I listen to so many genres of music that it’s ridiculous. Its official, my brain is an iPod. Every time I look for music I always get on YouTube where I can find pretty much every song known to man. It’s great! I love it! It’s free!…….It’s free? And I think this the issue that musical artist have with sharing music on the internet.
It’s been a couple of years now since music downloads and Limewire made their debut into music. Limewire basically let you steal music for free (and I loved it), automatically making it harder to generate record sales. Music download sites like iTunes at least made you pay for music, but now you could just buy one song instead of the entire album. You can easily go on Wikipedia and search for an artist that is really famous (rap artist are the best example). If that artist first album was released in the late 90’s or early 2000’s, it probably sold millions. For example let’s say it sold about 5-6 million copies. There’s a pretty good chance that there most recent album sold 1 million copies or less. This is a tragedy of epic proportions.
Some artists lose record sales because they probably didn’t get enough promotion. On the other hand, some artists lose record sales because they cannot adjust to the way music is now that new technology is involved.
They try to do the things that made them successful in the past instead of moving forward. Some artists lose record sales when they go on a long hiatus/vacation/ whatever. When they come back they realize that the industry
isn’t how it used to be but instead of just being themselves they try to do what everyone else in the industry is doing. They then release an album and you listen to it like WTF! I hate to use swear words but man, you just don’t understand, there’s some really bad songs out there.
On a positive note it seems like there’s some artist who have figured out how to use the internet to their advantage. Artist like Drake and Lil B have gotten famous from using the internet and doing shows. Drake basically changed the way rap artist get noticed while Lil B became famous without even being on a major record label. Eminem recently became the first artist to sell 1 million digital copies of an album online. I guess my point is that the business of music is changing but you have to stay dedicated to your craft and be open minded to new ideas. Getting stuck in your old ways is just like being stuck in a trap.