I remember when I first heard of 2 major labels closing down in the same year, I panicked for days and tried to warn everyone that things are about to go side-ways.
Maybe it’s just me and how I look at things (I generally don’t like a lot of change in a short space of time, it makes me nervous, but so are unplanned major events that crop up, girlfriends that come knocking at the door unannounced…). To my surprise the worst didn’t come as a sudden reveal, it happened gradually within the industry.
Now I think I’ve seen what became the ultimate results. The music industry has been down grading roles; artists don’t release physical (CDs) albums for anything more than to have an expensive business card on their way to the “next level”; major labels no longer sign albums, they sign singles (I actually went through this process with one of the artists I’m managing lately); Independent labels are managers, managers are promoters, promoters are Djs, Djs are just way too many.
(Talk about the many Djs, imagine if they bought half the songs on their Dj bags? We would all be super rich I’m sure, but this article is not about them… back to my point)
Am I the only one who is seeing this? What is your take on this steady decline of roles within the industry? and what do you think will happen next?
International major record label founders and entertainment industry so called expects are the cause of the problems in the South African Music Industry. Firstly they introduced Music Compilers to compile music for more than 10 million people in South Africa – from the day South African Radio Stations allowed music compilers, the South African Musician career started to suffer. Today you have to BEG a music compiler or other big Radio station music compilers to playlist your music.
Let me tell you something, music compilers and their committed are the cause of the silent death of our South African Art in the country – They are suppose to collect, capture music data and file all that music that the dj played in his show during the day or week or month or a year. How can an employed music compiler compile current or best music for an artistic person like a dj? For the industry to grow, we have to force the Radio stations to consider a turn around strategy conference to fix this error. DJ’s and Presenters must compile their music of choice and the music compiler must be there to monitor repeats, dj;s playlist, music quality and they must be music data capturers not music compilers.
Lastly, lets appreciate our local music, it is good and Sabc must respect our music talent – not to be compared with other cultural music – Promoters will easly book local musicians all the time if our Sabc Radio Stations playlist quality South African music!