The Madness of Quantity

I just finished reading "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera, which was phenomenally written, but there was one quote in particular that 100% accurately describes the state of the music industry today:

"Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity". 

The debate about whether or not music should be free is a very heavy one that I try not to discuss. Personally, I have purchased every single mp3, cd, and vinyl record I own because I know about the hours, days, years and emotional work that go into making an album. However, I have close friends who are in the same industry that happily download music online without blinking an eye. They have their reasons; I have mine. 

Interestingly enough, though, while we all fight over whether or not we should be buying or downloading music, the conversations don't tend to focus on WHY music has suddenly become an entity that people don't care to pay for.

Do people not enjoy music anymore? Of course not! It remains in almost every aspect of our culture today. 

Is the economy affecting people's abilities to buy music? In a society where a majority of youth and adults own $200-$400 smart phones and spend anywhere from $3-$7 on coffee beverages throughout the week, I highly doubt that people can't afford to pay a dollar for a song that they will own for a lifetime. 

So what has happened in the past 10 years? Why are hard-working musicians extremely broke and record labels going under faster than almost any other type of business?

My personal opinion is closely related to the quote I posted above. In the past, before the "age of the internet", it was obviously much more difficult to create a following and spread your music to people who didn't live close to your hometown. You had to have something really special. You had to capture people and build an audience in the most organic way.

Fast forward to today: anyone in the entire universe with access to a computer that has a built-in microphone can go to www.soundcloud.com, create a free account (which takes about 5 seconds) and upload a recording of ANYTHING. It could be them playing a single flat note on a guitar string for 17 hours, but who's stopping them? Obviously that is an extreme example of the point I'm trying to make, but here's the gist of it:

If anyone can release anything and call it music and sell it online, where is the value? Kids in the generation younger than ours will grow up believing that what we do is easy and free and invaluable. Those of us that have spent years perfecting our craft and trying to create something unique and beautiful are being trampled by "Friday" by Rebecca Black. 

Free speech is a wonderful thing. The internet is a wonderful thing. I even think that the courage it takes for people with no experience in the music world to post a recording of themselves online is a beautiful thing.

But how can we add value back into the industry? How can we make people believe in our art and support it in the right way?

It's going to be an interesting decade in the world of music...