Believe Your Own Press Kit Much? 2

continues from Believe Your Own Press Kit Much?



Let's begin with Mr. Strain's third point:


“Our digital business is way ahead of other creative industries, with 30 percent of music sales coming from digital channels” Strain said.

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if the Music Industry really believes that they are "way ahead" of other 'creative industries' in taking care of digital business, i think we have identified a founding illusion.

there's so much irony in so few words here, i forget to breathe...and yet, there's poignancy, because once upon a time, it was true.

truer than true. for a few bright shiny years, the Music Industry was a digital avant-gardista. they were cutting edge.

this was going to be big. there was at least a decade ahead of mad margins and sick money. the future looked very bright and shiny.

in 1982, they introduced the Compact Disc.

none among them ever dreamed
that this would be
the Last Great Fattening.

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BACKSTORY




it had been nearly 20 years since the Industry had last successfully introduced a new format for consumers to enjoy.

in 1965, there was the 8 track, which everybody knew didn't actually work, really.

and then there was Quadrophonic** in 1970.

and there were others...none of which turned out to be great leaps forward, especially not when they were placed next to the chia pet of home audio.




***

the audio cassette hit the streets in '63, and caught on quick as both a home and car-based playback system.

one of the reasons people took to it was that not only could you play back your store-bought cassettes- you could record your own.

if you loved music, you probably did. if you were a hard core music geek, you most certainly did.

***

BEHIND THE BACKSTORY

interestingly enough, the ability to record one's own sounds had been a selling point for the first home audio gear...

the ability to manufacture musical recordings was all well and good, convincing people who have no way of listening to those recordings to buy some is hard. but it happened.

this ad is synergistic. a hardware manufacturer; a software developer and a media partner, leveraging the idea of recording your own cylinders, with musical recordings along as an incentivized option. a junior partner.

every contemporary marketing technique can be found in this one ad, done at the turn of the century.

if there's a difference, it might be that the consumer in this case has a wider variety of options and incentives, and there are fewer restrictions, and penalties.

 

... and it's all leveraged on recording your mother's voice, so you hear it when your far from home, and after she's gone.

who doesn't want to hear their mother's voice? who's going to tell the wife that the prattling of baby isn't worth remembering.

those guys were good.

***

stay tuned for part 3!

FOOTNOTES

* as distinct from a gramophone


** ahead of it's time:as a stand-alone home audio thing, it came and went. a generation of staring at computer screens later, home video screens get big and they need big sound to do the Dolby.
welcome back, old friend!

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