Sex or music?

Andy Lo takes a look at the evolving music industry in comparison to say, oh i don’t know, SEX!

Would you rather this?

Would you rather go without music or sex for a week? Astonishingly over 60 per cent of young people would rather go without the horizontal action. Amongst 16 – 19 year olds the figure rises to 70 per cent. The compelling results were uncovered by Marrakesh Records and Human Capital who conducted the survey on 1,000 15-24 year-olds. The study, designed to find out the importance of music to young people and their changing attitudes towards paying for it, also found that 70 per cent did not feel guilty for illegally downloading music. In addition 61 per cent also felt they should not have to pay for the music they listen to.

The findings are remarkable. I know for a fact that if I was asked to give up either music or sex I would most definitely choose the former rather than the latter. Yet the findings also highlight just how important the role of music still is in the lives of youths. Friendships are formed over music, nights out revolve around it, and careers are started because of it.

The methods in which people gratify their need for music has changed over the years and is still constantly evolving; the buying of physical mediums such as the CD is declining as music is increasingly being bought and downloaded online. It seems likely that in the not too distant future physical copies will cease to exist all together and all music will be available and bought online – a virtual jukebox if you will.

Of course, along with this, illegal downloading through file sharing networks has also been rife and has been for a number of years. I, myself, am guilty of having downloaded tracks in the past without paying for them and I am sure a good majority of people will raise their hands when asked the same question. Illegal music downloading costs music companies millions every year and the UK government has attempted to tackle this ever-present modern problem. Recently a friend of mine received a letter from Sky Broadband warning him that his internet could be cut off if he continued to download pirated music from an unnamed website.

Or this?

The constantly evolving nature of the music industry has raised questions on the value of music. In the survey, the average price that respondents thought was fair to pay for a CD album was just £6.58. For a download album the average fell to £3.91 and for a download single the average was 39p – this was almost half the price of a track on iTunes. But perhaps music should not even cost anything. The ‘commodification’ of music has only really existed since companies began catching on to the idea that selling physical copies of recordings was profitable. Before then music was treated as art form – simply an expression of human of creativity that was available to all and not a money making product that could be bought and sold. It seems to me that the selling of music these days is simply serving to line the pockets of the suits in the music industry, many of whom have no real understanding of music.

Record companies, in my opinion, are being rendered obsolete by technology. Many artists are increasingly turning to the internet to distribute their music (often for free) with many choosing only to make money off other methods such as gigging. In 2007 Radiohead released their album In Rainbows as a free download citing that it was up to fans to decide whether they should pay not. In addition websites such as Myspace have proved incredibly useful for many unsigned bands to gain popularity. The Arctic Monkeys achieved a phenomenally huge fan base through the internet before they were even signed.

The music industry is constantly progressing and I expect we will see more major developments in the next few years. As for sex; let’s hope that will survive for at least a few more years.