future of the music industry by former president MCA

With all the flux in the current music scene, how will the future shake out? Here are the views of Jay Boberg, former president of MCA Records; David Codikow, Velvet Revolver's manager; Leonard J. Beer, editor of Hits Magazine, Danny Goldberg, chairman and CEO of Artemis Records; and Jeff Leeds, reporter for the Los Angeles Times, offer different scenarios of what's ahead for the music industry.

Former president, MCA Records

I think that this is an incredibly vital time in the music industry where the chips are just being reassigned. It's going to just be a different layout.
I think musically, this may end up being an incredibly vital time because of the fact that people are making music for themselves. They're not making it to get a record deal. I mean, I think there was a point where maybe three, four years ago where even on a grassroots level, everything was aiming towards getting a major record deal.

I now talk to many musicians out there who have no interest in a major record label deal. What they have an interest in is trying to make their music. They do want to get paid, they want to find out a way that they can actually make a career of it, but they're much more hands-on. They're much more willing to understand the process themselves of what's involved in doing it and to find out a way of doing it where they're not as dependent on other people.

Now, do I think record companies are going to go away? No, I don't. I think a great value is added by a great record company -- or at least the people at a record [company], because record companies are not entities, it's the people in them. And, you know, what is a record company supposed to do? They're supposed to recognize exceptional talent, they're supposed to help develop that talent -- whether it be their imaging, whether it be introducing them to people who can help them in a recording process or a songwriting process, or in any of the aspects that sort of gets their music ready to be out there and be presented. They're supposed to have relationships to help them market themselves in terms of touring or presentation.

They're supposed to, in many ways, provide a certain amount of financial capital to at least get the ball started and rolling. And it doesn't have to be a lot of capital. In some cases it is, but many examples would have been very modest expenditures.
And then they're supposed to have an expertise of knowing where in the marketplace that particular art that this musician is creating might resonate and be able to target that market to see if it does resonate. And thus then spread it from there and try to pull it into the greater marketplace and the greater population.

Those are skill sets. Those skill sets are still going to be needed. The question is can the artist do some of that, more of that, themselves? Will it be a manager who does more of that themselves? Will there be independent companies that will be doing more of that that used to be done by the majors? Or will the majors adapt and create different types of companies that are staffed differently to provide different services that are more attuned? I think the answer is a little bit of all the above, but it'll be very different.