What is interesting is how difficult it must be for labels to promote their products to a wider, non-specialist audience.
Sure, radio remains important but how do you reach the 30 something rock fan who's grown bored with mainstream music radio (cos it remains shit), irritated by Q and Mojo cos they're reduced to repeating the same old stuff, and doesn't have the time for social networking sites? I'm finding out about a lot of new music through recommendations on the various music forums I belong to, notably Unsung and the Cardiacs chat-list.
When my missus worked for Radio 1, you couldn't move in the reception at Yalding House for pluggers. But how do they now reach such an atomised, niche-driven market place ? Are they now just salaried, cross-media spammers?
The internet has been an absolutely transformative experience for die-hard music obsesives and communities such as this one have been a revelation for me but it makes me wonder if there's been any pluggers using the Unsung forum to virally market their wares? And if so, is that neccessarily a bad thing?
The recent takeover of EMI by a private equity firm, and the way the label's business model is now being given a corporate enema, is pretty interesting stuff. One thing's for sure - the party is now over for the mainstream record industry.
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