Music Free? At What Price?

By Moses Avalon (more articles from this author) 2001-01-10

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In the near future you may get to keep music free-most likely by digging for CDs in a box of Captin' Crunch.

The key question perched on the lips the entire industry is this: how, when the public's perception is that music should be free, do record companies create the perception that music should be paid for?

This is not a new problem. In fact, one can trace this exact phenomenon back to the controversy created by piano-rolls in the early 1900s. The Internet is just that-piano-rolls for the new millennium; just another manifestation of an industry dependent on control of distribution, fighting the public's conditioned incentive to get something for nothing.

Perhaps there is some young Stanford marketing-school graduate who can see a fresh angle here, but I see only two ways out for the majors:

1) Major labels will have to resort to the technique they've used many times in the past, whenever a new technology became overly accessible: they upgrade the standard to one that makes the old one sound absurd, cheap and worthy of being "free." The last time they used this strategy was the 1980s; most audio files would agree that CDs, when compared to LPs, didn't sound as full if heard on a high-quality stereo system. As part of marketing CDs, the parent companies of PollyGram and Sony, Philips Electronics and Sony Int. respectively (who held the CD patent) downgraded the quality of consumer listening systems: i.e. cheap boom boxes, integrated stereo systems for under $200, and other things that made listening to LPs "the right way" almost impossible. Left without a viable comparison, we now are now a generation unable to fairly compare the quality of LPs to CDs. As a result "CD quality" became the sublime standard.

What to Look for:

Special "audio file" releases in 24 bit/60khtz and players to support them. DVDs will incorporate albums which will include video footage and behind the scenes info. Also, record clubs with value-added things like concert tickets and contests for members who pay the monthly subscriber fees to Napster and the like.

2) If the above fails then record companies will have no choice, as I see it, but to go to the preverbal mattresses, tossing in CDs along with the sale of other items so that it seems "free." Much like the prize at the bottom of the cereal box. For example, buy a BMW and get the Beatles box set " free." A story published this month is the writing on the wall for this theory: ASCAP announced an alliance with Heineken to market a compilation CD. It will not be long before major labels and performing rights agencies begin exploiting this model and packaging new artists with products even before the record is released. Label's decision-making process for who to sign will begin to revolve around how they can package the artist with their affiliate/sponsors. (News flash: they already do, but now the volume will be turned way up.) Will artists go for this? They may have little choice if they want a major label deal. This gives the Indies a new angle to sell. Go get 'em.

What to look for:

The tell-tail signs of this will likely be product placement in MTV videos before the end of 2002. Whereas before you might see Brittany Spears doing a Pepsi commercial, now you will see a subtler, reverse version of this: Pepsi incorporated into in the Brittany video. No big stretch there. But how will this fit into the more subversive marketing campaign of say, Limp Bizkit, or Marilyn Manson? (Perhaps Marilyn's label can convince distributors of RU486 to do a placement.) When record companies run out of condom and alcohol sponsors, what next? A&R: "Hey fellas, we see you doing the video where you have a dream that you're performing your hit for a room full of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company salesmen, and then out pops a chick, dressed like a Hershey's chocolate bar. Can you see it? Can you see it?"

Lawyers and managers, prepare for some new "merchandising language" in label contracts for the coming year. Make sure you are not obligating your client in ways that will have them sending a few "boyz" to your office on that high floor.

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