Today's Music Industry

[slapguitarer]

I got the new HoF from Best Buy for $7.99. They're cool in my book.

[adamclark52]

I agree 100% with the original comment about more accessability to artists. The reason I got into bands like Suffocation and Napalm Death so late was because when I was a teenager in the 1990's there was no internet. So to hear a new band you either had to do it through the grapevine, at a show or take a gamble. I was never willing to shell out $20 on a CD of a band that I wasn't even sure I'd like. Now if I'm interested I have so many avenues to get a sample.

And the whole downfall of the music industry has hurt all artists but metal bands never made money anyways, so it hasn't changed that much for them. Sure, Celine Dion is suffering but Carcass are scraping by just like they always did.

[JRA]

Originally Posted by slapguitarer

I got the new HoF from Best Buy for $7.99. They're cool in my book.

I got the goddamn remastered first album from there. Something I thought would only hold interest to online catalogs and dying record store go-ers. But at Best Buy?

[powerslave_85]

Originally Posted by illuminatus917

Since when? I used to only buy things there if they were used, it was the only way to get a reasonable price.

Some rare stuff (mostly metal) gets into $17-$18 range, but most stuff is $10-$15. At least at the one here.

[mankvill]

Originally Posted by JRA

Now you've got half of Kreator's audience being mankvill's age

shut up, i turn 14 in 2 weeks!

[JRA]

Originally Posted by mankvill

shut up, i turn 14 in 2 weeks!

[John The Drummer]

I can't wait to throw in my two cents once I get a chance!

In a nutshell for now, there are too many elitists and hipsters due to how easy it is to find bands these days

[dcmetal108]

Originally Posted by JRA

I got the goddamn remastered first album from there. Something I thought would only hold interest to online catalogs and dying record store go-ers. But at Best Buy?

The best buy near me sucks for metal unless it is huge name stuff. Even then they don't get alot of new metal. They have tons of remastered metal for $5 though.

I mean even Hot Topic sucks for music now. They'll get the new Lil Wayne and whatever Disney shit is being pushed but they won't get even something like The Ghost Inside or Every Time I Die which are bands they use to push.

[JRA]

Eh, I wouldn't say the local Best Buy was good for metal, I was just shocked the first High On Fire album was there.

[MPF]

Originally Posted by ravenheart

It makes it easier for small bands to get known, yes. But they can't make any money and actually carry on, so it's really not a positive in the least.

If the industry had got a lock-down on digital music technology at the beginning, so that it was only used for providing samples/streams/listening opportunities to fans so they could make more informed decisions on buying records and attending tours, then it would have been the best thing to happen to music in decades. They didn't, so it isn't. It's actually bordering on the worst thing.

Bands could have had all that new exposure and the like we're all talking about as positive impacts without losing money, without tours fucking smaller bands with stupid buy-ons because the bigger bands can't make money from records anymore, without labels withdrawing all tour funding and the bands having to charge silly ticket prices, without recorded music being watered down with shitty digital-only releases because people can't afford to release it properly, and so on.

The negative impacts of the digital age FAR outweigh the positives because the positives, but very few people can ever see beyond "HURR, I CAN HAS MUSIC FOR FREEEE!!".

In metal, things are AS bad. The evidence of that is more metal bands getting in album charts. Metal fans possibly more than most have stuck to supporting the artists. I think metal fans have always had a better grasp on how the industry works than most genres, probably because metal has always been such an underground thing that they've been closer to it than pop fans are. Most of the bands I talk to don't feel quite as threatened by the declining industry at the moment as I thought they would, because the fans are, for now, still there. The slope is still running downwards, though.

That's why I pointed out why its a double edged sword. there is no real winning or losing in this position because its become a damned if you do, damned if you don't type environment.