Seth Godin: Why The Record Industry Is Toast

Posted by on Monday, November 7, 2011 · 5 Comments 

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“The record industry used to be perfect, perfect for a whole bunch of reasons. This is vinyl, if I love this record I listen to it a lot, i wear it out and have to buy a new one – it’s good for them.

If I loan this record to you then I don’t have it anymore, I have to buy a new one – that’s good for them. If I get in the car in 1974 and turn on the radio, all I hear is songs from records which are advertisements for me to go buy it. If I turn on the television when cable came out there’s mtv – nothing but commercials for records. If I go to the senior prom, it’s a celebration of music.

All of this works in their favour. Tower records, a store that exists to do nothing but sell music, they love the business. And then of course they made CDs and the whole thing fell apart. Music started to spread.

We don’t have a music shortage anymore, there is more music being listened to by more people than ever before, but the music industry is toast. Those people from the senior prom are now 60 years old, they’re not buying music anymore, the radio? Nobody really listens to it the way they used to anymore. All of these things conspire to make the music industry not very good, so what did they do? They sued us. That’s just not the right answer.”
Seth Godin at the NextGen Charity Conference

The ‘record industry’ – that old behemoth – may be dying, but music certainly isn’t. People are starting things to support new artists in a way the big guys aren’t, a new infrastructure is appearing – and it is damn exciting.

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  • http://mrtunes.ca/blog Mr. Tunes

    this sort of “blanket” assessment of the music industry is tired. and in the current state, there are actually two music industries at work right now. i wish people would talk about the more interesting one, the one that has nothing to do with stupid major labels.

    • http://www.newmusicmichael.com/ Michael Senchuk

      Unfortunately, if you’re just on the periphery and not embedded in the industry/scene, that’s really all you know is the major labels.

    • Marco

      I have to agree, it’s just the new industry as it is evolving is hard to pin down – being fragmented like it is, If you’ve got some insights I’d love to hear them – office@behyped.com, ta

  • http://www.hypedsound.com jonathanjaeger

    That’s why there is a difference between the terms “record industry” and “music industry” — I don’t think we should use them interchangeably.

    • Marco

      I agree, I fell foul of that I just noticed. [edited]