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"Manufactured music superstars are a dying breed, and good riddance." By all current indications, this is simply not true. Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, et al.,

"Manufactured music superstars are a dying breed, and good riddance." By all current indications, this is simply not true. Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, et al., are still the biggest names in the world. Van Halen (!), by all accounts a musical relic of the 1980s, made over $20M on tour in 2012. [1] Katy Perry is the #1 performer on the iTunes charts right now, followed closely by Robin Thicke. [2] In fact, something paradoxical may be happening in today's music business: the digital ecosystem might be concentrating sales and fame among a smaller handful of winners, at the expense of everyone else. Part of this is the competition effect described in the article. Because everyone can be a musician now, and because there's so much more music out there -- and so many more ways to discover it -- the primary challenge for any musician seeking to earn a living is to figure out how to get discovered. The landscape is noisier than ever, figuratively and literally. How does one stand out? Skill doesn't seem to be the determinative factor. Instead, it's marketing dollars. The big labels, as much as everyone hates them, are still kingmakers. They still have the money to buy a hit. They still have the distribution partnerships to make something chart, or to book someone on a major tour. For everyone outside their system, getting noticed is certainly possible, and probably more possible than ever. But the room is pretty damned crowded, and everyone's playing an instrument. This may change in the long run, but the change is most likely going to involve the replacement of old kingmakers with new kingmakers: i.e., Universal Music or Sony BMG will cede some power to Apple and Amazon. Regardless, the power-law distribution is still very much in effect. I'm as hopeful as anyone for a true revolution in music, and for the "dying" out of the "manufactured music superstars." Believe me, I wish I lived in a world where Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus weren't bigger than Jesus. But they're doing just fine, and they will for many years to come. Even if we stop paying for music. (They make a killing on tour; the record sales are nice, but almost incidental). [1] Source: http://www.billboard.com/articles/list/1549704/musics-top-40-money-makers-2013 http://www.billboard.com/articles/list/1549704/musics-top-40... [2] http://www.apple.com/itunes/charts/songs/ http://www.apple.com/itunes/charts/songs/

pessimizer 13y ago
It's a dying gasp of people too young to pirate, people too old to pirate, and people too poor or otherwise technically un-savvy to pirate - nominally a very tiny portion of the population, and consists entirely of horrible music. As far as I can tell from this: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=6393116&whence=item%3fid%3d6390467 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=6393116&whence=item%3f... only one album has sold 20M copies in this millennium. http://www.katyperrylately.com/post/53310641303/teenage-dream-is-the-10th-best-selling-album-of-the http://www.katyperrylately.com/post/53310641303/teenage-drea...
- nkurz 13y ago
  I don't know what the exact ratios are, but I think you should add "people who find the convenience of purchasing offsets the savings of pirating, people who fear the legal repercussions of pirating, people whose personal ethics compel them to buy a legal copy, and people who feel that buying a legal copy benefits the artist more than an illegal download". Right or wrong, dying gasp or not, I think these are significant subgroups.
- jonnathanson 13y ago
  "It's a dying gasp of people too young to pirate, people too old to pirate, and people too poor or otherwise technically un-savvy to pirate - nominally a very tiny portion of the population, and consists entirely of horrible music." Piracy isn't the issue, though. It's a red herring. The effects of piracy on the music business have been massively overstated. Even if everyone in the world stopped paying for music -- even if all music in the world became by default free -- the artists at the top of the pack would still rake in the lion's share of attention and revenue, due to touring and merchandising. In fact, that's increasingly where the revenue in the music business is coming from. In a world where the only way to make money off of music is to tour or sell merch, the winner-take-all dynamics would arguably get worse, not better. There are only so many venues out there, and only so many acts who can sell tickets and pack houses to capacity. The venues will bet on the sure things, placing increased value on the role of the sure-thing-maker. The alternative is a lot more in-music or intra-channel advertising, and it's debatable if that's a better alternative for the consumer.

pessimizer 13y ago

It's a dying gasp of people too young to pirate, people too old to pirate, and people too poor or otherwise technically un-savvy to pirate - nominally a very tiny portion of the population, and consists entirely of horrible music. As far as I can tell from this: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=6393116&whence=item%3fid%3d6390467 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=6393116&whence=item%3f... only one album has sold 20M copies in this millennium. http://www.katyperrylately.com/post/53310641303/teenage-dream-is-the-10th-best-selling-album-of-the http://www.katyperrylately.com/post/53310641303/teenage-drea...

nkurz 13y ago
I don't know what the exact ratios are, but I think you should add "people who find the convenience of purchasing offsets the savings of pirating, people who fear the legal repercussions of pirating, people whose personal ethics compel them to buy a legal copy, and people who feel that buying a legal copy benefits the artist more than an illegal download". Right or wrong, dying gasp or not, I think these are significant subgroups.
jonnathanson 13y ago
"It's a dying gasp of people too young to pirate, people too old to pirate, and people too poor or otherwise technically un-savvy to pirate - nominally a very tiny portion of the population, and consists entirely of horrible music." Piracy isn't the issue, though. It's a red herring. The effects of piracy on the music business have been massively overstated. Even if everyone in the world stopped paying for music -- even if all music in the world became by default free -- the artists at the top of the pack would still rake in the lion's share of attention and revenue, due to touring and merchandising. In fact, that's increasingly where the revenue in the music business is coming from. In a world where the only way to make money off of music is to tour or sell merch, the winner-take-all dynamics would arguably get worse, not better. There are only so many venues out there, and only so many acts who can sell tickets and pack houses to capacity. The venues will bet on the sure things, placing increased value on the role of the sure-thing-maker. The alternative is a lot more in-music or intra-channel advertising, and it's debatable if that's a better alternative for the consumer.