"I don't know that I could've even imagined the level of destruction that is happening to the music industry right now - until I actually got there," John J. Thompson told us last night at The Guild. John's in town this week preparing for Saturday's Backthird Songwriting Conference, and he took time at last night's meeting to tell us his story - from starting a wildly successful, then wildly defunct, record store and venue in Wheaton to playing, composing and writing for his company Gyroscope Arts to finally heading to Nashville more than two years ago to become creative director for EMI CMG Publishing.
Then he got around to the state of the business.
"The bad news is obvious," he told us. "Intellectual property is being used for free - so how on earth do you turn that into an industry any more?" Video may have killed the radio star - but the Internet is killing rock stars of every kind. Oh, and there was this little gem: "A year from now there will still be CDs - but they'll be sold almost entirely by independent artists at shows."
John's advice: the era of Bono and the Beatles is over. Forget making it big, and be satisfied with making it - whether that means holding a day job and doing music for the joy of it, or learning to live lean and build your own audience over time.
And you can focus on the bright spots. John's business - publishing - is one. "If you can write amazing, amazing songs," he said, "then I can tell you what to do with those songs. Because you can't steal songs (on the Internet) and put them on Grey's Anatomy. If Grey's Anatomy wants your song, the have to pay."
John will delve into the specifics of songwriting as a business at our conference on Saturday; you can still register online right here or by calling the studio at 630.264.2366.
This looked great; it was on my radar and I felt too busy make it out. I gotta get back to The Guild.
Posted by: Hans | September 09, 2009 at 11:41 AM