WEBVTT - Tech and the Music Industry 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:14.680 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.520 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio. 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:21.160 And how the tech are You? I thought it might 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.759 be a good idea to do an episode or two 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:29.760 about the music industry, because how the industry works as 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:35.080 a business is really tightly tied to technology. In fact, 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:39.080 music itself is tightly tied to technology. It is the 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:43.200 product of technology in most cases. I mean, you can 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.159 you can sing, and I guess that's a good argument 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:48.440 to make a that that's a kind of music that 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:53.360 doesn't involve technology, but most music does. And the evolution 0:00:53.400 --> 0:01:00.320 of tech has really affected music in numerous ways, for um, 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:04.200 the ability to record it, to new ways to create 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.759 different kinds of musical sounds, and all sorts of ways 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:17.440 to experiment with recording and music production and distribution. Even that, 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.600 you know, we we have to take all that into account. 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:24.080 It's not just the tech, it's not just the business. 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:27.160 They are tightly integrated. So from the tech used to 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.640 record music to the tech used to play it back 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:34.920 to the radio broadcasts to streaming over the internet, we 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:40.280 can really see how technology has shaped both art and business. Uh. This, 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.400 by the way, this whole idea of me doing these episodes, 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:45.200 which has taken me a long time to work on 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:47.920 because there's just so much to cover. It was really 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:51.720 prompted by the recent news that fans of certain artists 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:55.960 on the death Row Music label we're upset to discover 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:59.360 that some of their favorite albums and songs we're just 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:03.840 disappearing from the various popular music streaming services out there. 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:07.840 And this coincides with Snoop Dogg's announcement that he wants 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.800 to turn death Row Records, which he purchased not that 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:14.440 long ago, into the first major music label in the 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.800 metaverse and make it an n f T music label. 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:24.160 UM pretty extreme, but let's dial back the clock a 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:28.760 little bit. Before the early nineteen hundreds, musicians really only 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.280 had the option to making a living off their music 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.359 a couple of different ways. They could play live venues 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.200 and take a share of the box office, or they 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:43.840 could find themselves a wealthy or generous patron, whether that 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.840 was a specific person or maybe a government or whatever. Um. 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:52.160 Or they could compose music and they could then put 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.640 it onto sheet music and print sheet music and sell 0:02:55.720 --> 0:03:00.920 that make money that way, But the emergence of recorded media, 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:06.280 which predated radio broadcasting, that would change everything. In nineteen 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:10.239 o four, the Victor Talking Machine company, which made phonographs, 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:13.400 also got into the business of producing music, because if 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.400 you don't have anything to play on your talking machine, 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:20.400 why would anyone buy one? Now? In the early days, 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:27.840 recording equipment was exceedingly scarce. Essentially, the companies that possessed 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.120 recording equipment were the same ones that were producing the 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.480 playback equipment. They were in the business of doing both, 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.280 and that meant from the very beginning you had gatekeepers 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.600 in the recorded music industry. There were no such things 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:46.160 as independent labels in the earliest days, just the larger 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:50.440 phonograph and grammophone companies, and so right from the start 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:53.680 we had a precedent in which a few powerful companies 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:58.840 determined what music would get recorded. So at that point 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.800 musicians had an opportun tunity to make money off recordings. 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.840 They could also count on these companies to market music 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:11.080 to a wider audience, so they'd reach people that otherwise 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.080 they never would have been able to. People would be 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.160 able to listen and enjoy their music and pay for 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:21.400 it more importantly that otherwise these musicians would never have 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:24.880 encountered and the company would only make money if people 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:28.279 were buying the recordings. So we quickly established this relationship 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.120 in which the musicians created the music and the recording 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.400 company did pretty much everything else, from committing music to 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:39.520 a physical recording to marketing the music, to sales and 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:43.920 distribution of that music. Now, according to a Wall, a 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:46.599 w a L is a company with an acronym that 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:50.080 stands for artists without a label. Uh, the nineteen o 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:54.080 four deal that Victor Talking Machine Company did would give 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:57.600 an artist four thousand dollars for a single song and 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:02.320 a cut of up to twenty to percent of each sale, 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:06.599 which is incredibly generous. And I'm imagining that four thousand 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.280 dollars has to have been adjusted for inflation, because otherwise 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.800 we're talking about more than a hundred thirty thousand dollars 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.080 for a single song, and there's just no way that 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.560 that's true. Heck, I find the four thousand dollars thing 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.640 hard to believe honestly, considering the time period. And again, 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.160 it wouldn't be four thousand dollars in nineteen four dollars, 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:30.760 but the equivalent of four thousand dollars today, but let's 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.160 just assume that it's all accurate and that a wall 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:37.120 adjusted for inflation. The Victor Talking Machine Company was one 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.480 of three major companies in the industry in those early 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.039 early days. The other two were the Columbia Phonograph Company, 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.960 and then you had the Thomas A. Edison Company, And 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.320 all three of these companies were making phonographs or phonograph 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:54.040 like devices, and so they all had a vested interest 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.960 in making sure that there was content to play on 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:02.240 those devices. They also each one had to dominate the industry. 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:06.120 They wanted to be the big player, so they would 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:12.200 each attempt to get exclusive deals with specific musicians and orchestras. 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:16.560 And early on you had competing formats in in the 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:20.360 record industry. So early early on, you had wax cylinders, 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.560 which not only didn't provide the best sound quality, but 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:27.520 they would also wear down unrepeated playbacks because they had 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:31.679 a wax coding and playing them would start to damage 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.160 the coding, so you know, after like a few dozen plays, 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.680 it would be really diminished quality. So even when the 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:44.279 industry moved from wax cylinders to flat record discs, which 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:48.160 were made from hard material like shellac. It would be 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.800 quite some time before the industry would move to vinyl, 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:53.919 but even when they went to disks, you know, the 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:57.839 flat disc format you had competing record disc sizes and 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:01.680 playback speeds of the playback speeds would range from sixty 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.560 rotations per minute up to more than a hundred thirty 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.040 rotations per minute, and the playback speed affected a lot 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:12.000 of other stuff, from how much audio you could commit 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:16.320 to a record to the actual playback quality of the music. 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:21.400 So generally speaking, the faster the rpm, the higher the rpm. 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:23.800 In other words, in the early days, the better the 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:29.120 sound quality typically was. Right like, if you were playing 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.360 back the record at a hundred thirty rpm, the quality 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:34.120 was better than a record that would play back at 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:38.080 sixty rpm. However, it also means that it takes much 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:41.200 less time for a stylist to go through the groove 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:44.520 of a record, uh, whether you're recording or playing it back, 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.560 which means you could only fit a smaller amount of 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.080 audio per side of a disc then you could if 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.360 you were doing it more slowly. So there were trade offs, 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.560 uh you know you and of course, if you played 0:07:57.560 --> 0:07:59.960 the disc at the wrong speed, like if you had 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.840 to sixty RPM record, but you were playing it back 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:06.720 at at rpm. Everything would be super fast twice more 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:08.440 than twice as fast as what's supposed to be and 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:11.800 sold be it wold sound like the chipmunks got into 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:15.160 the coffee again. So the early days of the recording 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.560 industry were really a bit messy. I'm sure you're all 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:21.239 familiar with various format wars. I did an episode about 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.920 format wars last week. You know, it's easy for consumers 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.360 to hit limitations due to buying into a specific format 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.000 over and others. So you know, you buy you know, 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.840 if you were to buy the Victor Talking Machine phonograph, 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:38.480 then you might not be able to play anything from 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:42.640 any of the other companies. So the gramophones and phonographs 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.800 and turntables were pretty expensive in the early days. Most folks, 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:48.720 if they could even afford one, would have to make 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:52.120 a choice regarding which format they would buy into. Now, 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:56.440 eventually the industry would gravitate towards standardization, and you would 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:01.559 have three speeds that were really treated as as the standards. 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:06.040 You had seventy eight RBMT, r PM and thirty three 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.880 and a third RBM with fort and thirty three ultimately 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:14.840 dominating the Space seventy eight kind of faded away. Well, 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:16.960 let's backtrack a bit to talk about what was going 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:21.880 on on the business side. And then when these companies 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.880 first started getting started, what followed was a pretty easily 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:32.280 predictable predatory era in which these you know, agents representing 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:34.800 these different companies like the Victor Talking Machine Company or 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:39.920 Columbia or whatever, they would go and scour regions for 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:45.240 talented musicians who otherwise we're unconnected. If you've watched the movie, 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.200 Oh Brother, Where art Thou, they kind of play around 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:53.559 with this idea. You know, you get that that statement 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:57.240 about a feller who's paying some folks to sing into 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.439 a can. Well, that kind of stuff was actually going 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.200 on in the early twentieth century. You had these agents 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.240 seeking out talent and paying them a nominal fee to 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:11.000 record a song. And for the talent, the fee might 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.400 be considerable, right, there might be a few hundred dollars 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.200 into the talent. That might be an enormous amount of money, 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:20.080 but it was like a one time payment, and then 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.559 the music company would have the use of that recording 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:27.160 for as long as they kept the recording, and they 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:32.240 could make some serious money. And world's turn on such things. Then, 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.439 in n nine, the US government passed a copyright Act 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:39.520 which would guarantee that writers and publishers of music would 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:44.240 get a cut of record deals. However, it left out performers. 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:47.240 So you might wonder, well, why the heck is that. 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.599 Why would the writer and the publisher get a a 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:56.760 guaranteed cut but the person who performed it doesn't. Well, 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:01.040 in the days of orchestral performances and chamber music and 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:04.719 that kind of thing, the general philosophy was that the 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:10.920 bulk of the creative expression didn't come from the performers. Like, yes, 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:13.319 you can have someone who is very skilled play and 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:15.680 they're gonna sound better than someone who doesn't know what 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.520 they're doing. But if you had two different people who 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:21.480 are really skilled, the general thought was it's going to 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:25.520 be exactly the same, and that the real creative drive 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:29.160 came not from the musicians but from the composer. The 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:33.160 composer would describe in excruciating detail how the music was 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:36.199 to be played in the sheet music, and the musicians, 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:40.760 at least according to the philosophy of copyright law, we're 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:45.320 just mirror vessels dedicated to bringing that music to life. 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:49.120 But the composer was ultimately responsible for the actual work, 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.280 the creative expression, and so the composer would get the 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:56.240 credit and the compensation. The US government followed that same 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.360 logic when they created this copyright law in nineteen o nine. 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.480 The Act also covered the innovation of recorded sound, which 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.400 was something that wasn't a concern before nineteen nine because 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:10.480 it wasn't really possible. And this would have an enormous 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:14.480 impact on the music business. If a musician has a 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.040 writing credit on a song, that musician is eligible for 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:22.400 songwriter royalties for the length of the copyright. By the way, 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.520 length of copyright was something that continually got longer and 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:30.920 longer when big companies like Disney would lobby to extend 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:36.640 the period of copyright repeatedly. So while originally the period 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.800 of copyright would last couple of decades, now it's like 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.319 the lifetime of the artist, plus I forget, like seventy 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:46.480 years something like that. But musicians who only had a 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.959 musician credit, they're not a songwriter, they're just a musician, 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.199 they would not qualify for those same royalties, which is 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:58.080 kind of awkward. Um, and this is like this continues 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.120 to be an issue today. This also meant that if 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.520 you wrote a real banger and someone else recorded it 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:07.120 like they covered it, then you would be do the 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.400 royalties from any sales or performances of that version, at 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:14.200 least songwriter royalties. And by performances, we're really talking about 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:18.360 stuff like you know, radio play or use in TV 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.760 or movies and things of that nature. So being a 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:24.800 songwriter is a good way to make money over the 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.960 long run, because as long as the stuff you write 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:32.160 is popular, you're going to have a continued payout. For 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:36.120 musicians who are not composers, that was a different story. 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:43.400 They can't depend upon that same revenue stream for you know, indefinitely. Now, 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:47.360 technically the Copyright Act should have curtailed some of the 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.880 predatory behavior that I was talking about earlier, but there 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.600 was an awful lot of exploitation of talent in those 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.160 early days. The recording industry then hit some really tough 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.719 times in the nineteen twenties and the nineteen thirties. The 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.839 Great Depression hit consumers very hard, so it became pretty 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.360 tough to sell you know, players and records because people 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:11.600 just didn't have the disposable income to do that. And 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.480 then we get to the evolution of radio and radio broadcasting. 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.320 So the early days of radio, we're all about live 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:22.320 performances over the air. It really wasn't a thing to 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:25.880 play prerecorded music for the most part. This was partly 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:30.120 because the recording technology was such that the quality of 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:35.000 recordings were far inferior to live performances, so it was 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:38.800 considered a pretty big step down to play a prerecorded 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:43.920 piece over the radio. So the early radio business was 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:46.920 just like the phonograph business, and that it was dominated 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:51.240 by companies that made radios. The companies that were making 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:54.640 radios were also the companies that owned radio stations. They were, 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.080 you know, in the business of broadcasting, because just like 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:00.400 the phonograph, a radio ain't no good to you unless 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:02.720 he got something to tune into, right, It doesn't make 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:04.760 any sense to buy a radio if there are no 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.400 broadcasts in your area. So the same companies that were 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.240 making radios were creating the broadcast stations, and some of 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:15.680 those stations were also companies that made record players. So 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:21.640 you had, you know, this this convergence of audio technology 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.200 all coming in at the same time. I'll explain how 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.120 that changed the music industry further when we come back 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:38.520 after this quick break. All right, we left off talking 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:41.840 about radio stations. Well, these stations would hire performers to 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:46.080 come in and play music live over the radio. Radio 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:49.080 sales eventually began to slow down, largely because the folks 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:51.600 who had been interested in radio and who could also 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:56.880 afford one, had bought one already. So there was a 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:01.680 steep rise in radio sales that then plateau. The technology 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.520 hit a really early saturation point, and that meant that 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.960 there needed to be a different source of revenue. This 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.960 is where radio broadcasts began to incorporate advertising. And the 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:15.640 early days of radio there really wasn't advertising, but that 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:20.200 changed pretty quickly. Um, and then advertising became the primary 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.000 way that radio broadcast stations would generate revenue. Now, on 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:28.400 the consumer side, listening to music on the radio was free. 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:33.840 The radio sets themselves were prohibitively expensive for some folks. Um. 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.000 And really, when I say listening was free, I mean 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:38.200 it's free in the way that this podcast was free, 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:41.600 and that you know, you also had ads supporting the stuff, 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:46.520 but that was really the only cost of listening. Really, 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.160 I'm sure sounds very familiar to everyone out there, right. 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.160 And the radio also served as advertising for musicians and 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:56.120 songwriters because, of course, now we also had the ability 0:16:56.200 --> 0:17:01.400 to record that music onto physical media UH and as 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:04.560 recording technology improved, there was a new interest in record 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:08.560 players and records, largely driven by teenagers. To be like 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.359 in the fifties or so, the kids would hear a 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:13.240 song on the radio, they would want to be able 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:15.600 to listen to that song whenever they liked so they 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:18.560 would rush out and by the record of that artist, 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:21.639 and the radio would become a key component in the 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:26.719 marketing of music. This would also shape music itself. In 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:29.960 the very early days, the limitations of recording meant you 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.119 could fit around four minutes of audio on a single 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:38.159 physical cylinder or disk, which meant that you couldn't write 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:40.880 music that would last longer than that, or you had 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.600 to write music that could be divided up into four 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:47.720 minute chunks, and then you might sell several discs for 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:51.639 longer pieces. But it meant that people started to settle 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.680 on a on a length for music of around four 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:59.400 minutes per song or less, which is why to this 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.320 day the way we listen to music, like a lot 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.840 of our songs fall into that general range. It was 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.960 a technical limitation of the time that created a cultural 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:15.320 UH standard really for like a standard length of a song. 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.600 There are obviously exceptions to this, right you have the Ramones, 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:22.919 where a four minutes song would be an epic and 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:26.120 then you have the late meat Loaf where a four 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:31.240 minute song would be the beginning of his fourteen minute song. 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:36.439 So there are exceptions, but generally speaking, like this is 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:40.040 what when I talk about how technology shaped music, this 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.119 is kind of what I'm talking about. The limitation of 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:47.000 only being able to record a few minutes of audio 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:52.719 per side is what shaped modern music and for songs 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.840 to be the length that they are now. As recording 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:59.520 techniques actually evolved, it became possible to record more content 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:04.359 per side of a record, so the limitation of four 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:08.680 minutes per side gradually faded away. This would end up 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:12.160 giving birth to the album because while you could record 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.520 a very long piece of music per side, and there 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:19.560 were people who did it, especially for things like classical music, uh, 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:24.800 you could also use this to create a collection of songs. However, 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:27.560 while that was going on, radio was swinging things back 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:29.480 to the early days of recording because you had the 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:33.679 new musical entity of the radio single coming out around 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:36.560 this time. Now, it was ninety nine when r C 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:42.680 A Victor introduced the forty five rpm seven inch record. Now, 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:46.760 these records, because of their size, the seven inch size 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:50.000 and their RPM speed of forty five revolutions per minute, 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:52.679 they could only hold a few minutes of music per side, 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.080 just like the early records of the era. And then 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.600 several things all kind of happened to make the forty 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.879 five popular. One was that, you know, you had a 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:06.800 lot of record players that could actually accommodate forty five. Uh, 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:09.879 they were less expensive than the larger thirty three and 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:14.520 the third albums. They also happened to come out just 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:20.240 before the rock and roll music revolution happened, and all 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:25.600 of that came together to completely reshape the music industry. Uh. 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:31.760 And that's really where we started seeing the focus on 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:35.080 singles to the point where you've got some folks who 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:40.359 bemoaned that, where it was potentially something that limited the 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:44.080 music industry. But it became a common practice to record 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:47.679 a musician or bands really popular song as the A 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:51.240 side of a forty five single, and then you use 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.080 the other side, the B side, to include a lesser 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.680 known piece from that band. So sometimes you might get 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:59.880 a demo version of a song, which is kind of cool. 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:02.719 Or you get a song that wasn't included on the 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:05.960 full album that featured the A side single. That was 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:07.840 really cool. It was like the only way you could 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:11.360 get those songs. Typically the fort would have the same 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:14.919 songs that we're getting widespread radio play on the A side, 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.359 So again the radio acted as kind of the commercial 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.840 for the music. The A side was the product, the 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:25.800 B side was some bonus material. Now, as the recording 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:30.760 industry evolved, certain companies consolidated, purchasing up smaller music labels. 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:33.160 R C A. Victor was one of those, with our 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:36.640 C A being famous for making radios and broadcast stations, 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:41.080 Victor being famous for phonographs. Then the two merged together. 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:44.560 Some other really big recording companies shut down. The Thomas 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:50.120 Edison Company dissolved its recording division back in n UM. 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:52.160 That was, you know, right at the Great Depression, so 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:54.399 you know, it was kind of it was coinciding with 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:56.560 a time where people just didn't have the money to 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:00.600 purchase that kind of stuff. The burgeoning film industry also 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:04.880 got into the music industry. There were some smaller independent 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:07.480 labels that were establishing themselves around this time as well, 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:12.240 so starting to get really interesting. By the nineteen sixties, however, 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.240 the bigger labels were gobbling up all the smaller ones. 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:19.080 Um because there's always a bigger fish. So CBS, which 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:22.960 started off as a network of radio broadcast stations, acquired 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:26.119 Columbia Records, which again was one of the big three 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:31.159 early early on that also acquired the American Record Corporation. 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:36.000 Warner Brothers ended up purchasing ABC Records and also had 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:41.840 Warner Records. Then the company bought seven Arts and Reprise, Uh, 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:47.240 then Atlantic, then Elektra Records labels. So yeah, you had 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:52.040 these big companies getting bigger, massive corporate corporations that were 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:56.560 shaping how the music biz worked, really fortifying themselves. Now, 0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:00.879 for decades, musicians were pretty much limited by either the 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:04.520 huge conglomerates or they could work with a few smaller 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:08.600 independent labels if they wanted to record their music. Recording 0:23:08.640 --> 0:23:15.200 required specialized equipment, mixing expertise, dedicated space. It required the 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:18.520 ability to actually create a master recording and then to 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:23.400 duplicate that master recording onto copies. So it just wasn't 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:26.440 practical for most musicians to do all of this themselves. 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:29.760 Remember this isn't the days of physical media like there 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:32.600 was no digital approach here, You could not have a 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:37.760 file representing a song, so you you really did need 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:42.399 to lean on actual organizations to do this because they 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:46.159 had the capital to get all this equipment and expertise together. 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:49.960 Then you actually had the process of taking recording and 0:23:50.000 --> 0:23:54.040 mass producing copies of it for sale, again well beyond 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:57.440 the reach for individual performers. Then you had the marketing 0:23:57.440 --> 0:24:02.000 and distribution side, like actually pro oding the material and 0:24:02.040 --> 0:24:05.680 getting the material out to points of sale, another big 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:08.119 limiting factor. Most people would not be able to do 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:11.680 that on their own. So the symbiotic relationship between musicians 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:15.120 and record labels really solidified in this era. Uh and 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:18.520 I do say symbiotic, but depending upon the musician you 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:22.679 might hear it was more parasitic. The record labels had 0:24:22.680 --> 0:24:24.600 a lot of the power, and unless you reached a 0:24:24.640 --> 0:24:28.000 particularly high level of fame, you probably didn't have a 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:33.600 lot of leverage to lend yourself a really lucrative deal. Um. Now, 0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:35.560 one way you could make money is to perform at 0:24:35.600 --> 0:24:39.040 live shows. Typically artists get a cut of the gate 0:24:39.400 --> 0:24:42.919 that is, the box officer ticket sales. They might also 0:24:43.200 --> 0:24:47.000 set up merchandise or merch tables. They typically get most 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:49.320 of that as well, they have to pay out the 0:24:49.320 --> 0:24:53.080 people who are working the tables, but otherwise, um, that's 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:58.320 that's cash in the pockets of the performers. This particular 0:24:58.760 --> 0:25:03.080 approach also requires a out of investment anyway, because you 0:25:03.160 --> 0:25:06.040 gotta get booked, right, you have to. You have to 0:25:06.200 --> 0:25:09.960 establish a relationship with the venue and get an agreement 0:25:10.000 --> 0:25:14.320 to perform in a certain date and arrive at the 0:25:14.320 --> 0:25:18.080 the the divide like how much of the ticket sales 0:25:18.119 --> 0:25:22.120 goes to the venue versus the band. And then once 0:25:22.160 --> 0:25:24.680 you start talking about bigger venues than you also are 0:25:24.800 --> 0:25:27.320 usually talking about a booking agent, someone who is just 0:25:27.800 --> 0:25:32.720