Question. Will these giant brick & mortar record company's be irrelevant in 5-10 years from now, with all the technology home studios have access to now days?
Answer . No, because capitalism isn't meant to work for people with home studios, it's meant to work for large corporations. As long as there's capitalism, and music is a commodity, it's gonna be about giant companies. Not a reason to stop making music though...
What do ya'll think? I mean, nowadays you can make music on a computer and upload it yourself. But large corporations get cut out of the picture when that happens. I mean, back in the 90s it wasn't unusual for a rapper to have a $100,000 budget. Nowadays, all you really need is a computer and a microphone. That costs about $2,000 tops. And you can make more than one album with a computer and a microphone, you can make 20 albums. Or 50 albums.
Music videos are easier to make too. Back in the 90s you needed a real camera and a person that knew how to edit videos. Nowadays you need a phone and a tripod. And chances are you already have a phone. And chances are you can buy a video editing program for a few hundred dollars...or download it for free.
So while back in the 90s a label would sign a rapper to a million dollar deal, nowadays all you really need is tour support. You need a tour manager, a tour bus, a label to pay for your hotel, food, laundry while you are on tour. But as far as recording the music and making the video, the costs have dropped dramatically. If you remember back in the 90s TLC spent $1 Million on a video. Nowadays you could probably make the same video for $1000 (hire a few models, rent a TV studio, pay a video guy $500).
But if capitalism is run by large corporations, will those large corporations let you record an album for $2,000 and make a $500 video? Or will they cockblock and make things more complicated than they need to be?
Or, has the paradigm shifted to Tunecore and Distrokid?? They charge $30 to upload an album to all of the streaming sites (Youtube, iTunes, Spotify, etc.) for a year. But since there's probably 1,000X more rap albums in 2021 than there were in 1991 does it even out?
Is it possible for the recording industry to get phased out or will the capitalists do whatever it takes to stay alive? Can the capitalist record labels stay alive or is it a sinking ship that cannot be saved?
Answer . No, because capitalism isn't meant to work for people with home studios, it's meant to work for large corporations. As long as there's capitalism, and music is a commodity, it's gonna be about giant companies. Not a reason to stop making music though...
What do ya'll think? I mean, nowadays you can make music on a computer and upload it yourself. But large corporations get cut out of the picture when that happens. I mean, back in the 90s it wasn't unusual for a rapper to have a $100,000 budget. Nowadays, all you really need is a computer and a microphone. That costs about $2,000 tops. And you can make more than one album with a computer and a microphone, you can make 20 albums. Or 50 albums.
Music videos are easier to make too. Back in the 90s you needed a real camera and a person that knew how to edit videos. Nowadays you need a phone and a tripod. And chances are you already have a phone. And chances are you can buy a video editing program for a few hundred dollars...or download it for free.
So while back in the 90s a label would sign a rapper to a million dollar deal, nowadays all you really need is tour support. You need a tour manager, a tour bus, a label to pay for your hotel, food, laundry while you are on tour. But as far as recording the music and making the video, the costs have dropped dramatically. If you remember back in the 90s TLC spent $1 Million on a video. Nowadays you could probably make the same video for $1000 (hire a few models, rent a TV studio, pay a video guy $500).
But if capitalism is run by large corporations, will those large corporations let you record an album for $2,000 and make a $500 video? Or will they cockblock and make things more complicated than they need to be?
Or, has the paradigm shifted to Tunecore and Distrokid?? They charge $30 to upload an album to all of the streaming sites (Youtube, iTunes, Spotify, etc.) for a year. But since there's probably 1,000X more rap albums in 2021 than there were in 1991 does it even out?
Is it possible for the recording industry to get phased out or will the capitalists do whatever it takes to stay alive? Can the capitalist record labels stay alive or is it a sinking ship that cannot be saved?
