Very thought-provoking Michael Wolff article on the theory that the music industry will turn into the book industry; smaller numbers, reduced circumstances, fewer gazillion-sellers. A fair number of book-trade people read Boing Boing — whatcha think?
In other words, there'll still be big hits (Celine Dion is Stephen King), but even if you're fairly high up on the music-business ladder, most of your time, which you'd previously spent with megastars, will be spent with mid-list stuff. Where before you'd be happy only at gold and platinum levels, soon you'll be grateful if you have a release that sells 30,000 or 40,000 units — that will be your bread and butter. You'll sweat every sale and dollar. Other aspects of the business will also contract — most of the perks and largesse and extravagance will dry up completely. The glamour, the influence, the youth, the hipness, the hookers, the drugs — gone. Instead, it will be a low-margin, consolidated, quaintly anachronistic business, catering to an aging clientele, without much impact on an otherwise thriving culture awash in music that only incidentally will come from the music industry.
(via /.)
