The recording industry establishes specific control strategies and dominant agendas
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while a considerable amount of musical production, distribution and consumption is beyond the immediate influence and understanding of the corporations.Negus (1999)
So one is caught between arguments advancing the power of the corporate strategies used by the entertainment conglomerates, and those arguing for the influence and sur- vival of music made and distributed beyond the reach of the corporations. There is the question of how far any musicians can be entirely beyond such ‘reach’. In one sense, if the ‘music pool’ uses the technology of the business or listens to CDs produced by the majors, then they are touched by that power of ownership – even if they do not sign a recording contract. As with other media, it is almost impossible to remain truly independent in terms of musical innovation, production and distribution.
To the extent that multi-nationals do control PM, it is not in respect of the creative base so much as in respect of distribution. From a commercial point of view, PM is about the numbers of units shifted. Institutionally, PM is about that which sells, that which is on the CDs, that which can be categorized into markets, and that which is marketable. The nature of the creative core of PM also means that for institutions there is a high
cost/risk involved in signing musicians and producing material. It costs relatively little to run off the CDs, so volume is also important – the more one sells, the more profit rises in relation to production costs. This is another argument for hanging on to control of distribution. This is why Warners and others fought Napster into extinction and off the Internet. This is why CD piracy causes high anxiety in music corporation boardrooms.
In April 2001, worldwide music sales started to fall for the first time. The value of sales for that year dropped by 1.3 per cent to $36.9 billion (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry). In 2003 the IFPI reported an average 10.9 per cent fall in worldwide music sales for the first half of the year, twice as much in the USA (12 per cent) as in Britain. The value of these sales had dropped to $12.7 billion for the half year. Cheap CD production and the Internet work against a centralized industry and in favour of independence. Even domestic computers can burn music CDs at a rate which, for instance, is impossible with videotape copying. And the Internet is still a significant source of music material. It cannot be controlled in the way that, for instance, broadcast- ing is. So we have a situation of tension in which the definition of what popular music is, and the availability of PM in a reproduced form, is both in the control of commodity capitalism and yet also outside this, in the hands of individuals and small groups.
To an extent, this tension of scale, of control and of individual inspiration is paralleled in the availability of live music performances. Only certain high profile organ- izations with access to serious capital, can provide the venues, events and infrastructure to support a Rolling Stones’ tour or a major music festival. In Britain, Mean Fiddler dominates the festival scene, now including a major stake in Glastonbury. There is no point in trying to play the Birmingham Centre unless you can guarantee an audience of thousands. On the other hand, there are thousands of musicians playing thousands of small venues every week. There are hundreds of groups who have never made the charts who are out there with boxes of CDs for sale.
And whatever the power of the music majors to foreground certain genres of music, manufacture opportunities for certain groups, make certain songs/tunes part of every- day experience, still they do not have the power to make the music popular. ‘There is no point-to-point correlation between controlling the market-place economically and controlling the form, content and meaning of music’ (Garofalo, 1986).
This lack of control over something called ‘creativity’, and indeed ‘popularity’, may explain conflicting models of the music industry.
A Neo-Marxist model might foreground centralized control and the role of the majors. In this case one might look at the comments on vertical integration made by Peterson and Berger (1990). It is also Simon Frith (1992) who, in assessing different perspectives, articulates a classic Marxist/commodity critique of the popular music industry: ‘Pop is a classic case of what Marx called alienation: something human is taken from us and returned in the form of a commodity. Songs and singers are fetishised, made magical, and we can only reclaim them through possession, via cash transaction in the marketplace.’
On the other hand, a pluralist model talking up consumer choice might foreground smaller institutions and the range of producers – a history of creativity which includes examples such as Stax Records, 2 Tone, Island and Rough Trade.
A political economy model might recognize both majors and Indies, and their inter- dependence, satisfying both mass and niche markets. Certainly Negus (1992) pointed
out that majors would scout and eventually purchase from the innovative work of small companies. And those companies live interdependently with the majors (and major retailers), sometimes doing distribution deals with them, sometimes being taken over by them. It is a kind of symbiotic relationship which calls into question the degree and nature of independence. This situation and issue is analogous, for example, to the TV industry, where a nominally independent production company such as HatTrick has a limited range of distributor/broadcasters to whom it can sell.
Negus (1999) discusses ways in which the music industries try to control what is actually a very uncertain business (in terms of hits and profits) by trying to introduce order, predictability and accountability into the process of seeking, signing, nurturing, promoting and profiting from talent. He summarizes four corporate strategies as (somewhat paraphrased):
G throw enough mud at the wall and it sticks (i.e. put out enough material and some will succeed);
G wait until an Indie finds the next big artist, group, sound and then jump on the bandwagon;
G what goes round comes round, so wait for the next profitable music cycle to turn up;
G genius will out, so natural talent will emerge from your acquisitions.
What is clear is that music businesses, like Hollywood, work on the portfolio prin- ciple of spreading risks and assuming that only a few of your signings will generate big money. Negus also points out that control of distribution means that the companies get market information feedback about what is popular and is selling out there. This advan- tage is to an extent contradicted by a desire to shift big units and a failure to deal with small retailers and small numbers of units. Music corporations are good at selling what is already recognized, selling large numbers of CDs, and promoting successful bands and trends.
Note that all these comments place PM as a commodity and measure its success in terms of profit. This says nothing about the value placed on it by musicians or audience in terms of emotional satisfaction or of its being part of forms of social resistance. We are talking here about creativity and musicianship and recordings as having a commercial value, a price placed on them. As with all media industries this is based on the notion of copyright, of ownership, of a price placed on use. There is a price paid for recording someone’s music (mechanical rights); for using a recording or for using someone’s music (performing rights). There are in Britain groups such as The Mechanical Copyright Protection Society set up to monitor use and to collect money for the record companies and artists. Most of the money goes back to the companies.
There is a struggle between two kinds of culture and ethos. On the one hand commerce seeks to codify, control and materially benefit from the creative and social experience of music. On the other hand, musicians and social groups seek cultural ownership and sharing of their music. This is not a simple dichotomy between art and commerce. The companies get (recorded) music to those who would otherwise never hear it. They do lose a lot of money nurturing some talent that never hits the button. And musicians often aspire to the fame and cash that a deal can bring them.