The fat lady’s singing.

I LOVE technology. I love that the power is finally trickling down.

See, about fifty years ago record companies caught on to the fact that if they owned the radio stations and they owned the record stores and they monopolized distribution then they’d be creating their own market. They could feed people whatever they wanted and as long as they didn’t change things too quickly they’d own the industry indefinitely.

And it’s worked. You’re a drone. (Don’t feel bad, I’m pretty much a drone too.) There are only five record companies that matter in the world. Those five labels own what amounts to the whole cake. Think about that. There are about twenty guys out there who pretty much have the final say in what we’ll be listening too for the foreseeable future. Sure, you roam through a record store and you can count twenty labels without turning your head. But they’re ALL owned by the majors. Yes, they are. Look it up.

Think you’re indy? Don’t count on it. As soon as an indy sound gets a targetable following it becomes a sub-label for one of the majors. By the time you heard of Nirvana, the grunge scene had been bought, paid for, and packaged for the mass market.

And don’t get me started on the goths. Can you think of anything more sad than proclaiming your rage against society, screaming your individuality, by dressing up like a million other kids? Doesn’t Revlon make your makeup?

The thing is- we can’t really win when we’re talking about asserting our right to not be programmed by the media. Bands want to be big and have massive followings They want to be culturally relevant. And if you want to be huge then you need huge distribution. You need promotion. And when you make it big the whole nation is listening to your music and then haven’t you sold out? Someone else is the underground now. You’re a pop star.

So what the labels are doing in that sense isn’t evil. No one can rocket you to the top like the majors. Fifty years experience, after all. The evil part is 1) in the control. You might own the music you made (which is a relatively new development), but if the label says you can’t give it away on the internet then that’s just about it. You can’t. If you do, they’ll sue you and they’ll win. Figure that one out. And 2) in the percentages. The label is paying to promote your album and send you on tour and get your music into stores all over the place. And because they’re going to all that trouble for you, they get 80% of the price of each cd. If you’re hugely lucky. It used to be 97 or 98%.

And maybe all that sounds fair, but what if that 80% isn’t just $8,000? What if they decide to make you their flagship campaign for the season? They run you through the ringer with their highly-recommended-and-famous-and-aren’t-you-lucky-to-have-him producer, to make sure you don’t sound too different to last year’s campaign. And they get you played in top rotation on all their radio stations and suddenly you’re huge. Then it’s not $8000. It’s $80,000,000. Thanks for playing.

So when the labels are whining about file-sharing when they could EASILY have capitalized on it and been ready for it fifteen years ago, well, I don’t have a lot of sympathy.

It’s a fairly well known fact that the Beasties claim to have made more from selling their albums online than through label distribution. Of course they have. Didn’t have to cough up the lion’s share.

Seriously though. The labels had ample warning over this file-sharing tech. You can be sure every one of the five giants had a deluge of open-eyed employees who saw it coming and tried to push to get on top of it. And the brick-and-mortar mentality prevailed. The stodgy old execs stayed stuck in their leather exec chairs in their leather-walled exec boardrooms and assumed that home computers had no place in, posed no threat to, their industry (it had been theirs for fifty years remember).

I’m reminded of how TV was “written off as a fad, useful only for certain military applications perhaps, but certainly not something anyone would want to have in their homes.”

Morons.

So now they’ve been floundering like spoiled brats, trying to put Pandora’s pants back on her. Ferget it! The cat’s out of the pantaloons! The game is all up and the fat lady is singing her lungs out. She’s got a sweet website and she’s selling her own music for a quarter of what you charged, and she’s still making twice as much as she was with you. How’d I hear about her? They’re talking about her on the forums and I downloaded her single for free. I liked it and I want to support her, so I went to her website and paid my seven bucks to download the whole album, liner notes included.

Damn, guys. You coulda BEEN on that bus.