#airing Bob Dylan – the times they are a-changing srndp.me/ahexhOD
It used to be that the ultimate goal for any musician or band was to get that holiest of holies – a lucrative contract with a big label.
But, as Bob Dylan sang back in the 60′s, the times they are a-changing.
Social media and online music sharing, along with other aspects of viral online marketing have made the need for a top label contract almost non-existent for a band who wants to make it big, particularly in the rock and roll genre.
When was the last time you bought an album?
Before Facebook, Before Twitter, even before anyone was on MySpace, there was Napster. This inconspicuous piece of software forever changed the music industry, and was the first step in the in the complete disruption of the “old way” of listening to music.
Today, Napster is no more, but the effect it had on the way we discover, obtain and listen to music has been monumental. Now with the advent of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter the music sharing trend has become the norm and traditional buying of music seems like something from the Stone Age.
The new age of rock is upon us. Save for a few bland teeny boppers and watered down “musicians”, the music industry feeds on online purchases or even just giving away their music in order to gain fans for live touring. The music industry is running scared, but until they really begin to embrace the new realities on the ground, they will continue to be a dying breed.
While iTunes purchases and Bitorrent downloads have exploded recently, the role of YouTube and other content sharing platforms in the discovery and enjoyment of music are also starting to catch hold of the market. People tend to find a song they like on YouTube and want to share it with the world.
We have all opened our Facebook or Twitter feeds and noticed an interesting song posted by a friend and taken the chance to listen to it only to find ourselves grooving out to this new jam!
The traditionally “industry” will never catch up to the speed of music discovery online unless it opens itself to the fact that things will never go back to the “good ole days”, however it seems less and less likely that this will ever happen.
