The music 'business' and some of the new myths

So, I just came across this fantastic blog post from the band Pomplamouse and it makes fascinating reading on the current state of the music 'business' and some of the new myths surrounding revenue streams and the profitability of touring. I put the word business in quotes as it seems that the traditional music business/industry we know is in it's dying stages, a mammoth of a beast, too greedy and slow to turn itself around and look for new and sustainable revenue streams. Rather than the approach of suing it's customers, the ones it had already fleeced several times over with new formats (cassette, mini-disc, CD) and remasters etc, it could have look at what was happening and adapt and actually give consumers what they wanted (which appears now to be streamed music...although that personally doesn't interest me).Streaming is interesting, it has become normalised with the younger generation, to the point where, when you do the maths, teenagers now were being born as CD's were loosing out to MP3. The younger generation only know mp3s, just like your parents only knew vinyl or 8 track, and not wax cylinders! It is a shame, mp3 is a compressed lossy format, you are paying for a substandard product, but then again most people are listening it to it through very substandard equipment (iPods, mobile phones, headphones on buses etc). Streaming gives you the song you want to hear now, when or where ever you are, that is pretty fantastic when you think of it. Do we really care anymore about the quality, or even listening to a product in full? I remember the days when you would pour over one album for weeks or months (or even years), but now listen to 2 minutes of a track, move on to the next one by a different artist. The attention span is dying, because there is so much other content to draw us in, so much content which is Free.So how do we make this work?If I knew that I would be pretty well off by now, but what I think the Pomplamouse article highlights is that, whilst they toured at a loss, they treated the whole process like a commercial business project, they paid themselves a wage, they treated every aspect like any other small/medium business might approach selling, from a bakery to a shoe shop, and I think that this is to be admired. Like any business too, they ran at a loss in their first attempt (lets equate that to year), we all know it takes a number of years for a business to turn a profit, so they are doing very well. Why do I think that, because I am sure that the next tour they do will have more people, they can up those numbers, they can sell additional product in the mean time. Mostly importantly, they are in control, they are not in debt to the big corporate music 'business' which is like an ocean liner trying to turn in a port, they are in control of their business and it succeeds or fails in their hands. Think of your music, band, creative venture as a business, treat it like a business, promote it like a business and hopefully you will find that this might be the new way!PeaceNeil