Journal #4: The Day the Music Died

Frontline: The Day the Music Died Synopsis

The music industry is a very hard business to get involved in as a singer or song writer. Many people who have experienced the hardships of the music business will suggest that you do not try to get involved in the business. About 30,000 records are released annually and only about 100 turn out to be hits and make the top 100 on the Billboard Charts. This is about an 85% fail rate and about 9 out of 10 people fail. People who do get involved with the music business love what they do. Most singers and songwriters love to write and sing music so that their voice can be heard. It is their dream to get to sing on stage and get to the top. This is only a dream for most people. The business is a nasty one. You never know how much money you will make, or when your top songs will drop. For example, when rock first came out all the kids loved it, but parents hated it because they could not understand this new type of music. The same happened when hip-hop and rap was introduced. These genres of music became popular for a few years and then were dropped. The record companies used these artists. As said in the film, the record companies “used them and abused them and then threw them away.”
When the baby boomer generation grew up cassettes and CDs became available. These people began to buy less and less records, but they began to replace the records that they already had with these new inventions. This caused a problem because no new artists were being sold, but most companies were prospering from this excess buying of CDs. Because the record companies began to make so much money in such little time, the international conglomerates became interested in buying the companies. These international conglomerates ended up buying out some of the record companies.
Business in the 90s was good for record companies, but the increased use of the internet downloads and files transfers. The free music downloads available dented the amount of record sales. Also, one person could buy a CD and then transfer files to friends, whether it be to one friend or 100. The sales went from 40 billion down to 28 billion. The main argument that people who downloaded music off the internet is that they would go out and buy a CD from an artist they liked for one song and then the rest of the songs would be bad. Therefore they wasted their money on buying just one good song. When they download over the internet they could pick exactly what song they wanted to download and would not have to deal with all the other music that they did not enjoy listening to. The lead singer in Outkast explained that he feels that the free music downloads are not the problem. He thinks that the music industry is not producing “good” music anymore. He goes on to say that when people hear good music they will go out and spend the money to buy the songs. This is backed up by the amount of record sales of popular artists: Outkast sold 8 million, Eminem sold 8 million, 50 Cent sold 6 million, and Nora Jones sold 6 million.
The radio also makes the music industry tough. It is very hard for new artists to get their music on the radio. Radio stations rarely play new music because they stick to the music that they know is popular. The radio station may listen to 20-30 new CDs each week, but makes the decision on what to play by what’s hot and what will be hot. Getting onto the radio is like getting into the “eye of the needle.” There are 32,000 records put out each year and only about 4-5 records are able to be played in a week. In order to get on the radio as a new artist you need the “right song” that the radio station believes has the potential of being a hit single. The radio business suffered in the early 90s. This was because Congress passed a law that raised the amount of stations a conglomerate could own. This in turn became a monopoly. Clear Channel is an example of this. If this company did not want something to be aired on the radio, then it would not be aired.
MTV is also plays a big factor in getting artists songs out to the public. If an artist was aired on MTV then they were famous. MTV used the idea of marketing over substance. When you were on MTV you had 3 minutes and an image that you had to make and make people like it. If you did not have a good image, such as a music video, then you were not worthy to be on MTV. Therefore, in addition to the music, you needed to have a good music video to go along with it. MTV also has the same problem as radio, they cannot show every artist. They had a limit on the amount of time they could contribute to music per week. All artists were not able to be shown. As long as you made a “boom” with a new song then you would make it. All others who were just average would be pushed aside.