The Way the Music Died

Ok, so my interest in music goes back a couple of years. In college I was a radio DJ in 1984 (God I am getting old) at Linfield College. I worked at the movie studios from the late 80s through the early 90s and spent a lot of time in the clubs following the various industrial, punk and alternative bands playing Los Angeles at the time. I later went to work very briefly at Universal Music Group, and then MP3.com, which was subsequently purchased by Vivendi Universal. At Vivendi Universal I was the President of the group which included MP3.com, Rollingstone.com, eMusic, GetMusic, and Trusonic.

Ok, so I guess I have some opinions about music. I don't intend to say much today about those opinions, but rather I wanted to make a comment about a show I Tivo'd and watched this week. The show was produced by PBS Frontline and it was entitled The Way the Music Died. I was really excited to see this as there is so much good material to review when one considers the state of music. Although I expected to hear a lot about Napster etc., the real message was concerning a consolidation of labels and distribution.

I was glad to hear this issue vetted but it really failed to outline all of the issues, which is a much more fascinating story and one that is instructive for television, film and the other IP based businesses (That's Intellectual Property not Internet Protocol). What I thought was going to be mentioned is touched on briefly on the shows website on this page describing "The perfect storm" that hit the industry. Now that slide would have been a good story and much more interesting than the side by side profiles of Velvet Revolver and Kate Hudson's cousin. If you missed the show I would encourage you to check out this page and the links around the CD. They really give a thoughtful look at how complex the problem is and I think it provides certain insights into what has happened and what can potentially happen as the content businesses evolve in the coming years.