I just read a great analysis of the current state of the music industry that John Mellencamp wrote for HuffPo. While it doesn’t surprise me that many of the problems affecting hip-hop are common across all genres, it really opens my eyes to how widespread the problems with this industry are when we’re all basically saying the same thing regardless of age, genre or years of tenure in the business.

Here’s a few excerpts that really stood out to me, but I suggest reading the entire article to get the full analysis.

On the corporate influence in the music business:

Reagan’s much-vaunted trickle-down theory said that wealth tricked down to the masses from the elite at the top. Now we’ve found out that this is patently untrue — the current economic collapse reflects this self-serving folly. The same holds for music. It doesn’t trickle down; it percolates up from the artists, from word of mouth, from the streets and rises up to the general populace. Constrained by the workings of SoundScan/BDS, music now came from the top and was rammed down people’s throats.

On the creation of the CD:

The CD, it should be noted, was born out of greed. It was devised to prop up record sales on the expectation of people replenishing their record collections with CDs of albums they had already purchased. They used to call this “planned obsolesce” in the car business. Sound quality was supposed to be one of the big selling points for CDs but, as we know, it wasn’t very good at all. It was just another con, a get-rich-quick scheme, a monumental hoax perpetrated on the music consuming public.

On success in the modern industry:

Sadly, these days, it’s really a matter of “every man for himself.” In terms of possibilities, we are but an echo of what we once were. Of course, the artist does not want to “sell out to The Man.” Left with no real choice except that business model of greed and the bean counting mentality that Reagan propagated and the country embraced, there is only “The Man” to deal with. There is no street for the music to rise up from. There is no time for the music to develop in a natural way that we can all embrace when it ripens and matures. That’s why the general public doesn’t really care. It’s not that the people don’t still love music; of course they do. It’s just the way it is presented to them that ignores their humanity.

I’ve finally liberated myself from the Compact Disc. I’m not just talking about purging some old discs that were laying around.  I literally got rid of every CD in my collection. It was a symbolic move for a forward thinker like me who works in the music industry.  While the most of the industry seems incapable of facing reality and letting these things go, I needed to cleanse myself of this hopelessly out-of-date product.

As a DJ, I did my best to avoid giving up vinyl. In the pre-Serato age of DJ technology, it was a pretty tough task to keep the record crates hot, especially as record labels began cutting down on their vinyl production before the music industry made a complete promotional shift to CDs and mp3s. Eventually, I had to cave when it became impossible to stay on top of current releases strictly using vinyl. I was also a little jealous of other DJs strolling into gigs with their entire set in a backpack, while I was still lugging record crates around town.

I still have my entire vinyl collection.

Parting with the CD is a lot different for me. I’ve really come to hate the things.

The CD represents everything that is wrong with the music industry today. While most labels are (finally) aware of the digital outlets available for music distribution, their business structure continues to revolve around consumer demand for these discs, evidenced by the fact that they still dump loads of money into marketing and producing them. Instead of focusing on how to survive in the digital age, labels are still trying to figure out new ways to dupe the consumer into buying these worthless discs.

Every week the release of Soundscan numbers makes my job more difficult because CD sales continue to decline. If an artist’s numbers come in and an album doesn’t meet label estimates, and they never meet label estimates, the label starts to wonder why the CD didn’t sell, especially with an artist who has a great online presence. Regardless of whether or not I was involved with the project, obtaining a budget from the label for their next project becomes much more difficult because of the misguided thought that a strong presence online is indicative of high consumer demand for an album.

In reality, there’s no correlation at all between an artist’s online presence and their ability to sell CDs. What the internet age has brought to the music industry is a closer relationship between artists and their fans. The rapport between artist and fan today was unimaginable just a few years ago and this is all due to the constant stream of information, media and personal interactions the internet provides. Fans have come to view themselves as friends to these artists, not just another fly-by-night supporter.

As strange as it may sound, I think the closeness of these relationships make it less likely that fans will buy an artist’s CD. The fan begins to feel as though all the marketing they’re seeing is for other people, the general public, those that don’t share the close relationship many of these fans feel are unique between them and that artist. This bond can arise from a simple comment left on a fan’s Myspace profile, a response to a message or in some cases a running dialogue with the artist. The fan comes to believe the artist isn’t possibly interested in their money and because most fans aren’t compelled to toss a friend $16 in exchange for something they don’t need, the same rules apply to the purchase of a CD.

There is one solution to this problem. Don’t view it as a problem at all. Today’s fans are not opposed to spending money on things like concert tickets, merchandise and pretty much anything that can be used to accessorize a cell phone. With the strong bonds formed through the internet, the artist is assured a much better chance of longevity in their career and can continue profiting in these areas long after their label stops supporting them. Generally, the artist is seeing better returns in areas outside of CD sales, so it’s in their best interest to keep a healthy online fan base, even if they don’t buy CDs.

The ideology that a “true fan” will spend upwards of $16 for a product they don’t need demonstrates the narcissism still inexplicably driving these labels, who are doomed if they continue working with these dated business models that obviously aren’t working.

As for me, I feel great in this new CD-less world I’ve created for myself, as I finally have an excuse to give the CD peddlers on 34th Street when I don’t buy their product: “No thanks. I stopped using them.”