The Future of Music

Chris Jones
Mr. Jenkins
Honors English 11
10 April 2009
The Future of Music
I found an article on futureofmusicbook.com. The article was entitled, “Future of Music”, and was quite intriguing. The author, Dave Kusek, discusses the music industry and attempts to explain the drop in CD sales in the last few years. He writes about the evolution of music distribution, and how the music recording industry has fought every bit of change from the beginning, and having resisted in that manner has ultimately led to where the industry is today, in a downward spiral that seems to be gaining speed and never slowing up.
In the beginning, music was distributed first through the selling of record albums, then moved to the 8-track, then after that it went to cassettes, and from there evolved into the CD, and finally the MP3. And that is the answer to the record company’s problems, the MP3. Once music went digital in that form all was lost. Kusek suggests that the problem could have been remedied back when they first started if record companies had made a partnership with the MP3 distribution method, but instead fought it and lost. Sure the short term battle was one but the war has taken its toll and led to such things as Itunes, and Amazon. Nowadays people can get music for cheap or even free, and they know it. And that is through file sharing, which is how Itunes got its start. The music industry missed the boat when MP3s came around and now their future is in jeopardy. Sure they have partnerships with some music distributors that charge for there music, but profits will never be the same. And there will never be a legitimate way for them to catch up with the way things are now. Bottom line is music is evolving and evolution is the future, and eventually music may end playing a similar role as televison does. At this Kusek notes music will be, “a service that you subscribe to that is bundled into your bill.” (Kusek, 1)


Kusek, Dave. Future of Music. 10 April, 2009. .