The flip-flopping of the Music Industry
Music is everywhere around you. But the music industry itself has made a massive change in the last decade. Gino Castaldo is a music journalist for ‘La Republicca’. He has been working in the music industry for a long time. “I started with the grammaphone and now we download everything on the computer.”
The rise of internet has affected the way we listen, discover and judge music. Social media like: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Soundcloud made a huge impact on how we appreciate music now a days.
It pretty much started with the rise of Myspace, which was launched in August 2003. Musicians, producers, journalists and fans of music started to network all around the world through Myspace. It was the ideal platform for anyone who was interested in music. Musicians uploaded their music and personal information on the platform to share with the whole world. The audience could find all the information they needed to know on their Myspace page; tourdates, songs, background stories, photographs and so on.
“The information about for instance concerts have changed from radio and newspapers to the Internet. You can now reach a larger audience”, says music promoter Alberto Cusella.
Almost a year later, in mid-2004, Facebook concoured the Internet. Leading to a massive migration. Most of the Facebook-users closed their Myspace-acount and opened a new account on Facebook, leaving Myspace behind to an inevitable slow death. Charlie Amter, working for Warner\Chapell Music, thinks it ‘sucks‘ that Myspace is practically dead. “Myspace was big for musicians. Facebook is great, but not for music. Myspace should come back!” Amter says that he needs to go to seperate websites if he wants to find information about a band. “In the past everything was gathered on Myspace, but now you have to open several web-windows to find all the information you need.” Amter says he prefers to have it all on Myspace, rather then to scrape everything together from several webpages as for example: Twitter, Facebook and Soundcloud. In Amter’s eyes neither of these webpages can compare to the aspects Myspace had to offer.
But not only musicians and music-fans had to change their way of work. Producers and music journalists were being forced to get used to the Internet. The way producers get in touch with talented musicians have changed. Now they can discover new and promising music through the Internet and immediately get in contact with the musicians. They read each others music reviews on websites, click thousands of music playlists on Youtube and Soundcloud and tweet about promising new discoveries. Gino Cusella acknowledges that the way of getting information has changed. “It’s now possible to get facts quicker from strangers.” Gino Castaldo is happy about the quality of music now a days. “The average quality has improved. We now have better software and the standars have really gone up.”
Italian artists have also made a positive progression for their music industry. Charlie Amter, who has a good view on the likes from the American audience, says for example that Benny Benassi is becoming a real star in the States. His tech house music does a great job in America.
Are you interested in good music? Then Charlie Amter has a few good suggestions for newspapers\magazines to read, like: Pittsburgh City Paper, New York Times, Rolling Stone of the L.A. Times.
Tim Bazuijnen
