The end of the Feudal System in Music

I’m trying my hardest to find some example from history, that can help me understand and explain what’s happening now in the music industry…Searching my 10th grade memory banks brings the words “Feudal System” to mind.  One quick trip to wikipedia and I’m off with an analogy!

Feudal society is a sometimes-debated term used to describe the social order, characterized by the legal subjection of a large part of the peasantry to a hereditary landholding elite exercising administrative and judicial power on the basis of reciprocal private undertakings.

Right…whatever that means, I’m sticking to Mr. Nelson’s definition who taught us this in World Histroy class:  There were few people who controlled all the land, and all the power…and eventually the rest of the people got fed up and said “Screw this!” (paraphrased)

Oh record labels, it saddens me that we are at this point.  You did so many great things, where would we be if it weren’t for Capitol?  RCA?  Atlantic?  When these companies were the pioneers in the music business, the civilized world was ripe with new sounds, and vinyl for all.  But there came a point, and I really can’t say when that was, where you stopped being pioneers…and started being–shit, I suck at adjectives–lame.

In case you haven’t heard, people aren’t buying music anymore (and if
you really haven’t heard that, could you please leave a detailed
comment on how in the world you managed to not hear that news, but you
did manage to find this site?).  Record labels are folding left and
right, artists are being dropped (oh McPhee!), and the total amount of
money thrown at this business is dwindling every year.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s about the money–and it’s always been about
the money.  Even when you were pioneers, it was still about the money.
But your thought back then was, lets find a sound that nobody has every heard before!  That’s hot.  That’s going to sell!
And while some of us judge your greed, in doing so, you managed to
expose us to some pretty cool stuff.  Then I think, somewhere between
Donnie & Marie, and Britney Spears, you developed a formula.  A
sure bet.  Platinum every time.

It was this formula that made a couple things happen: 1) We got
bored.  2) You got lazy.  Add to this the ultimate catalyst to what
will soon be the “redistribution of wealth from few to many,” a little
something I like to call: napster.  Filesharing, P2P, torrent, etc.
have created the perfect storm for everyone from the kid who’d rather
spend his allowance on video games, to the pissed off music junkies who
are “sticking it to the man,” to do just that.

Hmm…I was really planning on blogging briefly about the sad state of the labels, and then expound on all these silly solutions,
that are being kicked around.  But I am officially 26 minutes late to
work (at my job where I get paid).  So I will end with a poll in stead:

Maybe I’ll write more on what I think we should do next time…maybe.