The Senates Hearings on the sale of EMI to Universal Records will end as follows: UMG will sell some stuff and the deal will get through.
Once it's done, UMG will own 40% of the music industry and will be able to do many things to help their stockholders, but one of them won't be to save the music biz using the current paradign. To put it simply: it is broken, and it needs.
This became even clearer when Live Nation's Irving Azoff announced, according to Shirley Halparin of The Hollywood Reporter, that "Music artists, have lost 83 percent of their catalog revenues with the digital revolution (a client who used to make $400,000 annually from music sales is now pocketing $68,000, he said). To compare: The four-year recession has diminished the average American’s net worth by half that at 40 percent."
Now, that won't get it done, will it?
If people (if I) don't have to pay to get music, for the most part, I won't pay for music even if I have to. For instance, I couldn't get the new Public Enemy on Spotify and haven't bought it yet. And waited months for both Coldplay and Red Hot Chili Peppers to show.
Kickstart is a fine idea if you are Amanda Palmer, but the list of casualties is getting longer and longer.
The bottom fell out of touring and it is getting better but, outside nyc, prices are tumbling.
That leaves merchandising and meet and greets and then what? I guess licensing…