RIAAL Mistakes

Call me slow, but while showering this morning I figured out what happened to the music industry. This is a little bit of hubris talking because there's pretty much no evidence for anything here. It's just a theory... a theory that fits the facts.

The music industry has been catastrophically effective. Marketing to children and teens is not particularly difficult... with more focus on teens. The desires and motivation of teens are very apparent, as is their own sense of self worth. The music industry markets primarily to teens and young adults with a focus on sales. What is derived from this by the target audience is not the concern of the seller, it's a market of buyer beware.

The reason that most younger people prefer music or films to painting, literature or sculpture isn't because music resonates more keenly to a younger demographic, it's because the target market of music is a younger demographic. An industry musician on a morning television program commented about how the music industry was looking for new angles on promotion and was using television programs for musical cross promotion. It's an angle. A way to make music penetration more thorough and bond with it the emotions being portrayed within the program. It works on the sub-conscious of the viewer, them not realizing that the music they are listening to is sub-consciously linking in their mind to the feeling of 'love', 'hope' or 'courage'.

The music then lends positive re-enforcement to the listener, which heightens their desire to purchase it.

And this was the thread of thought that lead me to realize where the music industry failed, and continues to fail. If you had to name the major failing point of the music industry in the last 20 years, it would be obvious... NAPSTER. It's a boring story to recount, so if you don't know about it... go and read. What happened?

It's pretty obvious with a little thought, deep thought but still little. People had grown up being marketed to by the music industry. As in the example above, their desire was heightened by the marketeers. When a new album was released, everyone simply had to have it. Every teen purchased CD's and many people kept on with this trend well into adulthood. So what do you have? Simple, a massive desire for music and musical products.

So what's the one thing that satiates desire? ...Gratification. You get what you want. Now imagine having someone serve you up a tool that delivers exactly what you want, when you want it and instantly.

“Gratification, instant and lavish, is a birthright.”
- Bill Bryson

Excuse the diversion... I've got to re-enforce my sense of self worth by quoting apparently clever people on vaguely the same subject matter as I'm jibbering about.

I've seen television advertisements for albums with a strong voice over saying "What you want", "The must have album" and "The greatest album from the greatest artist of our time". Everyone who's watched television in the last 20 years has seen this heavy handed marketing. Perhaps it raises the desire? Isn't that what it's talking about? Describing to the audience precisely what we want, what we need... what we must have.

But where does the gratification of our desire come from? Do you choose a trip to the record store, an overpriced purchase and a trip home? Hell no! I want it now, fast and perfect.

The music industry has learnt how to build desire, now it's time to learn to satiate that desire. What would be the best possible outcome of buying a CD... perhaps free concert tickets and a chance for a backstage pass to meet the object of my desire? What about a live show, simulcast radio / tv / on-line performance? A signed disk? A photo of me and the star with my signed CD, ooohhhh, I'd be out to buy one of the first 500 CD's in a flash.

The desire of entire generations has been sharpened to such a knife point that we all WANT, often without understanding what it is that we want. And where is our satisfaction? It's the person, group, organisation, company or government that can provide our satisfaction who will win the day. Perhaps it will be an enlightened NIN or a re-incarnation of the Nazi party... or more likely, something in between.