Where is music going as an industry?

With internet marketing, streaming media, itunes (especially itunes Genius) and free web pages like myspace, music is becoming the most transparent and easily accessible product I can think of. To add to that, the shear volume of products (artists, songs) within each segment of the industry creates a situation where some of the best products never see the light of day, whereas others see varying lengths of massive success.

Now that labels employ rosters in the tens of thousands and pray that a small percentage of them make it to market, the idea that a single artist can get discovered and not stripped of their entire ownership rights as a result, is akin to getting struck by lightening. Actually, probably less likely.

Recently I have been reading a book by Seth Godin titled Purple Cow. In it he makes the argument that in order to be truly successful, a product/service/company must be remarkable. Gone are the days where a mediocre product can be marketed into true success.

If this is true, it means that artists must have two goals: make remarkable music and have a remarkable public personality. We can no longer afford sub-par, or even on par, artists who require outside investment to be good. This does not mean that working with other artists and A&R types to polish songs and career strategy is going away, but that the quality of the music and the charisma of the artist from the start are more crucial than ever.

We should also recognize that single artists forging on their own is also a dieing cause. With the massive access to new music that sites like Rhapsody, Pandora, Ourstage etc. offer, networks of artists will be the ones who get exposure. I think about it like this: the reammergance of Apple Computers was based upon building a network of products that existed in synergetic harmony together and benefit as a whole whenever one benefits directly. Computers benefit when people buy ipod’s, ipods benefit when people buy computers, both benefit with the introduction of the iphone and all three benefit with the constant inprovement of itunes. They all work together. It is all one experience.

If groups of artists could mimic this synergetic harmony and offer a single place to experience a multitude of songs within one genre, while at the same time providing the media and information to listeners, I believe we could see a vast network of artist coalitions that offer the music consumer a terrific way to experience each genre, each geographic region and each new trend that comes to the industry.

Now all I am trying to figure out is how this is accomplished.