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A version of this article was originally published in a special supplement with issue 66 of .net magazine. The supplement was sponsored by Peoplesound.com. Please note that A&R staff have a tendency to move around, so the people in this article may not be working for the same companies any more. Traditionally, bands would play endless pub gigs in the hope of being noticed by a record company. Signing on the dotted line would bring unimaginable riches, the adoration of the opposite sex and, of course, loads of drugs. Although the music industry isn't quite as simple or as glamorous as most people believe, it takes an awful lot of people to turn an act into bona fide stars. If they don't attract any record company interest, musicians don't stand much chance of becoming the next U2. Many pundits predict that MP3 means the end of the music industry, giving artists the opportunity to cut out the middleman and communicate directly with their audience. Rather than waiting for the industry to notice them, bands can just put their music on the Internet and everybody will love them. Fame and fortune will follow, while all the people working in the music industry will find themselves redundant, hanging round the dole office and tearfully recalling the days before MP3. We spoke to a number of industry insiders to see if they're frantically sending CVs off to Internet companies. Is MP3 a threat to the record business, or is it a new opportunity for them?
UNIVERSAL / ISLAND RECORDS Island Records is one of the best-known record companies in the world, and recently became part of the giant Universal Music group. With artists like U2, Tricky, PJ Harvey and Talvin Singh on its books, the company has a wide and eclectic roster. Nathan Thompson's job is to find and nurture the next generation of pop stars and, while he likes the idea of using the Internet to find new music, he's not convinced it lives up to the hype. For Nathan, the problem with high-profile music sites is the pressure to attract traffic and have a huge amount of music on their servers. "I hope it means that good music will come through and it's not about market share, or how many bands are on the site", he explains. "But I'd be hard pushed to come up with five bands - I spend a year looking for one brilliant band, so the fact that they [music sites] can get 1,000 bands in six months leaves a lot of doubt over whether the quality's of a high standard". Nathan's not dismissive of the Internet, though. "It's good for people who can't afford to put records out", he explains. "You don't have to strive to put out a bit of vinyl, you can put it straight from your DAT or MiniDisc on to the Internet". It's useful for the record industry to find out about new music, too. "It's a resource, like looking at The List or City Life to see what's going on, or speaking to someone at Future Music". Despite the hype, Nathan feels that there are some essential things you just can't do over the Internet. "The thrill for me is finding someone I can work with on an album", he says. "I just don't think you can have that one-to-one contact with the artist over the Internet". INDEPENDIENTE Charlie Zakks works in the A&R department of Independiente, the high-profile home of bands like Travis, and thinks reports of the industry's death have been somewhat exaggerated. "I don't think it's going to happen in the next 20 years", she says. "Things are happening faster in America but Europe's always much slower". For Charlie, the Internet is an opportunity rather than a threat. "The Internet is another marketing tool, another sales tool, another purchasing tool", she says. What about illegal MP3s? "There's always going to be piracy, whether it's CDs, tapes or MP3. You can never really get rid of it - it's a case of working around it. I don't think it'll be a major problem". Is the Internet going to affect how the record companies do business? "I think it'll affect the retailers more than anyone," says Charlie. Like many of the industry people we spoke to, she's aware of the high price of CDs in the UK but points out that it's not necessarily the fault of the record companies. "We do our deals with the shops and then it's up to them. If they want to sell a CD at sixteen quid and maybe sell fewer but make more money, that's up to them. It doesn't mean that we'll get any more money, we just get the rap for it!" Like many industry professionals, Charlie is unconvinced about on-line music. "There's too much stuff", she says. "At least with live venues or talking to people around the country, they're not going to tell you about the million shit bands, they'll tell you about the one good band. The Internet will just be another tool for scouting, it won't take it over". Like her counterpart at Island, she doesn't think the Web will change the basics of her job. "A&R is all about interpersonal relationships", she explains. "You can't do something like that over the Internet". WARNER
CHAPPELL MUSIC PUBLISHING Although everybody has heard of record deals, artists make their money from publishing deals and Warner-Chappell is one of the biggest publishing companies in the world. A&R man Adrian Jolly has been checking out new music on the Internet for the last year. "There is a girl band called Purity signed to Tommy Boy records, they were one of the first bands to be signed through the Internet, so off the back of that I started to have a look around", he recalls. "At that point there weren't really the sites you have now. It was really hard; you could just sit there for hours, traipsing through. We didn't really have the software at that time, it was hard to download and listen to things". For Adrian, the arrival of sites like Peoplesound is good news. "Six to eight months ago a lot of the bands who were setting up their own sites, putting their songs on music sites, usually weren't very good", he says. "Now the software is more up to date and there's actually quality control the Internet is definitely beneficial, but it's going to take us a while to get into the mindset of using the Internet to find music". Despite his own Internet adventures, Adrian isn't convinced that music's future is digital. "Your mum's not going to sit down and download the new Celine Dion album", he laughs. "With the whole thing of MP3 being a digital file which you download and play, I think people still like to have the CD case, have a product they can put on their shelf. I still don't see the general public having the time or inclination to traipse through 150 different sound files to find something". He does see the benefits for record labels, though. "You've got digital distribution, which I think is great. It gives people in America or wherever an opportunity to get hold of music they wouldn't normally be able to hear". While the Secure Digital Music Initiative blunders around without achieving much, the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) has launched a high-profile campaign to find and prosecute MP3 pirates. "it's scary because if you're really into it you can get whatever you want free", says Adrian. "Record companies have got to realise that it's a major, major thing. What I see is record companies in the future having a team of ten people and all they do all day is traipse around the Internet, closing people down". Part of the problem is the price of music in the UK. "I think it's ridiculous what you pay for a CD. When you work in the industry you tend to get a lot of music that you want, but I was in Tower the other day - I was just checking to see if one of my bands was there, and it was fifteen or sixteen quid. There has to be a change, a massive change in pricing. I think ten, eleven pounds is fine but sixteen is ridiculous". Once again, Adrian doesn't believe MP3 heralds the end of the industry. "I think there's always going to be a record company, an A&R division to find the talent in the first place. It's just going to be a different form of distribution, an easier way to buy records. And if it's cheaper, fantastic!" Industry insiders are cynical about on-line music, with good reason. The more MP3 files appear on the Internet, the harder it will become to find anything decent, and the harder it will be for any artist to stand out from the crowd. It's happening already - when you look at sites like MP3.com, you'll find that most people check out the site's top 40 and don't bother looking for anything else. We're all lazy and nobody can be bothered trawling through thousands of bands in order to find the occasional gem. Peoplesound's navigator is a step in the right direction but, once again, there are people behind the scenes whose job it is to decide which bands are worth hearing and which ones aren't. That's why people read the music press or watch Top Of The Pops - to find out what's hot and what's not. We think MP3 is good news for the paying punter and, when faster Internet connections are commonplace, we think a lot of people would rather pay a few pence to download a song than hike into town and spend four quid on a single. Bands, too, can benefit - a good Web site can build a "buzz" about a band, in much the same way as the hype about the Blair Witch Project started on the Web. Internet music is likely to hurt the retailers a lot more than it will hurt the record companies. Thanks to the Web, we're starting to realise just how expensive music is in Britain and, if sites can bypass the shops altogether, they can slash the prices of music without hurting their profits. A music version of amazon.com, selling downloads instead of physical goods, could make a huge difference to the price we pay in the shops. And that sounds good to us.
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