Madonna Debuts New Album on MySpace
Say what you want about Madonna, but the singer has always been a trendsetter as far as pop music goes. This week Madonna debuted her new album, Hard Candy, on MySpace.com. While this isn’t necessarily a breakthrough idea -- many artists have done it before -- it does show that musicians and record labels are starting to finally come to grips with the changing musical landscape and embrace technology rather than fight against it.
As you may or may not know, Madonna recently signed a landmark deal with the company Live Nation. Live Nation will handle almost all aspects of Madonna’s career, from albums to touring to merchandise. These things used to always be handled by different companies, but as we go forward into a new technologically advanced age, it is apparent that the old way of doing things needed to be changed.
Remember when Napster got huge in 1999? Instead of embracing the new technology and looking for ways to redesign the industry business model, record labels decided to fight the file-sharing operation. Here was this groundbreaking program that let music fans instantly get their hands on anything, and record labels were against it? Sure, it cost them album sales, but one of the biggest problems in the old music industry was getting people to ever listen to a song or album in the first place. That’s why there were so many payola scandals, because labels would do whatever it took just to get people to pay attention. Then a program came along where people spread the word on tons of new artists, with no work from the labels at all, and they considered this a bad thing?
Over the next several years, technology grew at an incredible rate, and record labels just fought harder and harder to stop people from file-sharing. Even though there was no chance of them winning the battle, they fought it anyway, alienating millions of music fans along the way.
But now that Madonna is releasing Hard Candy for free on MySpace, it’s safe to say that record labels have realized their mistakes. Madonna is one of the biggest artists in the world. She is beloved by many. Her latest single, “4 Minutes,” is a huge hit and Hard Candy is getting great early reviews. If she can’t hold out and charge full price for this album, that’s pretty solid evidence that no one can.
Madonna is an amazing businesswoman so it will be good to see what she has up her sleeve as far as marketing and promotion for Hard Candy. Will she make money from loyal fans that she has developed downloading her album legally? Will she profit from sales of the “4 Minutes” ringtone? Will she focus on touring rather than music sales? Others in the music industry might want to take notice. It’s obvious that a change needs to be made, and someone like Madonna is in a good position to try new ideas that just might work.
About the Author: Jason Gluckman is a freelance writer specializing in music, entertainment, technology and social issues. He is also a closet Madonna fan and downloads all of her Metro PCS ringtones.
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