FROM BENJIE: Pump or Bump?
What do you need more, music or gas?
That’s not a rhetorical question – I want your answer. I’m part of a group of artists and business owners that meets in downtown
Here’s how the question came last month: Our nation isn’t doing too great economically. In fact, our whole planet’s got big issues. The price of almost everything is going up. Do we really expect people to pay for something as unnecessary as art?
Good question. Since our focus here is music, I’ll make it even simpler – and more difficult. What’s music worth these days?
Of all the art forms, music’s currently the easiest to duplicate and hand out to your friends. That’s had the music industry in trouble for some time, of course. The Internet has introduced a whole new way of finding and experiencing music. And, like the rising price of oil, it’s driving people to re-think some things we previously took for granted. Should people pay for what they can get free?
There are arguments on either side. Start with the cost: It costs an artist something to make music, both emotionally and financially. In the case of recorded music, that cost has decreased dramatically with new technology – but it’s never going to go away. Live music costs something, too – venues have overhead, promoters have promotional expense, and bands spend weeks away from home – and hundreds of dollars to gas up the van – to make tours happen. If it costs something to make music happen, the argument goes, then the people who do so to be compensated.
But there are other factors that drive price – like supply and demand. One reason you’re paying four-plus dollars at the pump is that the world has a limited supply of oil, and the demand just keeps increasing. Music, on the other hand, would seem to be more plentiful than ever. Got a copy of a rare old album? Rip it to my hard drive and I’ll burn you CD copies all day long for next to nothing. Don’t like those songs? MySpace has literally millions of bands who’ll play you their tracks at the click of a button. We used to have one Elvis – now we have impersonators, almost too many of them to count. Music has no shortage on the supply side.
And how about demand? Ah, that’s the question. Unless you own a farm and grow your own food, you need oil to live – it fuels the trucks that bring your groceries to the store. Our nation’s currently addicted to it. But do we need music? Can we live without it?
What do you think? What’s it worth?
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