Talk:2000s in the music industry

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 August 2021 and 14 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dollajills. Peer reviewers: AnomalousNull.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:03, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Nice work
An excellent and well researched article, on an interesting and important topic. I've been thinking about writing in Wikipedia about this subject, but haven't had time. I have a couple of suggestions.

I think you should lead with the decline in record sales, since this is the most important point, at least for the music industry (as opposed to the technology industry or the consumer). The main thrust of the story, in my view, is that decreasing dollars has changed the industry permanently and completely.

This article emphasizes the role of digital downloads but that is only a one part of the story. (As the article points out, it's not even 100% clear that digital downloads are the cause of the decreasing dollars.) Some other aspects of the story: the layoffs in the industry, the closing of record stores (Tower Records, hundreds of locals) and the final victory of the box stores (Wal-mart, Best buy), the end of "legal payola" through independent promotion, the increasing power of Live Nation and the new importance of live music to the industry as a whole, the end ofA&R as we know it, the emergence of the "360 deal" (Korn, Jay-Z, Madonna), bands bypassing the record companies all together (The Eagles, Radiohead, Nine inch nails), 2007's misguided obsession with ringtones, etc. etc. These are all caused by the decreasing dollars.

I think you'd enjoy Steve Knopper's excellent new book Appetite for Self-destruction, which is an accurate, balanced and well researched look at the music industry in the last 30 years. It's the only book I know of that really tells this story.

Anyway, like I said, nice work. I may have time to work on this article later in the year, but I hesitate to change anything in an article that is clearly the work of one author. CharlesGillingham (talk) 22:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * FWIW, I'm less enthusiastic about the article as it seems too much like someone's school essay, lacking NPOV and balance. Also, do not hesitate to make edits, as this is a wiki, and that's the point (see also WP:OWN). -- Zim Zala Bim talk  03:34, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The research is rock solid and the writing is fine. I don't think tone is the right tag, since this really refers to the writing. I switched it to undue which covers the issues I'm concerned with.


 * I should note that it is not surprising that this article mainly covers the aspects of this subject that are interesting to the technology industry. Wikipedia has simply enormous coverage of the technology industry and (relatively) light coverage of the entertainment industry—probably for the innocent reason that more computer professionals edit Wikipedia than people from the entertainment industries. CharlesGillingham (talk) 03:00, 10 February 2009 (UTC)


 * how dare you! This is the most NPOV article that I have ever seen on wikipedia. This article should be held up as an example of what all wikipedia articles should be! i find that your criticism lacks balance and reads like it was wrote by high schooler. the write of this article should be commended for his bravery and courage in the face of this viscous fascists attacks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.228.169.184 (talk) 01:25, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The issue isn't NPOV. The issue is comprehensiveness. This is an article about the music industry, but it mainly discusses digital music distribution. Digital music distribution is part of the music industry (and the technology industry), but the industry also consists of musicians, record producers, recording engineers, retailers, music radio stations, radio promoters, live music promoters, venue owners, roadies, journalists, A&R people, record company employees. This article has very little to say about these other areas of the business. I'd like to see sections that describe how these fields have changed in the 21st century as well. That's all.


 * Please try to be WP:CIVIL and assume WP:GOODFAITH. CharlesGillingham (talk) 09:17, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Topics required to help expand this page
(I moved this from the article to here - perhaps of use to someone). -- Zim Zala Bim talk  03:27, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Satellite Radio
 * Volume Wars
 * Comparison of Subscription Services
 * Increasing popularity of singles vs. albums
 * .mp3 vs. .wav
 * 360-degree contracts are profit sharing arrangements between bands and labels concerning sharing CD and merchandising profits.

Decline in sales
Just a thought on the decline in sales aspect. Someone might want to add that studies have suggested that a major culprit for the decline in sales is the artificially high record sales in the 90's due to the emergent CD technology and people switching over and re-buying many albums. I think they mentioned this in the study from UNC if anyone feels like adding this. 140.220.1.66 (talk) 23:19, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
 * This is usually used to help explain the short-lived downturn that occurred around 1996. The theory goes like this: during the "CD boom" (1983-1995), middle aged music listeners replaced their vinyl records with CDs, buoying up record sales.


 * It doesn't, however, explain the much more serious downturn that begins in 2001 and continues until today (2009). By 2000, few people still had vinyl records that they intended to replace. Also, why didn't everyone replace their CDs with digital downloads? Why wasn't there a similar "download boom" when iTunes came online in 2001?


 * There are related issues that I think are more important: the high price of CDs and the phasing out of the single. In 1997, the only legal way to buy that annoying chumbawumba hit song was to plop down $18.00 for a CD containing 11 other songs that were worse than annoying. This drove most consumers to embrace CD "ripping" and (to a lesser extent) illegal filesharing. By the time iTunes arrived, ripping had become commonplace and the industry was doomed.


 * For a very similar analysis, see Knopper's book, cited above. CharlesGillingham (talk) 05:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Response from the primary author of this page
Firstly, thank you to the Wikipedia community for both your positive comments and your criticism. The positive comments are invigorating for my effort on this page, and the criticism helps me to understand my own shortcomings in my writing. However, unfortunately, I will have little time to develop this page further until the end of my Spring semester, as I am currently taking 18 Credits. I do look foreword to having time to expand the scope of the content.

Next, please feel free to edit this page. Like an above author pointed out, that's the point of Wiki'. My available time to devote to this project is variable, but the Wiki' community is obviously not so. Also, my scope of knowledge is obviously limited to topics that I have time/ability to research.

Regards,

-AS847618

Spotify
Feels a bit strange that Spotify is not mentioned anywhere in the article. Sure, it has a limited reach (only part of Europe for the premium version and even less for the free version) but still seems worth a mention as it is, to my knowledge, a completely new way of distributing digital music. -- Rinman

Still not comprehensive: rewrote the lead
This article still primarily discusses only one aspect of the music industry (digital music distribution) and does not cover the industry as a whole. It reads like "the software industry's role in music in the 2000s". Since I don't have time to properly fix this article, I am considering cutting and pasting a version of Music Industry as a new lead for this article, with perhaps some adjustments to save some existing text. Any objections? CharlesGillingham (talk) 17:33, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I rewrote the lead to try to make the article more comprehensive. The last paragraph is kind of whirlwind tour of material that I think should be expanded in sections later in the article. Please let's discuss any problems you have with what I've written. Don't just whack at the text if it bothers you. This is a controversial subject. CharlesGillingham (talk) 00:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Dead link
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://investor.napster.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=327525
 * In 2000s in the music industry on 2011-05-25 07:04:50, 404 Not Found
 * In 2000s in the music industry on 2011-06-10 06:30:23, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 06:30, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 2
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23356455/myspace_music_takes_on_itunes
 * In 2000s in the music industry on 2011-05-25 07:04:50, 404 Not Found
 * In 2000s in the music industry on 2011-06-10 06:30:34, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 06:30, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 3
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.digmedia.org/content/mediacenter.cfm?content=industrytrends
 * In 2000s in the music industry on 2011-05-25 07:04:50, 404 Not Found
 * In 2000s in the music industry on 2011-06-10 06:30:42, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 06:31, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

New Name
Can we change the name of the article to "Music Industry in the 21st Century"? It isn't a pressing issue, but it sounds more interesting. Also, a numerical version of a decade looks kind of odd at the beginning of the title and not entirely grammatically correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.6.118.222 (talk) 22:25, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * It's about the first decade. There's also a 2010s in the music industry... Agree the titles aren't the best. Technutt (talk) 15:24, 6 November 2019 (UTC)