Nobody denies that the major labels blew it when it came time to go digital and as we speak still haven’t gotten their bearings. But, really, does anybody except for a dunce like Yorke aor Lefsetz believe they are finished?
EVERYBODY YOU LOVE IS AFFILIATED WITH A MAJOR LABEL.
All the big indies have distribution deals, all the hip hop kids, are with Interscope or Def Jam or someone. No one with a chance of selling music and the good luck to, is signed to a major.
It is just a buncha hooey that the social netork paradigm is any substitute for major label backing. Look at McCartney on Starbucks. Look at Prince? Hasn’t sold a fucking CD since he dropped Warner’s (inless he was giving em away at his concerts).
Maybe a handful (Radiohead think because they can fuck away with distribution, they are still not up to their neck in the majors? Who ya foolin’??). Maybe Reznor and a handful of others are finding a way to undo it but they aren’t selling enough to matter in the slightest…
It’s true ten or five years from now, the bottom may entirely fall out (the same might happen for the TV networks -the closest comparison, though the networks were cleverer about cable than the labels about digital).
But this lie circulating that TODAY the majors are anything less than the only game in town is pahetic -it is like saying the US is no longer a majorworld power.