Gene Simmons - "Record industry is dead"

Gene Simmons of KISS fame appeared on Dave Navarro's (of Jane's Addiction and Red Hot Chili Peppers fame) Internet TV Show (http://www.6767.com/archives/2007/08/index.html) and talked about the current state of the music industry. Some really interesting thoughts were presented, nothing we haven't already seen before but interesting none the less. Here is a transcript:

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=79657

Couple of points here:

- Obviously, Simmons has bought into the old school record industry mentality and rightly so as it has brought him tremendous success but he makes a really good point. Compared to the relationship today, labels probably were an artist's "best friend" in the industry's height. Labels did (and still do in many cases) take all the financial risk on an artist and the artist owes no cash in return. Their only risks are creative and that has been controlled also in the past.

- You can tell Navarro is trying to make a case for the new industry model but Simmon's won't hear anything of it.

- Simmons point that College students who used Napster to download music illegally "ruined it for all of us" is probably true. You can trace the current mindset about the value of IP to those early days. So many people who are about 35 and younger today, have been totally trained to believe that music is free. It literally is part of their belief system, the younger the person is.

- Simmons makes the point that artists have now had to go back to the "old system" and do live shows to make money. That is true but he says it as if it is a really bad thing. Maybe selling recordings wasn't the way to go in the first place. Pay for performance for music has been around a LOT longer than recordings have.

- Simmon's suggestion to just sue everyone possible to change the mindset will not work and is not working currently. You can scare and stop some people, but how do you change a conscious mindset through litigation?

One thing's for sure, the record industry is dying but whether or not it's dead, is questionable. The model is irrefutably dead, but there is still a vibrant music community out there and that is not going anywhere. There is definite hope for a new model that addresses these concerns and still helps the artist make money (maybe more money than they ever have before).