Value Shift

Abstract

There is a common view of the value chain of the mature recorded music business as illustrated in Figure 3.1:

It is only one picture, a prevailing one but not uncontested, and establishes a provisionally fixed point from which to begin a journey of critical analysis. It constructs the music business as a series of value-adding activities, commencing with the artist and ending with the consumer, with the record company characterized as the dominant contributor of value and controller of many of the processes in between. The hard-to-define skills of artist and repertoire selection (‘A&R’) are held to be exclusive to the business, as is much of the mystique surrounding the marketing and promotion of music and artists. Descriptions of discovery, nurturing and development suggest a theme of patronage, whilst filtering and taste-making are more indicative of the role of cultural intermediary. In contrast to the intangible nature of these roles, there are parallel production and distribution processes, which are more tangible and which are described in mechanized terms more familiar to industry. This is the world of recorded music products in predominantly physical terms: to be replicated and disseminated to all corners of the globe in great volumes, and to be collected and valued by consumers as cultural artefacts embodied in technology.