Music Industry Changes

Music is something everyone enjoys listening to and talking about. This is something that hasn’t changed since the creation of music. What has changed though out time is the music itself and the art of music itself. Music has changed from being all about expression into a worldwide business and industry. This industry has evolved and been through as many changes as music itself. In modern times the music industry is largely affected and influenced by the internet. There’s controversy whether or not the internet has more of a negative or positive affect on the music industry. One thing is clear and that is that since the internet has been introduced to the music industry, the music industry is less about the art of music and more about the money.

This would be a positive thing, but artist found this way usually don’t last long and rarely get to explore the different types of music and sounds they can or want to do. This is mostly because the amount of talent that can be found on the internet is limitless, so it wouldn’t be hard for a label to just find some new artist that’s willing to do what the current artist isn’t. This kind of artist selection makes it easier for an artist to be exploited for their popularity and talent. An example would be how Trinidad was signed, to the label Def Jam, two months after he dropped a mixtape that had the very popular song “All Gold Everything” on it. It was clear to most people that he was signed due to the popularity of that song and the label thought that he would produce more popular songs for their label. After he was signed none of his songs were nowhere near as “All Gold Everything”, so after two years on the label he was dropped without the even releasing a debut album. Trinidad even said in an interview, in which he was explaining why he got dropped, “I feel like we just had a difference of creative ideas,” (James). This

He then said later in the interview “I appreciate Def Jam for everything that they taught me and they’re not bad people. It’s just that they’re a business man, it’s life, you just have to understand that and I definitely do,” (James), which further backs up my point that the music industry is more about the business now then the art of music itself. There are countless incidents where artist get signed after a hit just to be dropped later when they do not bring in revenue for the label. Examples would be Bobby Shmurda, Gucci Mane, Chief Keef, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and even Wiz Khalifa was dropped by his first label. Not all them bounce back like Wiz Khalifa did as can be found out if the stories of these people were to be looked up. The quick dropping and adding of artist onto a label also makes it harder for artist to have longevity in the music industry. Before internet labels would take time to cultivate their artist and would be out of luck if they discarded a good artist and they would be more weary of who they added to the label. Now, as I previously stated, they just pick up artist