Listeners experience rock Music in ways that have changed dramatically in the last five years. Gone are the days of deep pocketed record labels ruling the music industry. Their formula of turning musicians into big stars, generating anticipation for the next album’s release, and then creating excitement to catch the big World Tour that follows no longer applies.

Along with that dies the dream of every aspiring musician, as was encapsulated in the lyrics of Jukebox Hero by Foreigner… “he’s got stars in his eyes… he’ll come alive tonight”. The dream went something like this… musician puts a band together long enough to generate some chemistry, writes music that is interesting enough to get the attention of a record company, releases an album, gets financial backing, goes on tour to support album, and builds a big enough fanbase to ultimately enjoy fame and fortune. That dream has changed dramatically today for bands and the entire music industry due to breakthroughs in technology and the monumental shift in the behavior of music listeners. The legacy for music of this era is filtered by an audience with real time expectations who want only what they want, and exactly when they want it. This change will end up leaving its mark on the song writing process itself. To understand where we are we headed to, lets look back at where we came from.

In the 50s and 60s, music promotion was based entirely on the release of a single. Although most bands or artists would also put out an album, sales were measured in number of singles sold. Artists were measured by achieving Gold Record certification from the RIAA for sale of 500,000 singles. This meant that an artist was signed by a record label and paid to write music. It was the responsibility of the label to generate public interest by getting radio stations to play the released single. Once the song started to gain some popularity the sales increased and started to generate enough interest to promote a tour. In this scenario, the band and label were also able to leverage the B side of the single to generate additional exposure for deeper tracks on the album. One song that comes to mind that proves the value of this was “Hey Hey What Can I Do” by Led Zeppelin, the B side to the “Immigrant Song”, which was a radio hit without ever being officially released or appearing on an album.

All of this changed in the late 60s with the invention of FM radio. The FCC made it illegal to simply duplicate AM station content on the FM band, so station owners were challenged with finding new and innovative formats. This created the environment for the rise of Album Oriented Rock radio stations which presented a new concept for filling FM airwaves. The DJs were given the green light to play songs outside of the officially released singles, and even songs that were longer than the typical 2 ½ to 3 minute length that was normally a restriction for radio play.

This significantly increased the exposure to songs that were deep into the album. The artists were able to build a strong fan base as now the habit had changed to owning the entire album instead of just the singles. The change in the trend towards the purchase of albums was recognized in ’76 as the RIAA added Platinum certification to for 1M in sales for singles AND albums. The first rock album certified Platinum was The Eagles Greatest Hits in that year. Often songs were written specifically for radio, and may be more pop sounding to appeal to a wider audience or have less instrumentation. Often the true sound or character of the band would be revealed in these deeper cuts. If singles had remained the standard the best songs would have remained undiscovered by most people.

This brings us to today… the computer age. With the invention of modern digital recording technology, and the accessibility of the Internet, anyone can now produce studio quality recordings. This means that it is no longer necessary to tap into a record labels deep pockets to promote. Music can be sold online, and performances can be uploaded to YouTube for promotion. Instead of running out to the record store, the vast majority of listeners now purchase their songs by downloading of iTunes, Amazon, Zune… or even illegally off of the Internet. The standard is once again back to measuring by the single unit. In ’05, the RIAA added Digital Downloads (even ringtone downloads) to their awards.

However, because we have now returned to measuring by singles again, and this time without a B side, this could have a negative impact on music. I believe that the regression of influence and resources that record labels provided could have a profoundly negative effect on the quality of music that is produced. If an artist and Record Label understand that success is measured one single at a time, there will be an increasing amount of pressure to reach the widest audience every time. This means much less experimenting with new ideas and more leaning on tried and true techniques such as catchy, cliché lyrics and pop sounding musical hooks. This is especially true for new bands, whose entire career could end up being limited to one single. If the single bombs listeners may never give them another chance. Artists used to have the security of a multiyear contract that would ensure income and allow the freedom to focus on new and creative song writing ideas. It could be that music lovers will not see the type of creativity again that came out of the late 60s, 70s and even 80s.

In the next couple of posts, I will rant about the change in the concert experience and the Death of Arena Rock, and also look at the pros and cons new frontier of the music industry.