IPod vs Zune vs the recorded music industry vs the Musician

There were a few new buzzwords flying around the ailing music industry a year ago. Virile video, Guerilla marketing. One was a whole sentence. Content is king.
I bet there is a white board on the campuses of Microsoft , Apple and Universal with the same marketing acronyms VV,GM and CIK scribbled in different dry erase colors. Well paid modern day marketing Einstein’s looking for that elusive E=Mc.

Content is a fickle creature according to the digital landscape and the present state of the recorded music business. Back catalog and libraries of the big 4 entertainment companies excluded, When it comes down to it, most of the people that are able to create the music, movies, photos and writings that cause the majority of the world to want to pause and partake in their insights, are people that spent there lives with a mostly introspective personality. People that would rather just create instead of sell.

Enter the recorded music industry.

If you told me when I was a kid that I would happily pay 2 dollars for the water I drank thirstily out of my mothers kitchen tap I would say that you were crazy. But sure enough, today I enjoy bottled water more then a soft drink.
I still demand that I get some bubbly California or French citrus tinged product thinking that I am at least getting an esophagus quaking belch for my 2 bucks, but still, I have accepted the concept.

The web like mesmerization of value in intangible products. Intellectual properties they call it, Trillions of dollars have changed hands since its conceptualization.
It is just a matter of time until they rebuild an infrastructure within the dastardly assassin of the physically distributed marketplace. Connecting the dots of radio to digital distribution, live touring and product endorsements. Up close and personal video content of your favorite artists exclusive to your internet portal with a handy dandy list of links to “people who bought this record liked these also.”
Or for the bookish types, a intimate, well pre release researched, personalized high resolution IBook. Just a matter of time. Think about all the trees we could save.

Still, content is king. Hardware, advertising revenues, endorsements all contingent on their ability to find themselves in a orbit around a prolific generator of content. Maybe if we got back to the source of the artist and empowered him in a way to define and create the new paradigm of how we consume our books, music, movies and art, maybe they would taste just a little more genuine because it came directly from the source.

Or maybe the government could begin to regulate the internet by issuing broadcasting and digital distributing permits that cost a million dollars thus putting the opportunity of the regular Joes ability to by pass the corporate culture with in the entertainment industry? Then we could go back to what we had.

Hmmm.