Music Players: The Evolution

The Gramaphone- 1870s-1980s

• music industry was much slower in terms of production and technology development
• gave birth to the LP vinyl
• invented by Thomas Eddison
• retro and collectable

Cassette 1963

• Produced by Philips
• became format free as a result of pressure from Sony
• alternative to LPs in 1970s
• Walkman and Boombox came from assettes
• pop became more popular because of its portability
• cassette players in cars
• decline in the early 1990s due to CDs

Compact Disk - 1982

• devloped by Sony and Philips
• first album created onto CD was Billy Joel's 52nd Street album which reached the market along side Sony's CD player [vertical intergration]
• CD developed to become a data storage
• better playback quality
• sharp decline in 2000s with MP3 format introduced
• CDs represent physical sales of music now

Change in technology is due to portable music players.

1954 Transistor Radio - portable and good for marketing

1970s Boombox - very popular in 1980s

1980s Walkman - Sony, take music with you

1986 Diskman - Sony, cassettes with you

1998 MP3 players -first: Saehan MPMan F10, only held 10 songs

2001 Apple iPod - several audio formats, 13 different variations

Mo' Wax Records

Background and Formation:

Mo' Wax is a UK-based record label owned by James Lavelle, who founded it in the early 1990s. The name 'Mo' Wax' is a shortened form of 'Mo' Wax Please', which was the title of a column James Lavelle wrote in the magazine Straight No Chaser.

Place in the Industry:
- Smaller bands
- Range of genre
- Now part of Mo’ Wax ownership is owned by Universal

Audience:
- Collectors favorites > limited runs and artwork
- Wide range of merchandise

Distribution:
- Merchandise
- CD/LP are available from different the different band sites
- Online videos available

Production:
- CD
- LP

Consumption:
- AWATING RESPONSE

Concerns of the Label:
AWAITING RESPONSE

Online Age:
- Newsletter [online]
- Online store
- Fan pages

Soul Jazz Records

• Artist and genre focused > specialisms in sub-genre
• eclectic and diverse
• often deal with non-mainstream, non-commercial artist > several niche audiences
• underground tag associated

Strategies

• merchandising > clothing, accessories > tapping into fashion to create label image
• advertising > free gigs, active audience
• physical production > LP, CD > retro branding > e.g. homepage uses album artwork
• form of radio > internet based, potential wider audience > wide broadcast range
• newsletter subscription > cost effective, electronic mailing, no cost implication for subscription

Audience

• 1970s generation
• seperate audience for each sub-genre
• exclusive and niche
• presented as 'cool' with specific identity

Difference To Mainstream

• very independent of mainstream
• several smaller, niche audiences
• own brand identity
• use stratagies that appear to personalise > use communiaction as a key form of marketing [but not always e-communication]
• NOT in competition with mainstream
• more focus on music than image

Sony

1. Which labels do Sony own?
- The Sony umbrella, subsidiaries  >Jive Records [indie label]

> Columbia [ large distributor]

> Epic [ metal/rock bands]

> Almost gold [classic recordings]

> Dancing Cat Records [dance genre]

2.How are Sony vertically integrated?
The Sony company makes money from manufacturing consumer electronics, producing films, and licensing its formats and so, if it owns the music copyright, it can can be licensed to Sony's movies, games etc. 'The Expert Network' explains that "The music industry is changing, from a consumer-oriented to a business-oriented model. For the first time in recent history, a double digit percentage of major label income is from licensing and royalties, rather than retail. Sony is well positioned to take advantage of an industry based on diverse revenue streams and cross-channel synergies."

3. How do Sony profit from media convergence?

- using other technology > sound tracks on video games e.g. guitar hero[ACDC]

- uses iPod applications

- create pod casts to target their bands

- sponsors TV programmes > MTV, E4

The Music Industry

Production

- Advanced in technology

- User-based production

- No-reliance on record company

- Musical expertise not needed e.g. garage band, logic > loop based software. Evidence in manufactured artists

- Cost no long an issue > prosumer software

Distribution

- internet as a primary medium, use of web 2.0

- can be free, largely accessed as 'free' music

- not legal in most cases > file sharing through limewire

- making physical formats obsolete [tapes, CD] > impacts on retail outlets

- difficult to track and monitor

- industries forced to think of new ways of marketing in keeping with interactive nature of distribution

Consumptions

- follows trends of using new media technologies e.g. youtube

- link to image more explicitly through visual media

- saturate and dilated experiences of accessing music > devalued?

There are 4 main record companies

- Warner Brothers

- Sony

- Universal

- EMI

Stafford (2007):
"The music industry can be defined as the organisation of various activities associated with performing and recording music and distributing access to those performances around the World. Because the basis of music production is accessible to everyone with a modicum of talent, the industry is both more 'open' than filmmaking and less easily 'controllable' than traditional broadcast television. This has led to a longstanding institutional difference between small and 'independent' music organisations and a large corporate 'mainstream'.

Time Line

1980: CD technology
1982: CDs usable on PC
1988: Sales of CD overtake vinyl
1990: Recordable CDs available
1997: Emergence of MP3
1999: Napster > Copyright battles
2000: Broadband introduced
2001: iPod & iTunes launched
2003: CD sales fallen by a third
2005: iPod shuffle made downloading cheaper and more accessible

iPod sells at a rate of 3.5 million a month.

Vertical integration: Creates everything - blurs the lines between production, distribution & consumption.

Music Production

-Production isn't going to speed up as much as everything else
-People still getting CDs - 46.5%
-Don't need studio
-Record labels - 4 main: Sony/BMG, Warner Bros, EMI, Universal - Independent: Marrakesh, Geffen records, Island, Golden sun
-Get free music production software - Mac - Garageband
-Sony, Apple, Virgin make music
-Some bands don't have a record label - Put their own music on myspace and similar sites
-People can create their own music - Don't need instruments anymore - steal other people's music - illegal - widespread
-You can create a CD for £30