Myspace = Music Space = test of future of music?
Although it’s nothing new technologically or musically, Myspace’s bold new music initiative, with Napster Sean Fanning’s cleverness, will very likely be a great look into the future of how people are going to relate to music both online and offline. Why?
1. Myspace is a huge community and the demographic is excellent for music distribution testing and refinements.
2. Myspace is the top online community, and this will be the first time technology has been leveraged on this scale to match bands and fans.
3. The music industry, most musicians, and almost all music fans remain prisoners of the old style notions of music marketing, distribution, and production. Myspace alone could change all that as it will democratize the selection process. More popular bands will rise on the basis of bigger fan bases rather than marketing manipulations and cross promotions.
I’m not saying this will change things, just that it’s a great test of how resilient the current music industry will be when it comes up against the new vision of music as open, democratic, narrowcasted, democratic, and cheap or free. Youngsters may still go for the Disney groups that are so brilliantly cross promoted on the TV show, in concerts, and online. But teens and young adults are the key market. Will they keep paying the middleman as the new bands offer increasing amounts of online interaction in exchange for paying them directly? The death of music mogul million dollar salaries and billion dollar profits won’t bother anybody, even those inside the industry.
I just hope I can download “The Funeral March” and play it while we bury the dinosaurs and bring in the bands.
