Music Machinery

Last week NPR’s On the Media had a special show called ‘The Future of Music’  – all about the current state of the music industry and where it is all going.  The hour is broken into a number of sections:

• Facing the (Free) music – about what has happened in the 10 years since Napster – Yep Spotify gets a mention.  Choice quote by Hilary Rosen – “Napster was a missed opportunity’
• They Say That I stole this – about the legalities of sampling (with interviews with Girl Talk among others)
• Played Out – interview with John Scher about the state of live music
• Teens on Tunes – interviews with teens about where they get their music. Answer: Limewire
• Charting the Charts – interesting piece about the charts – the history of billboard, and the next generation of tracking including an interview with Bandmetrics founder Duncan Freeman (way to go Duncan!)
• Why I’m not afraid to take your money – interesting interview with Amanda Palmer about how artists make money in today’s music world

One thing that they didn’t talk about at all was music discovery – no mention of the role of the critic, music blogs, hype machine, no discussion of the role social sites like last.fm play in music discovery, no mention of automated tools for music discovery like recommenders and playlisters. Maybe next year, when everyone has access to infinite music,  we’ll see more emphasis on discovery tools.

It was a great show. Highly recommended: NPR’s On the Media Special Edition: The Future of the Music Industry