Like many Gen X rock music fans, I consider KISS to be the band that started me on my rock and roll journey. The music, the mystique and the showmanship all contributed to the intrigue. And though I never got the chance to see them before they “unmasked” themselves, my first KISS concert on the Animalize tour remains one of my fondest memories. That being said, the man who was once larger than life to me, now puzzles me with his views of the world.
Following up on his controversial “rock is dead” stance, Gene Simmons has now gone on record blaming the fans for killing the infrastructure of the music industry, specifically, record labels. While the consumption of music by fans probably does prevent rock bands from reaching the superstardom of KISS and other legendary artists, putting all of the blame on fans is short-sighted and misguided.
LONG BEFORE NAPSTER…
Many will point to emergence of Napster and file sharing as the reason that the infrastructure started to crumble. That may be true from the industry perspective, but from the fans’ perspective, it actually began in October of 1982 when CDs arrived on the scene. Don’t get me wrong, fans (myself included) fully embraced CDs, and shelled out more money than ever for albums (many of which they already owned on vinyl or cassette).
Even though the cost to manufacture CDs was significantly lower than the cost to manufacture vinyl, CD prices were much higher than vinyl prices. CDs were also much less likely to be damaged during shipping, but record labels still charged artists the same “breakage” fees.
RECORD LABELS – A GIFT FROM HEAVEN?
Simmons puts record labels on a pedestal, calling them a “gift from heaven” and stating that they gave millions and didn’t ask for the money back when the albums failed to sell, something that a bank wouldn’t do if they loaned money to a business that failed. However, comparing artists that don’t sell enough albums to recoup their advances to a small business that fails is not a good analogy. Record labels are not banks. A more accurate analogy would have been to compare them to angel investors who risk their capital for the chance to earn exponential returns on their investment. It’s all about risk and reward. Like angel investors, record companies rely upon their “hits” to absorb the losses from their misses.
Now that we’ve established that record companies are not the “gift from heaven” that Simmons made them out to be, let’s take a look at the factors that contributed to the crumbling of the industry infrastructure.
GREED IS GOOD – THE GEKKO MINDSET
One of the most famous lines to come out of the movies of the 80s is…“greed, for a lack of a better word, is good” (Gordon Gekko, Wall Street). Record labels fully bought into this concept when they were making a killing on CD sales, cashing in on lower production costs and higher sale prices while selling music fans something that they already owned in many cases. All the while, they charged their artists the same “breakage” fees that they were charging for the infinitely more fragile vinyl albums. When record labels took advantage of technology and padded their pockets, consumers and artists didn’t protest; they simply accepted things for what they were.
PEER-TO-PEER MUSIC SHARING
Fast forward to June of 1999 (nearly 17 years after the debut of the CD). A computer programmer named Shawn Fanning develops Napster (a free peer-to-peer file sharing platform). Peer-to-peer music sharing was not a new concept. After all, how many of us made cassette mixes of our albums to share with our friends? The difference with Napster was that the file sharing was no longer contained to peers who knew each other. Thanks to technology, file sharing with strangers was made possible. And though record labels and well-known artists like Metallica did their part to shut the service down, a new way of consuming music was born.
TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE
Like the banks who were thought to be “too big to fail” during the recent financial meltdown, record labels (predominantly the majors) built a machine that was thought to be too powerful to ever bring down. Rather than accept that there was about to be another paradigm shift in the way that people consumed music, they clung to overpriced CDs with all of their might. When they finally accepted that the Internet was the great equalizer and that technology would prevail, their response was to offer overpriced paid downloads of songs and albums. Had they embraced downloads at a reasonable price, with their still powerful presence, they may very well have drawn people away from Napster and peer-to-peer file sharing, which had limitations and had only gained traction with early adopters.
THE SUB-GENRE EFFECT
Even without the greed and false sense of security that the labels displayed in the face of a legitimate threat to their infrastructure, advances in technology (in all likelihood) would have prevented the next Beatles, Elvis or KISS.
While pop music is still a narrow enough vertical to create megastars, rock music is now split into numerous sub-genres. There is no universal radio format to reach the fragmented rock audience, and MTV (which helped launch some of the bigger rock bands in the 80s) has been replaced by YouTube, which is far too vast to reach an audience narrow enough to achieve critical mass. So, even if consumers were willing to purchase music as they once did, the reality is that rock bands would still be fighting an uphill battle to rely upon music sales to support a career. There is simply too much music to choose from, and no one outlet to reach an increasingly fragmented audience.
Even if there was a way to reach a critical mass of rock music fans, there are other factors at play that have cut into music sales, especially for newer artists.
THE BATTLE FOR CONSUMER DOLLARS
There was a time when rock music fans were willing to spend their hard-earned money on CDs (even overpriced ones) because they had discretionary income. The generation of fans who believed in purchasing music no longer has that discretionary income because it has been absorbed by expenses that didn’t exist in the pre-Napster era (cell phones and high-speed Internet access), and increases in other expenses (cable television, fuel, etc.). Ironically, bands like KISS and other megastars have also cut into discretionary income with ticket prices that far exceed the reasonable prices that existed when rock music sales were robust.
THE DEMISE OF ARTIST DEVELOPMENT
When Simmons blamed the fans for the crumbling infrastructure of the record business, he glossed over all of the aforementioned factors that lead to this seismic shift in the way that people consume music. He also failed to mention that (major) record labels shifted from developing artists to promoting songs. One of the reasons that KISS achieved huge success is that fans were invested in the band, not just songs.
TODAY’S MUSIC CLIMATE
Are there generations of fans that see music as disposable? Absolutely! Will rock artists ever be able to rely upon music sales to sustain a career? Unfortunately not, but that doesn’t mean that rock is dead. It just means that artists have to figure out ways to create value in the eyes of the consumer to inspire them to part with their hard-earned dollars.
Artists who spend their days longing for the past, bemoaning the current climate, or worse, blaming the fans for the crumbling infrastructure of the music industry are not likely to survive for very long. Simmons can get away with this mindset because he is no longer in the trenches, having already made his fortune.
Rock lives; and while new artists are very unlikely to amass a fortune like Simmons, there is still the potential for a career in music for those who are willing to embrace the fans, rather than chastising them for the way that they consume music.
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