Rockwriter wrote:I would actually lay a big bet that the entire industry will be digital-only in a few years. It's the cheapest information delivery system model ever . . . no packaging, no trucking, no warehousing, no clerks . . . far fewer layers of profit skimming between the consumer and the artist. It makes sense. The variable is how to control the stealing, the illegal downloading, and I would imagine that at some point someone's going to come up with something. Coupled with some of the lawsuits that are ongoing, if they can just make legal dowloading affordable and make illegal downloading seem unappealing, the business could right itself. It's a different ball game now and everyone has to live with, like it or not. All of my friends at the labels here in Nashville are starting to talk in terms of trying to accept that it might become actually impossible to make money at selling music in the future . . . they are talking in terms of the music itself being a loss leader that gets people involved with the band so you can sell them live shows, merchandise, special downloads, whatever. Given the extreme tough circumstances right now, I wouldn't hold my breath for a label to invest in the budget for a band like Styx, when the release is likely barely capable of earning out the production costs at this point. Those are the harsh realities of the business today. The guys don't have much choice but to ride the storm out and figure out a way to make a new release financially viable - if indeed there is a way to do that in the current marketplace.
Well, I wasn't referring so much to the distribution or packaging -- I just meant it's unfortunate that they don't seem to be interested in creating a collection of new material, full stop. Even when driven by singles in a marketing sense, Styx was always an album band at heart.
I suppose they could be going through a dry spell and using the shifting marketplace as an excuse, which would be sad, but understandable. I'd just hate to think that they really are trying to "ride the storm out," waiting for the market to lead them, rather than taking any kind of initiative with the process. They still have the potential to be better than that (see: Radiohead, BNL, Marillion.)