http://blogs.chron.com/celebritybuzz/20 ... indus.html

He is urging groups to not sign record deals because he believes in the next few months all the major labels with see their demise.



Fingers crossed.

I don't know if they will collapse (too big to fail? lol) but they seriously need to remove their heads from their butts and realize they are quickly becoming more useless every day.

I predict that the same dumbasses who got into rock and roll to become famous will continue to want to sign record deals and the record labels will collapse regardless. This will be due, in part, to labels continuing their practice of signing dumbasses who got into rock and roll to become famous.

i don't know that the industry will ever "fail" - it'll change, as all things do. but the massive amounts of backcatalogue that the big labels own, coupled with the fact that, honestly, the overwhelming majority of listeners still buy hard copies (cds, lps) says to me that labels aren't gonna die. and why would we want them to? other forms of commerce and other approaches to what's important as far as music and music consumption go have existed alongside them since their inception.

plus, i've always believed that the radiohead experiment proved nothing. a band that got famous with the systems and handiwork of a major label - not to mention the cult following you'd expect an edgy, important band like them to have - goes it alone and sells a buncha crap they pressed and a buncha pay-what-you-want downloads and that's supposed to somehow signal the end of labels as we know it? no, it was just an extension of the situation afforded to them via their totally normal rise to notoriety - a modern version of a band getting wealthy and famous in a time-tested manner and then starting their own label. what it means for bands who have no distribution, no way to jump onto anyone's radar, no connections - no matter how awesome and inventive they are? what it means to the industry? close to zilch. bands still have to figure that shit out and playing the game (getting a manager and some real-world promotion and distribution) is still probably the best way to insinuate yerself into the hearts of the nation. labels are just going to find someone else to push/sell/exploit, some new format, some new hardware, & whatever else they can to stay afloat. it's a business, and a gigantic one at that: what they sell hardly matters. it's how they do it and when.