital music platform. If content is King, then the music Creators are it’s Maker. iDreamTM is on the cutting edge of the democratization of the music industry, “where artists are now the captains of their own ships,” stated Barrie Holley, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer.

So the music industry is dying, and that’s a good and welcome thing. It’s good for music creators everywhere because it brings true opportunity back to the forefront as they begin to have access to building their dreams more powerfully than ever.

Angela Ursprung

Resource Box:
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/iDreamReacher Web Site: http://www.idreamstudiosinc.com
Press Box: http://pressroom.prlog.org/iDream_Music_Studios/