[Reader-list] Trends Spotting , Prashant Pandey

[Prashant Pandey]

Music industry rocks to all new tunes

MANOJ NAIR

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 06,

Do you hear that buzz? That soft murmur of an industry that just can't
be wished away. Yes, it is music to the ears. And it has been music
over the years. Just step back for a moment and think -it has been
changing. All of it. The way it made, transmitted and listened to.

Last month, a group called Arctic Monkeys grabbed the coveted number
one slot in Britain's weekly charts. All it did was create a fan base
and allowed music lovers to swap its songs on the Internet for free.

In 2002, David Bowie had written in a New York Times article: "The
absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music
will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to
stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it's not going
to happen. I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no
longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property are
in for such a bashing. Music itself is going to become like running
water or electricity."

Quite true. In the future, what we know as music will be ubiquitous,
mobile, shareable and as pervasive and diverse as human cultures and
it will be changing from one form to other. It will include
non-musicians who follow no rules. Yes, it will move far away from the
single note to embrace samples in wholesale. With the help of
electronics, new ideas and mass consumption ambient music will,
without doubt, become the classical music of the future.
Just the other day, American magazine Wired featured the virtual band
Gorillaz on its cover. The band is made up of cartoon characters (2D,
Murdoc Niccals, Russel Hobbs and Noodle) who are fictional. The group
inhabits Kong Studios, high on a mountain in Essex, northeast of
London. There are no mountains in Essex. The band exists enough to
make music, produce videos, remix, and to be remixed. And their music
is all about loops and samples.

The Big-4 major labels of the world - Sony BMG, Universal, EMI and
Warner - are all ailing. But if one were to look beyond CD sales, it
is clear that overall the market is alive, kicking and vibrant. Legal
digital sales tripled in the first half of 2005. It will only go up
and much of it is powered by ringtones.

Recently, a company called MCC Group launched a range of high storage
capacity & shock proof NAND flash memory cards that are empowered by
the Single Level Cell (SLC) technology which enables video streaming &
Internet facility in handheld gadgets such as 3G mobile phones, MP3
players & PCs. These flash memory cards are available in 30X and 45X
speeds and are priced at Rs 1,500 for a 128 MB card, Rs 2,700 for a
256 MB card, Rs 4,500 for a 512 MB card and Rs 6,500 for a 1 GB card.
Which means music on the go will become even more accessible and easy.

Look at how iPod has revolutionised the way we listen to music. The
iPod also turned around an 'Apple' that was going bad. Music fans are
now completely awash in music and digital music has become the new
radio for the Internet generation. Digital technologies have been
totally and unobtrusively integrated into a lifestyle of new
generation of teenagers.
Cell phone ringtones represent one end of a spectrum that might have
DVD concert videos with seven-channel soundtracks, on-screen song
lyrics, and artist commentaries.

The launch concert of Robbie Williams' new album was beamed into 27
cinema and nightclub venues and was seen by 100,000 people on their
mobile phones.

"This is the future, baby," he declared. Madonna's much-awaited single
from her new album "Confessions on a Dancefloor" was first heard as a
ringtone. Music has actually become heterogeneous. It will, as Bowie
said, be flowing like water.