Music downloading exploded right around 2000. After years of music being locked up in CDs and on radio, suddenly, the largest music library in the world was at the fingertips of the Internet. In the process, it destroyed the music industry, changed rock music, and pretty much set the rules for media in the twenty-first century.

 

And now, it could either explode even more… or become obsolete. It’s hard to see downloading going away entirely, but here are four reasons we think it’s going to get a lot harder to get people to spend a dollar a song, and why there might be a silver lining in each of these clouds.

 

YouTube

 

It seems odd that a video site would be a threat to downloading music, but think about it; YouTube is enormous, and actually contains thousands of songs in the form of music videos or in images with the song playing with them, in many cases posted by the record companies themselves for promotional purposes. It’s far more accessible and easier to use, and even offers a playlist function.

 

However, YouTube also offers an opportunity: it allows people to discover and download new music, with every video offering a link to buy it off of iTunes or Amazon. YouTube will sort music into two categories; the music you actually want to listen to, and the audio wallpaper that helps the workday go by that much faster.

 

Not Everybody’s Aboard the Download Train

 

 

If you look at rock, and then compare it to hip-hop and country, you’ll notice something interesting; hip-hop and country sell a lot more CDs. This isn’t because their audiences love buying CDs; it’s because their audiences don’t have reliable high-speed Internet access, and they’re less fickle than rock audiences these days.

 

It’s long been noted that broadband is leaving both the rolling fields and the inner cities behind. Even the spread of cheap wireless doesn’t mean much when you don’t have a laptop. Sure, as time goes on, better computers will be available more cheaply…but is that going to make a difference?

 

It might. It’s not that country and hip-hop audiences don’t have computers or MP3 players. But they also might decide to stick with and support the artists they love. This could mean either a lot more legal downloading as people pay for tracks…or that CD store in the mall somehow staying open well past the alleged death of the format.

 

Streaming Services Are Rising

 

 

While we’re politely skeptical of a service like Rhapsody, which seems convinced people want to spend ten bucks a month for streaming with a few downloads thrown in, there’s no denying that Internet radio stations and free podcasts are taking off. It turns out that a lot of people actually like radio, they just don’t like all the stuff that comes with it; the annoying DJs, the badly produced ads, and the annoying station bumpers. Strip those out and suddenly radio’s rather appealing, especially from sites like Pandora, which learn your tastes and choose accordingly.

 

That said, radio never killed album sales, and Pandora can introduce you to plenty of new music. Some of which you’ll like enough to download.

 

The Competition For Your Attention Is Only Getting Worse

 

 

This might really be the nail in the coffin; it’s just getting harder and harder to get attention in an environment where everybody from your neighbor with a webcam to major broadcast networks are vying desperately to get you to hear what they have to say. As audiences continue to fragment, and as media conglomerates try to figure out how to make money off of each little subset, it becomes harder for a song to penetrate your consciousness.

 

Not that it’s impossible, but it is really difficult. Increasingly we’re faced with massive amounts of choice, and as we’ve had to spend less on music thanks to dollar-a-song downloads, we’ve been diverting money to other things. And even keeping track of your favorite artists has become harder and harder. It’s not that they slip off the radar; it’s that there are thousands of radar screens.

 

This is, like everything else on this list, a double-edged sword: it means that it’s harder to get attention, but when you do get attention, it can really pay off. Just look at how big Coldplay was for a while. ut increasingly, a musician is going to have to become more loud and more outrageous just to be heard by his own little group, forget crossing over into other little groups.

 

In other words, the biggest threat to the record industry is… ADHD. We wonder how long it’ll be before they start sponsoring Ritalin.

 

http://beatcrave.com/2010-06-29/why-music-downloads-are-the-future-or-maybe-not/

Just look at how big Coldplay was for a while.

 

lol

THEY MADE A SPELLING MISTAKE