Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne wants record labels to focus more on marketing than on manufacturing and distribution in the face of increasing digital album sales.
Byrne gave a presentation entitled “Record Companies: Who Needs Them?” at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas, Thursday. He offered a slide show that predicated digital sales would outstrip CD sales by 2012.
That year will be the “tipping point,” much like the mid-to-late ’80s when CDs overtook cassette sales. Once download sales became the norm, Byrne said, it will allow manufacturing and distribution costs to approach zero. “That is a fact,” he said.
He said at that point, record labels will be faced with a sort of choice — to ramp up marketing services to use music as a loss leader for tours and merchandise revenue, or aim only for international stars of the ilk of Britney Spears.
[NYTimes]