I'm not sure I agree with it all, but there are definitely trends. Live performances are also where the musicians make their money so they're obviously more concerned with touring than with recording, but does that really mean that the audience for recorded music is disappearing? I'm listening to more music now than at any other time in my life. Am I a music nerd? Or do I just have more disposable income?
The article sees the interest in concerts as a quest for communalism in our new digitized era of alienation and isolation:
A rediscovery, or a renewed appreciation, of the communal source of music-making—and listening— must lie near the root of this upending of the music business. As personal stereos and MP3 players have grown in popularity, so has an appreciation that music isn't just something that goes on between your ears. The guitarist of the American hardcore band Anthrax expressed this rather neatly: "Our album is the menu," he explained. "The concert is the meal."That sounds good, except for the fact that most concerts are pretty lousy. The sound is usually really poor. You either have to jostle for position, if its open seating, or you're stuck in the assigned seat you paid for. There's usually a bunch of morons just behind you and to your left who only came for the evening out, don't care about the band or the music, and they are talking to each other or on cell phones. At really big stadium shows you end up watching the band on the video screens anyway. So, to me, unless it's a real venue like Red Rocks, I kind of hate live shows.
I think the problem really is that, as the article mentions, a lot of the sales of CDs were artificially inflated due to people replacing their copies of Rumors and Sgt. Peppers that they had on vinyl and/or cassette. But once you have the CD, you don't need to replace it, ever. In the new digital age, you don't need to purchase new MP3s of a CD you own: you just rip it to your computer and away you go. So, as the article mentions, the record companies really did sell their master tapes. No matter what new format comes out you'll never need to buy another copy of something you already own and that's what's killing the industry.
That's also what's driving touring. A concert is always new. It's always an event. And people will pay to hear the same old songs over and over if it's live. It's the only way that the Police, or Prince, or Rod Stewart, or The Eagles or any other countless "stars" will ever have a hit again. Instead of writing new versions of the same old songs, it's easier to just play the one's you know by heart.
So overall, the only people who want to buy new music are teenagers and music nerds who are constantly on the hunt for the latest thing. But that's a small segment of the population. The majority of people who once bought CDs have stopped because they don't need to replace the handful of records that they listen to on the way to work every morning. But they do have money to spend on unique experiences like concerts which are social and allow people to be nostalgic for that same handful of favorite tunes in a way that always feels fresh and new. Everyone else there is singing a long to "Maggie May" so there's no need to feel embarrassed that you've been listening to the same song for 40 years.
What's really needed now is a recording process that will allow you to take home a CD or a memory stick with MP3s of the show you just heard at the end of the night. They could sell it to you as you left the venue. You pop it into your car stereo, and relive the experience on your way home - a permanent souvenir of the evening. (Or would that ultimately kill concert going? It's an endless downward spiral in the digital age.)
