[Curve Dominant]

We are probably a ways off from the days when recorded music, once again, becomes a commodity of value. I've been in denial of this myself for some time now, but the inexorable reality of the situation has recently become impossible to ignore.

About eight years ago, when the P2P phenomenon was blowing up, I was making this argument on the New York Times website: That, in a democratic capitalist system, capital tends to flow in the direction of innovations which create or increase revenue, as opposed to innovations which diminish or eliminate revenue.

Which meant: Someone would find a way to make recorded music sales profitable, by hook or by crook, because somebody stood to profit from those sales, right? Capitalism is all about incentive, right?

Wrong. Capitalism is all about percieved value. The argument I had been banking on, was too intellectual, too technical. It didn't take into consideration the sociological aspect. My argument was thus flawed, and the market has proven that as fact. Here's why:

With the mass proliferation of recorded music and sound now coming from more sources than many humans can stand to bear, often uninvited and unwanted, the percieved value of that audio is not only nil, it has actually become, for many, of a negative value.

Plainly and bluntly put: Most people don't want most of what we're trying to sell, even when we are giving it away. And it's not simply because our content is inherently bad (although much of it is). It's because modern society is suffering from sensory overload, and can't tell the good from the bad, to the point that they no longer can be bothered to take the time to make any distinction in that regard.

Case in point:

The other day, I went to my local pizza parlor. It had two different radios playing two different stations, one in the customer area, and one in the pizza-baking area, but both were audible wherever you were standing in the place. There was also a car parked right outside, blasting a third radio station (or CD or whatever). Then a customer's cellphone rang out a ringtone of the latest Billboard Hot 100 hit, so now there were FOUR different audio sources all playing completely uncorrelated audio.

By the time I got home with my two slices of pizza, the last thing I wanted to do, was listen to recorded music. And I was definitely in no mood to PAY for recorded music. I would have paid $20 to have it shut off back at the pizza parlor, so I could sit and eat my pizza in peace.

When my pop took me to our local pizza parlor when I was a kid, it had a jukebox. If the jukebox wasn't playing a song, there was no recorded music playing. You had to put a quarter in that machine, and that was, like, a special occasion. You chose your quarter's worth carefully, and when that song played, you savored it.

Will we ever get back to that? Uh, no.

The only potential good news, is a ways away, a decade at least:

Eventually, communications gadgets will evolve into all-in-one sorts of things, like the iPhone. Songs will be difficult-to-impossible to illegally rip on these gadgets. The kid ripping mp3's off Gnutella on his Windows PC will eventually fade into the minority. The "single" will make something of a resurgence (already perhaps), encouraging bands and artists to create strong material once again. There will be a resurgence, eventually, but it will never be quite what it was, and if there is, it will be awhile, so don't hold your breath.

The other semi-good news is: Film producers, TV program directors, and advertising agencies, will always have to pay $$$ for original music. So look there.

-Eric Vincent @ Studio Curve Dominant