Without a doubt, the music industry is a-changing. For the first time ever, musicians are able to manage their own marketing, promotion and distribution to the entire broadband-connected planet. CDs haven't even completely died yet and the IPOD is already obsolete. It's anyone's guess where this is all going, and Gerd Leonhard is brave enough to make his guess public.

Gerd Leonhard just released a collection of his own blog postings and papers in a FREE e-book called Music2.0. In it, Mr Leonhard made predictions about how the music industry was going to mutate once mixed with the new technologies. You can get the book here.

I'm about a quarter of the way through Music 2.0, and it's a really interesting read. I'd say it is essential reading for people in the music business; especially for independent artists. Really Especially for Older Independent Artists who grew up with music being something you bought at Target on a cassette tape and listened to in a Sony Walkman. The paradigm shift is equal parts traumatic and exciting.

It's interesting to see what Mr Leonhard predicted correctly. One thing he points out is something I've ranted about for years; the changeover of music from a product to a service. The music subscription service I've bitched about for years is finally available thanks to the Verizon/Rhapsody merger, but he predicted this years before I did.

I'm excited to read his current predictions and imagine what things will be like if he is correct when Music 3.0 comes out...

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Book Review, Music Industry, Predictions

Goodbye DRM, glad I could help lay your fat ass to waste.

Instead of writing predictions for 2007, I'll just give you this link. Otherwise, our lists would be close enough to the same that I'd be sued for copyright infringement.

Thanks to J-Man for the links.

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: DRM Sucks, Predictions

Not sure yet if this site was meant to scare people with the perpetual knowledge that the entire Mulitverse might shut down Any Fucking Minute Now...

...or to cheer up people like me, who can't wait for Universal Retirement.

Those who didn't think the end was coming, I give you:
Obvious Signs of the End Of Days

- Metal Emo (WTF?)
- The Existence of Marilyn Manson
- The Existance of Mark Mallman
- The Existance of a musical genre called "Hip-Hop"
- The Existance of Ringtones for The Fray's 'Over My Head'
- The fact that Dashboard Confessional has more 'friends' than Motorhead

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: americans, anti, Predictions

This post is in response to latest post from Missmollygrue over at blogspot.

I think the primary reason why most movies right now are poop is due to overload. There are more movies available than ever before at any given time. 16-screen mega-theatres? Cable/Dish-On-Demand/Netflix/BitTorrent? DVD players in laptops and cars? This massive mass-distribution causes the industry to kick out product that is cheap-plastic-shiny-on-the-outside-but-not-too-expensive-on-the-inside. They spend more time talking about which special-effects to use than they do working on the script. They go for the marketing-department-approved-R.O.I., which has a rubber stamp of approval for crap like 'The Dukes of Hazzard' or 'Home Alone 8', or Anne Rice [Fill in book title here] or Harry Potter [Fill in version number here].

[Editors Note: Do people ever make movies based off books that Weren’t best sellers?]

Regardless, this business model is the Wal-Mart method of movie production, which stresses Quantity of sure-returns over Quality pieces of artwork. (I suggest we call them Wal-Movies...)

Because of the ridiculous volume of media available, it will take time for the cream of the crop to rise, and all of the overhyped poop to sink to the bottom. My point is - it is difficult to see what will stand the test of time until some time has passed. We know now that The Police were doing good music, because you still hear it today, and we know that Air Supply was garbage, because you don't. We know that Dashboard Confessional is dogpoop squared, but it will take some time before the lustre of overhyped prodution, product placement, and the kickbacks to magazines and radio stations wear off, and the public is left with simply the product.

This does not change the fact that the majority of movies made right now truly are poop, and you won't see a single movie from the year 2005 mentioned in 2010 when they highlight the current decade. My theory is that there are some gems being made (or at least written), but they aren’t being made by the people with the $$$ to get them onto the big screen.

To those who would say that movies suck simply because Americans have nothing to say (Josh), I would say that is not entirely true, but rather that 99 percent of Americans have nothing NEW or INTERESTING to say, and they get a large budget to say it with. Americans have become quite adept at repackaging other people's ideas and selling them, or in more motivated cases, putting a spin on the original idea, but that requires original ideas, and those 1 percent have to come from somewhere, and they are not all imported from foreign countries with subtitles.

I would argue that much of that 1 percent of clever, original, genre-breaking-movie-making is an untapped resource known as Independent artists. The audio industry is discovering this now, and the video industry is sure to follow. As the living-room entertainment center gets more tightly connected to internet distribution methods, and as websites (like video.google.com, youtube.com etc) start doing for independent video what they currently do for audio (garageband.com, mp3tunes.com, magnatune.com etc..) The volume of video media available will increase exponentially.

I predict that at first, this will be video Nirvana. A rennaisance of filmmaking creativity which will make Hollywood shrivel up and die like the testicles of a bull being casterated. Unfortunately, this utopia will not last, as the market floods, and suddenly, video of someone's girlfriend's breast augmentation surgery is deemed 'art', alongside a 12-hour security camera tape of SuperAmerica titled, 'A Day In The Life Of Johnny' in which nothing happens. Toss in some payoffs to websites for a link, which raises their social network ranking, and suddenly, we have the video version of 'Dashboard Confessional' - Dogpoop cubed. Suddenly, that 1 percent becomes .01 percent.

And the cycle Lathers, Rinses, and Repeats.

Hopefully, someone is working on a computer program which can watch a movie for me and tell if I will like it or not before I watch it. What would that be like, to only watch good movies? Weird...

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: consumerism, Cultural Observation, Culture, Hollywood, indie movies, Movie News, Predictions

It is simply not possible to put into words HOW MUCH I hate/loathe/detest/despise/abhor the band Dashboard Confessional. They are the quintessential example of just how out of touch the music industry is with music. Dashboard Confessional is the proof that if you take a piece of Dogshit, spraypaint it gold, and put many, many layers of lacquer on it, and shine it up, then people will buy it. Sheryl Crow is another gleaming example, but for some reason she doesn't disgust me as much. Kid Rock, and everything Metallica has done since the Black Album...et-shitera... Is it any wonder that even your averagely talented 'Indie' band like the White Stripes can make it big?

I, for one, am glad to see the end of the music 'industry', and good riddance. Instead of being told what is good, we can find out what we like for ourselves. Now we can look towards resources that indiscriminately mark, tag, sort, parse, grep, query, and list all the independant sources, and we can make our own decisions. Isn't that part of the fun, to sift through recordings of bands you never heard of, and find some piece of art that 'clicks' for you?

Oh, I forgot, here in America, we need to be told what is good. Usually by the people who are selling it.

A trend to note is how trends in the video/movie industry tail along behind the audio/music industry, usually by about 5 years, give or take. But already I can say 'Is it any wonder that even your averagely talented 'Indie' films like Clerks, Napoleaon Dynamite, and Shaun of the Dead can make it big?'

Hmm. It gives one pause, but it also makes one think...

We can follow the path of consumer audio format from tape to CD to mp3, and the path of video from VHS/Beta to Laserdisc to DVD to DV. We can see a shift in the distribution of audio moving away from the large conglomerates, and back to the hands of the artists where it rightly belongs, through websites like www.garageband.com

Hey Hollywood, guess who's next? (Smile)

Of course, Hollywood will not be destroyed by the Indie Filmmaker Invasion of 2008, because many Americans still need old, fat, rich, white men to tell them what is good. But there will be significant pressure to increase the quality and entertainment value of the finished products, and to do things that Indie films cannot do, or cannot afford to do. (3D projection and interactive viewing of the finished product comes to mind.)

I'm looking forward to it. But in the meantime, we will have to suffer through movies like 'The Dukes Of Hazzard', 'Aliens Vs Predator', 'Alone In The Dark'...

...et-shitera...

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Business Phenomena, consumerism, Hollywood, indie movies, Music Industry, Predictions