Lyay.net - West Coast Rap News

West Coast artists need to embrace Digital Distribution

The Music industry is in a great state of upheaval right now. With the advent and popularization of digital distribution, artists no longer need major labels to get their products into the hands of consumers. Instead of embracing the many advantages of digital distribution, the music industry has generally dropped the ball and stuck with their old business model. As anybody can see by the declining sales of albums, it hasn’t been a very good idea.

In some ways, artists are BETTER off with major record labels floundering. Don’t get me wrong, there are still things that only major labels can provide, but there are opportunities for independent artists like never before. West Coast artists no longer need to adjust their goals according to this new market.  Major labels haven’t show the west coast any love lately, but at the same time, are they really needed? All artists need to focus on is recording, marketing, and promoting their music. Consumers no longer need to head to the record store to purchase products. Jane Schmoe can purchase that new song she heard at the club as soon as she heads home.

This is the democratization of music. Instead of BET, MTV, and radio being the promoters of music, consumers can head to blogs like this one and message boards to find music they like. Instead of heading to Best Buy or Sam Goody, users can fire up iTunes or Amazon’s mp3 store to purchase music from the comfort of their own home.  The West Coast needs to be one step ahead of the major labels and embrace this new market.

Many West Coast artists give songs away for free in attempts to gain fans that will hopefully purchase albums. This is silly to me. By all means give songs away for free, but at the same time, if somebody is willing to pay money for your product, artists would be ignorant not to take it.  This is an opportunity waiting to be seized. I can’t tell you how often I download a new track from DubCnn or Raptalk, and want to support the artist by purchasing the song. I’ll hop on iTunes only to be disappointed not to see it.  Besides Taje, Ya Boy and The Game I haven’t seen a lot of New West artists utilize online distribution. That’s a crying shame.

It’s not hard or expensive to get music on iTunes and the other major online distributors. If you’re interested, I can do this for a nominal fee (under $100) so use the contact page and hit me up.

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2. iTunes to Sell 28% of all Music by 2012
3. West Coast Artists Need Business Plans
4. People Like Free, But Will it Translate Into Sales?
5. iTunes Becomes Largest Music Retailer in US