Sinking Industries

I had a conversation with a young guy the other day who is interested in getting into Music Production. He says that the one drawback is that it's a shrinking industry. Musicians are not caring as much anymore about the production of the music and are doing it on their own in garages with laptops. He then went on to talk about the problems facing the music industry as a whole. Not only does he not download music illegally, but he won't buy music as digital downloads at all because the album isn't just the music, but the cover art, the credits, and everything that goes with it is all part of the album. He laments the shrinking industry and realizes that it is getting more and more difficult to find stores that sell albums specifically, let alone vinyls. Right now he has to drive more than half an hour to get to the nearest place. So, naturally, my first question was "Why do you want to get into an industry that is shrinking with a very real end in sight?" I didn't ask that. I knew the reason. He loves it. He talks about the good old days when people were trying to break into their first album and all of that good stuff. He is actually a musician, planning on making an album out of someone's garage one day. So, the question that I really asked was, "Why do you think that people aren't demanding the high quality recording and other benefits of professional music production?" His response was that they were not as well educated on the subject as they should be. Some people might be bothered by the implied arrogance. I wasn't. That is a perfectly valid problem that an industry might face. Many industries have to educate their market. So, next question, "What are you going to do or what should these record labels do to fix this?" He didn't have an answer. That is the part that I do not understand. Everything was perfectly valid, even if I disagreed, until I realized that he was planning to get into an industry that he knew was sinking, without any idea of how he was going to secure things, how he was going to fix them. Why would anyone get into that situation without a plan? How can you possibly tie yourself to a sinking ship and just hope that the market winds start to blow the other direction? Everyone knows that technology is changing the way many industries work. If you are planning to enter one of those industries, be a part of the solution.

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