THE trend is clear. The time has come. The word is ‘free.’
Today, Nine Inch Nails offered their latest album free of charge.
It is the boldest statement yet from a major artist about the state of the music industry since Radiohead gave their fans options on how to go about the band’s latest release: They can choose to pay, or not.
NIN’s move is yet another blow to a struggling industry whose grip on its consumers is fast slipping away. Nobody buys music anymore, and that is the truth. Now, artists cash in on tours and merchandise and not on CD sales anymore like it used to.
In the old days (perhaps less than ten years ago), gigs are played to promote albums. Now it is the exact reverse– albums promote gigs.
The more free releases artists give away, the more popular they could become– and rich due to tour revenues and band items for sale.
The ‘free’ trend is a natural by-product of the home recording revolution. Most artists are now equipped with basic recording equipment in their homes and can release songs and albums as often as they want without the controlling arm of record executives. Gone are the days when, artists needed a big budget to produce their records, now it is all do it yourself.
Despite the free trend, however, some artists still opt to have their albums on physical CDs or vinyl, but only for the novelty of it and not for anything else.
Perhaps, there are still some CD and vinyl enthusiasts who appreciate these ancient forms of music distribution. But it is certain that the majority are not into liner notes and tangible album covers anymore. Almost everyone has turned to the digital form.
The way of listening to music has changed since the birth of the iPod, and it is but natural for the music companies to change their form of delivery as well. Thus came the Mp3 and all the countless online music stores.
The music companies’ embrace of the new order also proved to be the end for them.
In light of all these, perhaps, FilAm artists and labels could do this as well. Titofelix did it with their latest album, and so did our local indy label, Soulorks. But given that most FilAm bands are generally unknown to the whole FilAm community in the whole country, there’s a chance that the effort would be futile.
Truth is, we are yet to see FilAms really supporting local artists in the way the mainstream fans support big groups like Radiohead and NIN. If Fil Am fans can watch Radio head gigs and purchase NIN t-shirts and mugs, why can’t they lend the same support to a FilAm bands?
We hope they will. If we can get all FilAm music lovers and the local media to support the music scene, it would not hurt so much for artists to give away their albums because they know they will get their compensation from full house gigs and sold out t-shirts.
Tags: Nine inch nails NIN Radiohead FilAm music FilAm bands FilAm artists iPod Poptimes Magazine |
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