Your “artist of the future” description actually brought something to mind..

Here in Japan and Asia in general the “Music” industry is vastly different than in the west.

Your “upper middle class” description is actually rather fitting because in many cases artists are signed to a label here and collect a straightforward salary. Rather than having winners and losers, everyone wins a little bit regardless of album sales (a vast simplification, but you get the idea). Additionally, the idea of taking on more than just packaged media is old-hat here and labels such as Sony Music Entertainment Japan (disclosure: I work for Sony Corp. and previously worked on a project with SMEJ) often take on the roll of agent/manager/promoter to offer an end to end solution for their musicians.

There are lots of other differences (piracy via CD rental shops which are illegal in the US, digital sales via Mobile phone besting PC sales) but we can save those for another time..

That’s not to say Japan represents all of Asia — take China — a market where 99% piracy is a given — the “music industry” looks MUCH different and perhaps is a signal to the rest of the world.

Here’s a great write-up on the Chinese music market I highly suggest reading: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/01/music_in_china_feature/print.html

And also somewhat related — as an example of how industry works together differently here in Japan — my group here at Sony announced today that we’ve obtained rights from JASRAC (RIAA equiv. in JP) for users to upload videos to our service (eyeVio.jp) with JASRAC music reproduced in the video (such as karaoke singing by the subject in the video, etc.).

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20080212-00000014-inet-inet

In reflection, I think I spent a little too much on the why and how of the change (paragraphs 1-4), which I agree is well-trod territory at this point, and lost a bit of focus on the what, which is why I started this post in the first place. I don’t mean to imply by any means that these are particularly new or proprietary ideas (though 15 years ago, I was *12* ). The industry has (finally) universally accepted the change agents in their midst. And a lot of people have theories on where it’s all going.

What inspired me to write all this was the “aha!” moment I had when I read that Saul Williams interview. To me, his tactics and attitude perfectly embodied and crystallized what had been a somewhat nebulous vision in my head of the artist of the future. And I primarily wanted to call attention to what I see as someone actually out there pioneering this new model — someone who can potentially be a template for stopping talking about the next evolution of the music business and actually starting to build it.

The reason I think the labels, no matter how much they claim to get “it” at this point, will not be able to adapt effectively is epitomized in the expectation gap between Saul Williams and Trent Reznor. As Williams says, success means something very different for this new breed of artist than it did for artists, and thus labels, 10 years ago. If this new brand of success is unappealing to the labels, they will never do what it takes to really pursue it — which is the essence of the low-end disruption.

Thanks for the incisive feedback. When I’ve had a chance to sleep and come at this again with fresh eyes, I may go back and tighten things up a bit to put a finer point on my key message. As for the filmed entertainment thing, I’m getting there . That ‘media2.0′ del.icio.us stream will contain both music and filmed entertainment stuff. One recent event of which I took note was Jeff Zucker’s statements on how NBC plans to cut costs, which doesn’t sound too far off from the ‘controversial’ moves EMI has embarked on under Guy Hands.

Generally I agree with your assessment of the “music” industry. I have a couple small thoughts…

1. I think Rob Lord figured all this out 15 years ago when he started the most pioneering digital music site of all: IUMA. Robertson wasn’t that far behind with MP3.com either… Let’s see some credit where its due. Or were you still in diapers back then and don’t know what I’m talking about?

2. Don’t you think the “labels” have (finally) figured this out as well? You mention the Robbie Williams deal but isnt’ that really them actively pursuing the tranformation from packaged media to “music” business? Obviously 10 years too late, but frankly your post makes it seem like it is your vision only.

3. Some years ago I read a similar post somewhere (can’t remember) about the film industry which concluded the same way. Something like “would it be so bad if there were no more $100 million blockbuster films?” — very similar to your point about “upper middle class” musicians. Given your background I would love to see a follow-up post with your vision of the movie business.