The 21st Century Music Industry

Much of the 21^st century population in Canada is based around music in some way. We all listen to music whether it is on the radio, through our computers, on our MP3’s or IPod’s, or the good old fashioned way: live at a concert/show. We may actually support the artists’ and musicians we listen to by going to their shows, buying merchandise and/or buying their music, but, statistically speaking, a majority of people illegally download their music. Even though the digitalization of music is desolating hard-copy CDs, people don’t seem to care because, in the end, we all need music in our lives and we will get it any way we can.

The inevitable fall of all record sales will soon drive music corporations to take large portions of artists’/musicians hard earned money from their live shows and their merchandise. This just scares musicians off from the music industry altogether. As much as people love music, not enough people are willing to stop illegally downloading music to save the thing that gets them through the day. 

To compensate the fall in music sales, the music industry seems to be doing everything they can to prevent going bankrupt. There are all kinds of sell outs who are thrown into the limelight just to make money for their record label. Corporations create artists’ and musicians just to sell their bodies and create more profit from merch, meet ‘n’ greets and live shows. People pay excessive amounts of money to see a show and watch someone lip sync, instead of paying ¼ of the price and actually going to a real show for the music.

As hard as some artists’ work, like Justin Bieber, who is talented, regardless of my opinion on him, or Lady Gaga whose music is more of an art form, they are ripped off by so many watered down versions of them.  An artist like Ke$ha is a perfect example of this, as her catchy pop songs are not written by her, and are rarely sung by her either; she is popular because of her looks and catchy singles.

Pop is taking over the music industry and has been for the past ten years. All of the pervious examples of pop artists are just ripping off bands that have been together for ten years, toured around the world, and who are still hardly making a living. They still do it, however, because they love to play music, not because they want the royalties.

Silverstein

Today’s music world is just a vicious circle of talented, hard working people being exploited and watered down by people writing catchy songs with catchy beats. If that hasn’t already destroyed the music industry, the digitalization of music soon will.