Tuesday, September 4, 2007 at 1:27 PM
That's at least what music guru Rick Rubin says at least. Rubin has been contracted by Sony to essentially save the music industry.
Save it from who? From itself of course.
Gone, seemingly overnight, are the days that the music industry can just muscle through poor music to the masses. Radio is losing listenership. Retailers are losing customers. And MTV... well, MTV stopped being about "music' a long time ago.
The problem, which was reaffirmed by a focus group of digital-savvy college students, is all explained in a nutshell here:
"The kids [from the focus group] all said that a) no one listens to the radio anymore, b) they mostly steal music, but they don't consider it stealing, and c) they get most of their music from iTunes on their iPod. They told us that MySpace is over, it's just not cool anymore; Facebook is still cool, but that might not last much longer; and the biggest thing in their life is word of mouth. That's how they hear about music, bands, everything."
The solution, in Rubin's mind, for saving the music industry - is a subscription service:
"To combat the devastating impact of file sharing, [Rick Rubin], like others in the music business (Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine at Universal, for instance), says that the future of the industry is a subscription model, much like paid cable on a television set. 'You would subscribe to music,' Rubin explained, as he settled on the velvet couch in his library. 'You'd pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you'd like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere.'"
But... that it already exists: in satellite radio. Unfortunately, the music industry is still stuck in trying to salvage the previous model, and too busy fighting innovators rather than working with them.
It's not that I disagree with Rubin. I believe he's right, and satellite radio is well on its way to become the "anywhere" solution people need (there's some critical missing gaps, but that's a whole separate article). But by the time the music industry realizes it... it could be too late.
There's a lot of interesting observations here.
Thoughts?
(side note: I think Rubin might just be Brother Stair's evil twin...)
