Most independent musicians consistently voice basic complaints about the music industry. It is now run by corporate companies that don’t care about artist development or the quality of music released. The only concern of the major record companies is the amount of sales. Furthermore, radio stations are now run by large companies that own a large number of stations. These corporate run stations are only concerned with increasing advertising sales. They create playlists that are homogenized. There is less diversity in radio airplay. The music industry is now run my businessmen. The Trouble With Music by Mat Callahan addresses these concerns, explains the history of music and the industry, and offers solutions to make the industry more appeasing for musicians and listeners.
Written by a lifelong musician, producer, and composer, The Trouble With Music explains the use of music throughout history, from dancing rituals and native forms of expression to spirit lifting anthems of the underprivileged to the modern uses in commercials and as background sounds. By explaining how music has evolved, the book emphasizes the art form's importance to human communication as an expression of suffering, struggling, and rejoicing.
In the past 30 years, the music industry has learned how to control sales for profitability. The industry no longer cares about selling music. They create celebrities and market the image of the performer. The quality of the music does not matter. The biggest stars are the ones who have the largest sales and rarely the musicians who generate the best or most innovative music.
Furthermore, the music industry has experienced bloated sales for decades. While the major labels continue to release new albums, they also gain income by re-releasing old music with each new format. Albums that were released on vinyl generate a profit when consumers purchased the album for a second time on cassette and then a third time on CD. Mp3s and other digital formats created the first format that did not require that music be purchased again.
Currently the major record labels are experiencing decreased sales. At the same time, the sales of music instruments continues to increase. The number of albums made continues to increase. Music is still being made, in fact more music in being made.
Additionally, the cost associated with actually making an album, from the recording to the printing process, has decreased with the increase in technology. However, the major labels spend an increasing amount of money on the marketing of music. These marketing costs must be recouped before the musicians begin making money on their released music, but the musicians have no control or input into the amount of money that will be spent marketing their albums. The labels forces the musicians into a position of either selling an exorbitant amount of albums or be dropped from their label. They must become a celebrity or they will not succeed.
This has created what Callahan calls "Anti-music." In his own words, "Exploiting this condition and intensifying its effect is the systematic manufacture and distribution of a phony substitute with which to replace real music." By replacing quality music with the image of music celebrities, putting music into every sonic surrounding to the point where people drown out the noise, releasing huge amounts of music, and consolidating the distribution and marketing of the industry, the major labels have created the system of "Anti-music." Callahan argues, "Music lovers are being asked to surrender their own critical faculties, their own judgment, in order to more readily consume the McMusic which can be more effectively controlled and more profitably sold than the genuine article."
The Trouble With Music is not written like a novel or a story. It is a well thought out thesis full of footnotes, facts, and statistical knowledge. It also includes Mat Callahan's lifetime worth of theories and personal thoughts. The conclusions and arguments Callahan presents as a solution to the trouble with the music industry offer a possibility for what the future may hold. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the challenges that confront the business aspects of the music industry and the livelihood of a current musicians.
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