Dealing with the "Change" -------- Music Edition

I'm back!! I hope the New Year is finding everyone well.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Music Industry is changing. No way around it, nothing we can, or in my opinion, should do about it. It's going to get bumpy, but it's high time that we, the artists, take back control of our futures.

Gone are the days of the multi-million dollar deals and the diamond encrusted advances. We're in the "Final Days" of an evil empire, and we're witnessing the death throes of an industry unwilling to change with the times.

We have to start taking responsibility for our own successes and failures. We're coming up on a time when we will have to start doing whatever it takes, again, to be heard. We thought it was tough before, but we won't be able to ape the last band to draw a decent crowd and get away with it anymore. We have to develop a plan and be willing to implement it. It never takes as much courage to jump on a trend as it does to speak with your own voice.

We can't deceive ourselves in thinking that it's enough to just be ourselves, though, and we have to get real inventive when it comes to funding our pursuits. Every band does the typical swag. T-shirts, cds, buttons, sticker, blah, blah, blah. The fact is that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over and over, always expecting a different result, and the truth is that the "typical" has been oversold. There are millions of bands out there trying to get noticed and every one of them is using the "tried and true" formula that every other struggling artist is using. If we continue to emulate the "struggling" what do we expect to achieve? "Necessity is the Mother of Invention" folks, and conventional wisdom dictates if you're not getting the results you want with the process you have, it's time to change.

Here's and interesting approach. (note---this isn't an endorsement, just pointing out that people are looking for alternative means to accomplish their goals)

http://www.thelicensingplate.com/musicians-and-performers-invite-fans-to-invest-in-their-success/

Or you could try the Sebastian Bach approach to protecting his income.

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_212202294.shtml

I wonder how that's working for him.


Later,