Major Record Labels Fear Chage, Water = Wet, Sky = Blue

Apple Inc and the “Big Five” of major record labels are once again clashing, with the center of the issue revolving around the hot button issue of copyright law. The record labels agreed with the owners of the popular digital music store iTunes, to remove copyright protection software as a compromise for allowing pricing options besides the typical $0.99 per song. This is an incredibly frustrating story to read, as I feel passionately about the state of the music industry. It is clear to me that this is another example of them clinging to a model that is both out of date and ineffective.

The idea of flexible pricing allows for the major labels to charge more for hit songs, bringing their popular tactic of living off back catalogs into the 21st Century. Instead of promoting new acts and attempting to create interest in a variety of projects it is much easier to find one or two hits and charge away. Finding a few big stars creates a security blanket for labels, as new and interesting talent becomes less and less common while mainstream music becomes progressively stale. With slowing sales the only concept of adaptation seems to finding new ways to gauge the consumers more than they already are.

While certain acts have come to embrace other methods of marketing, Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” went platinum despite being given away for free initially, it feels to me like the name of the game is still to find how high you can charge the consumers and ride it out once you do. It is a method that has been steadily dragging the recording industry down since the advent of digital piracy and none of their counter tactics have be successful. However, plans like these lead me to believe that we are going to see a crash long before any sort of embrace of free music. With the major labels so firmly rooted in their ways (despite progressively worse sales) such a radical concept will not catch on before such a crash comes. With such economically hard times in front of us as a country it might be a lesson that the labels will have to learn the hard way, much sooner than later.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/business/media/02apple.html?_r=1&ref=business

Friendly reminder, Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion is the best album of 2009.

Too Much Ado About Nothing

On the eve of the biggest sporting event of the country, another major figure has fallen under fire for a comprising photo that appeared in a British tabloid and was confirmed to be accurate. US swimmer Michael Phelps, who shattered every record there was at the 2008 Beijing Olympics was caught smoking marijuana at a party and now is the center of a wide variety of controversy. This is the kind of controversy that is easy to approach objectively for me, as I do not have strong feelings towards drugs and boycotted the last summer games for political reasons. The heart of the debate is the ever changing ideals of our world, and a battle between new and old ideology.

The overwhelming response from people my age seems to be confusion as to why this is even a big deal. Why the IOC and Phelps himself have both been strongly anti-doping, the use of a clearly non-performance enhancing (although stilled banned) drug simply does not spark the same outrage that you see in the older generations following this story. The simple fact of that matter, that certain people seem to have trouble coming to terms with, is that people in their early twenties are going to do break taboos such as drug use. It has become more and more accepted over the years and has reached the point of almost being a social norm now for the younger generations. While one can obviously debate that such a photo “sets a bad example” marijuana use in teens and people in their early twenties is so prevalent that for many the shock value simply is not there.

From a doping stand point, the talk of stripping medals and the such comes off to be as being rather ridiculous. While I understand the need for strong doping laws in all professional sport, targeting something as harmless with no performance enhancing qualities comes across as needlessly creating more controversy. There is no explanation in my mind for equating recreational drug use at a party to steroid use to gain a competitive edge in a sporting event. They sit at different ends of the spectrum, and besides being morally wrong (a debate I’ve weighed in on already) there truly is no correlation between the two.

The final and most difficult debate is one that we see constantly in both sports and entertainment. It is the question of the responsibility of a popular public figure to be a role model to the youth. This is a point I never have approved of, an athlete’s job is to compete and reach the goals that are expected of him. To be the face of youth culture is simply asking too much from someone who is not realistically in a position to take on such a role. Phelps was put under enough pressure during the games to achieve all of the awards and records he did, to then expect him to live like a monk simply strikes me as seeming superfluous. Certainly, good behavior would help the image of such a public figure; however one night of harmless partying does not strike me as being the sort of action worthy of tarnishing an entire reputation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/sports/othersports/02phelps.html?_r=1&ref=sports

I don't like to do sports stories, but the insane media attention this is already getting is causing me to make an exception.