Marlowsphere Blog (#121)

Practioners in the creative arts are in trouble.

According to author Scott Timberg in his recently distributed book Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class (Yale University Press, 2015):

The creative class is melting. . . .

Record shops and independent bookstores close at a steady clip; newspaper and magazines announce repeated waves of layoffs. Tower Records crashed in 2006, costing 3,000 jobs. The bankruptcy of Border Books in 2011—almost 700 stores closed, putting roughly 11,000 people out of work—is the most tangible and recent example. One of the last video rental shops in Los Angeles—Rocket Video—closed soon after. On a grand scale, some 260,000 jobs were lost in traditional publishing and journalism in the three years after 2007, according to U.S. News & World Report. In newspapers alone, the website Paper Cuts tracked more than 40,000 job cuts in the three years after 2008. (p. 15).

Timberg’s latest offering seems to be a counterpoint, a bookend to Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class (Revisited) (Basic Books 2014), described as follows on Amazon.com:

Initially published in 2002, The Rise of the Creative Class quickly achieved classic status for its identification of forces then only beginning to reshape our economy, geography, and workplace. Weaving story-telling with original research, Richard Florida identified a fundamental shift linking a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing importance of creativity in people’s work lives and the emergence of a class of people unified by their engagement in creative work. Millions of us were beginning to work and live much as creative types like artists and scientists always had, Florida observed, and this Creative Class was determining how the workplace was organized, what companies would prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities would thrive.

In The Rise of the Creative Class (Revisited), Florida further refines his occupational, demographic, psychological, and economic profile of the Creative Class, incorporates a decade of research, and adds five new chapters covering the global effects of the Creative Class and exploring the factors that shape “quality of place” in our changing cities and suburbs.

Timberg takes fellow author Florida to task in terms of the definition of “creative class” when he writes:

“. . .a more useful understanding of the creative class would include anyone who helps create or disseminate culture. So along with sculptors and architects, I mean deejays, bookstore clerks, theatre set designers, people who edit books in publishing houses and so on.” (p. 10).

The balance of Timberg’s 310-page book is essentially a description of what has happened to the so-called creative class—Architects, Dancers & Choreographers, Graphic Designers, Multimedia Artists & Animators, Music Directors & Composers, Musicians & Singers, Actors, Photographers, Craft & Fine Artists, Film and Video Editors and Camera Operators, Writers & Authors, Editors, and Reporters, Correspondents, and Broadcast News Analysts—especially since the beginning of the “Great Recession.” It is not a pretty picture, especially those in the legacy print and electronic media: Writers & Authors, Editors, and Reporters, Correspondents, and Broadcast News Analysts.

A closing chapter attempts to provide a solution to the problems inculcated by the newer media, namely, the Internet and other social media, but it is akin to attempting to stop the forward  movement of a glacier during an ice age: the results are inexorable.

It would not be fruitful to attempt to argue with Timberg’s analytical descriptions of what has happened to the creative class in terms of societal value and economic consequences. Even cursory, anecdotal evidence supports his perspective. In this blog, therefore, I will look to the future for some answers. In this context, I looked at the employment predictions from the Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, namely its “Occupational Outlook Handbook.”

Following are the numbers for 13 categories in the “creative class” for the decade 2012-2022 with respect to job growth and job prospects:

The Overall Picture: 2012-2022 Job Growth/Job Prospects

• Architects: +17%
• Dancers & Choreographers: +13%
• Graphic Designers: +7%
• Multimedia Artists & Animators: +6%
• Music Directors & Composers: +5%
• Musicians & Singers: +5%
• Actors: +4%
• Photographers: +4%
• Craft & Fine Artists: +3%
• Film and Video Editors and Camera Operators: +3%
• Writers & Authors: +3%
• Editors: -2%
• Reporters, Correspondents, and Broadcast News Analysts: -13-14%

To put this in a larger context, the average job growth rate for all occupations in the same period, according to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, is 11%!

Clearly, according to these projections, architects and dancers/choreographers appear to have the best (positive) prospects for job growth over the period 2012-2022. On the other side, editors, reporters, correspondents, and broadcast news analysts have the worst (negative) prospects for job growth in the same period.

What is not so apparent is that these numbers do not reflect the (perhaps) unintended consequences of the new media, specifically the Internet. According to Jaron Lanier’s book Who Owns the Future? (Simon & Shuster 2013) the few success stories distract from what has really happened: The Internet has destroyed the livelihoods of the creative class’s middle tier—musicians, photographers, and journalists—but that it will move on to undercut other middle class jobs.

In many places Lanier’s posits that the new economy “. . . is good for whomever owns the computer server.” This perspective points to the dramatic shift with respect to the creation of content. Take several of the leading Internet web sites: YouTube, e-bay, PayPal, Spotify (and a host of online music distributors), Google, and Yahoo, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other lesser known web sites, such as cdbaby.com. None of these web sites create content. All these web sites provide a platform for content created by users. Users create the content. Meanwhile, each web site makes money from users use of the web site.

The next blog will take a deeper look at the job prospects for those in the fine and performing arts. A subsequent blog will look at job prospects for those in other “creative” professions, such as architects, on the one hand, and reporters, on the other.

If you have any questions or comments about this or any other of my blogs, please write to me at
meiienterprises@aol.com.

Eugene Marlow, Ph.D.
May 4, 2015

© Eugene Marlow 2015

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The Marlowsphere Blog ( #111) 

There are two kinds of record labels in the world today: the majors (of which there are only three) and the small, independent (or indie) labels, of which there are thousands globally.

These are the three remaining “major” record labels (since 2012):

• Universal Music Group (part of EMI’s recorded music division absorbed into UMG)
• Sony Music Entertainment (EMI Music Publishing absorbed into Sony/ATV Music Publishing)
• Warner Music Group (EMI’s Parlophone and EMI/Virgin Classics labels absorbed into WMG on 1 July 2013) 

The consolidation in the music industry—which is now global in terms of distribution—parallels similar mergers in the oil, accounting, and media industries. For example, Exxon bought Mobil and is now Exxon/Mobil, the largest oil company in the world. There used to be eight big accounting firms, now there are four. There used to be 80 media companies, now there are six with their fingers in all sorts of print, electronic, and live entertainment activities.

Perhaps we should not be surprised. Mergers & Acquisitions have become prevalent in the last several decades in numerous industries as the wave of electronic media has become a communications tsunami of sorts. From a management perspective, the growth of electronic media has provided managers with a greater span of control, thereby enabling consolidation across the board.

But every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In the context of this blog it is the growth of independent music labels despite the apparent domination of the big three music labels.

The growing power of the indie music industry was profiled in a New York Post article earlier this year. In part, the reporter, Claire Atkinson wrote in January 2014:

“The rise of streaming music services, where the major labels’ control is weaker, and the decline of FM radio, where the labels’ control is powerful, has had a clear effect on the power of indie.

In 2007, indies controlled 25.8 percent of the music business, No. 2 behind Universal Music Group’s 28.8 percent share. By June 30, 2013, indie — a universe that includes Taylor Swift, Jason Aldean, Bon Iver and Mumford & Sons — leapfrogged Universal by growing its market share to 34.5 percent, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Universal was at 28.3 percent.”

The growing influence of the so-called “indies” was articulated by Peter Weber, a senior editor at TheWeek.com, who wrote (also in January 2014):

In the first half of [2013] alone, people listened to 50 billion songs on streaming services, like Spotify and Pandora, or on YouTube, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That’s a 24 percent increase over the first half of 2012.

Revenues from streaming services are also increasing: Record labels and musicians got $1.1 billion from ad-supported and subscription streaming in 2012, a 40 percent jump over 2011. That’s still a fraction of the $28.7 billion the global music industry pulled in in 2012, but as Hannah Karp at The Wall Street Journal notes that money will only grow as an explosion of new streaming services hits this year.

The American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) helps independent music labels improve business by promoting access and parity through advocacy, education and connection-building with one another and affiliated businesses.

According to their web site: A2IM serves the independent music community that, according to Billboard Magazine, comprises over 34.5% of the music industry’s market share in the United States (and approximately 40% of SoundScan digital album sales).

Here are six reasons, then, why you should support an independent label: 

1. Independent labels look to at least cover their costs, turn a modest profit, and market a product to as wide a niche market as possible. The major labels market in as many ways as       possible to dominate the music industry—they care about making as much money as possible given the investment they make in new and extant artists.

2. Independent labels, given the smaller, niche markets they serve, reach for a higher intellectual and aesthetic level. The major labels reach for the lowest common musical
denominator.

3. Independent labels take chances/risks out of which comes experimentation which, in turn, leads to innovation. Very often, though, innovation occurs by accident. The major
labels want guarantees of success. This attitude breeds musical conservatism.

4. Independent labels support musical self-expression that allows for new ideas and sounds to be shared.

5. Small, independent labels allow artists greater freedom of creative expression.

6. The small labels are where larger movements come from. Smallness has a major role to play in growing fresh musical expression. Many a large industry grew out of someone’s
garage. The airline and home computer industries are two that come to mind almost immediately.

The small labels are where larger movements come from. Smallness has a major role to play in growing fresh musical expression. Many a large industry grew out of someone’s garage. The airline and home computer industries are two that come to mind almost immediately.

Overall, while the big three music labels create the perception that they are the only game town—with their promotion of rap, hip-hop, rock and pop; and if you buy the myopic public coverage of the Grammys—the larger universe is the growing presence of so-called independent labels, helped along by the expanding digital universe.

The irony is that in the last 100 years success in the music business has evolved from live performance (prior to recordings) to recorded performance (78s, 45s, LPs, CDs) back to live performance (Live Nation didn’t become a monster company for nothing). There was a time when Barbra Streisand was just a recording artist, but in recent years she has come of the recording booth to perform live again. Today, a recording for a very few makes money, but it is the live performance where the fans are created, the venue and performers make money, and physical CDs are sold.

Recording has also evolved. Early on an artist recorded one piece, given the technological limitations at the time. The LP enabled the recording of a multi-track album. And in the digital age, musicians, for various reasons, have gravitated to single track releases again.

What goes around, comes around.

If you have any questions or comments about this or any other of my blogs, please write to me at meiienterprises@aol.com.

Eugene Marlow, Ph.D.
November 10, 2014

© Eugene Marlow 2014

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