From HMV to Spotify: The record is dead. Industrial black holes to be filled

Once upon a time, a stray dog named Nipper was taken in by a family in Bristol, England, who left the dog and a phonograph to his brother before his death. One day, when his brother accidentally played to the recording of his brother, Nipper thought the owner came back, staring at the phonograph for a long time. Brother Francis Barrod is an artist, see this scene his heart a hot with a brush record down, named "his Master's Voice". In 1899, a British phonograph company bought the painting for its own logo--this is HMV.

If you ask 10 senior fans, 8 will tell you that they have gone to HMV to buy a record. The company, which is only one letter short of h&m, was once the world's most famous retail giant of chain records.

HMV, who had a romantic start, ended up not having a romantic ending. January 15, HMV reluctantly announced that because of the impact of the network download and failed to seek funds, decided to file for bankruptcy. A week later, HMV survived, and US private equity Hilco determined to buy HMV and bear all of its 176 million-pound debt. But the black hole left by HMV is rapidly devouring the practitioner's heart.

The rise of digital music, in the history of music in a deep crush of "record dead" four characters, save the HMV, the next how to save music?

Record retailing: The beauty of the Lost

Just as a photographer always praises film photography, a real enthusiast doesn't give up buying a record. In the golden age of Physical records, HMV is the symbol and symbol of music. Just like the fall of Kodak, when the same thing become the existence of small, doomed to be lost in history.

HMV's predecessor was a factory that produced gramophone records and issued music albums. 1910 years or so, founder Thomas decided not to produce a phonograph, to be a pure record retail. 1921,HMV the first HMV store in Oxford Street in London, and the great composer Elgar also dedicated to cutting the ribbon. Since then, a record store with the three-letter sign of "HMV" has been taking root throughout the world, and by 1996, when the company celebrated its 75 anniversary, HMV had more than 300 record stores, becoming the world's largest and most famous music and entertainment sales company.

Unfortunately, the music giants have not been hostile to the internet's "atrocious." After entering the new century, once overcrowded HMV stores, gradually become empty, sales are more geometric decline. In the last 10 years, HMV this giant is retreating: from 2003 forced to close all German stores, to the United States stores closed, and then to Japan, Australia, Canada and other branches of the overall sale of Singapore, China, Hong Kong stores are increasingly easy to reduce the site, it is predicted that HMV bankruptcy will one day eventually happen.

In fact, before HMV this application bankruptcy, its former rivals including the famous towerrecords, Virgin Megastore, and so on record chain enterprise, long ago by the internet mercilessly pushed. This time, the fate of the tarot card finally affixed to the forehead of HMV.

The same sadness is unfolding in China across the globe. Sanlian's record shelf, from several rows of shelves, to today only one wall, and mostly classical records. With the "Chinese version of HMV," The Fab Video store has created countless myths, in the 20 years of development, Fab absorbed millions of members, the country set up 15 branches, more than 1000 audio-visual sales flagship store. The 3000-square-metre fab store in Wangfujing, Beijing, was once the largest video flagship store in China and a mecca for countless fans. Here to provide almost the mainland's most complete genuine CD, Leehom Wang, Jolin Tsai and other days after the signing of the auction will be held here. June 2011, Fab wangfujing Store due to the contract with the store, the fans sigh, in the Orient New World Land inch gold, quietly opened a fast food restaurant.

Along with the fall of record retailing, the dependent record company is also very lonely. In the past few years, the former world's five record companies, EMI and BMG has ceased to exist, the rest of Sony, Universal, Warner has begun its own difficult transformation. The most shocking news of the 2012 world Music Circle is that EMI is divided between Sony and Universal Records. With more than a century-old EMI record company, in the heyday of the record industry is the absolute overlord, not only has the Beatles, The Rolling Stones and other groups of popular music in Europe and the United States to influence the development of the heavyweight singers, but also in the classical record market for a long time in the leading position. But since the company's revenues depend solely on record sales, the company's performance deteriorated after entering the 21st century.

Record line and record company, this to boat now who can not save who. For global music, the world's biggest record group, it has at least double responsibility: One, HMV is the most important entity product seller worldwide, and the second is that last year global bought the music division of EMI, and EMI is HMV's owner, So the rights and obligations are naturally passed on to the globe. Just in the current world, the record company is probably the most powerful enterprise, to feed themselves is a problem, where there is money to provide vendors?

Digital downloads: Living like summer flowers

Instead of trying to find out who killed the record, ask yourself, how long have you never been to the record line? In 2012, the number of digital music albums in the United States reached 118 million, an increase of 14% year-on-year, while the volume of physical music albums dropped 12.8%. In the same year, the UK's digital downloads surpassed traditional physical record sales for the first time. Figures illustrate everything.

Facing the digital tide of music, HMV once thought of self-help, and tried to broaden the product Category: not only to sell records, but also sell books, video games, Blu-ray discs, DVDs, and even clothing, seemingly in order to improve the operation of the efforts, but did not step on the point. It's too late to finally wake up.

In the traditional music industry, the distribution and sale of records is the core of profit. and the upstream industry model and value chain has no fundamental changes, downstream sales end of the road can only go more narrow. The 2003 itunes Music Store's online changed all this.

The great success of itunes, the digital music store, is now a legendary legend in Silicon Valley. itunes quickly persuaded consumers to pay to download music and, more importantly, persuaded the record makers to switch their ideas and test the online music retail. In just over a year, itunes sold 100 million songs. Three years later, the itunes store sold 1 billion songs, earning nearly 10 billion dollars for Apple. By September 2012, itunes had sold more than 20 billion pieces of music. itunes is not just a commercial product with a strong taste of money, it has brought a new way for the recording industry and musicians to survive.

From the design and production of ipods to the creation of an online music store, jobs created a whole chain of interlocking chains, creating a new wave of digital music that gave the traditional record industry a deadly blow. Apple overtook Wal-Mart in 2008 to take the top spot in America's retail music.

Of course, Apple is not the only one that has tasted the sweet, and Google (Weibo) and Amazon have also been frequent, with Amazon's MP3 digital music business operating since 2007, with less than 15% of its market share. Under pressure, Amazon even stretched its tentacles into Apple's backyard, launching a web version of the MP3 Music store for the iOS platform in early January, offering 22 million of music, which users can then play on the iOS version of Amazon Cloud player, Nor does Amazon need to pay Apple 30% per cent of its sales. Meanwhile, Amazon has launched a cloud music service called "Autorip", where all customers who buy CDs have access to digital music for free, targeting the itunes Music store.

Streaming media music: It's not that simple.

History has always been strikingly similar, as Apple's itunes ended record retailing, and a new force is again undermining people's musical habits. The music service provider Spotify and streaming music provider Pandora, a subscription model, captured a large number of music audiences just before the itunes store sold its sales.

itunes has dominated the music market for years, but the lack of social elements in itunes and its inability to play online has given Spotify a chance to break into the market. It has been rumored that Apple, fearing Spotify's influence on itunes's position in the United States, once blocked Spotify from entering the U.S. market. As streaming media has become more and more of music lovers in the conventional mode of music consumption, downloads and music just as the tape became obsolete, from research company Strategy Analytics data show that 2012 years of gravity media music services such as Spotify, Global revenue growth, such as Pandora, is almost 5 times times faster than the revenue growth of music downloads.

Apple, of course, is wary of this and is itching for it. BTIG, a market research firm, said in a report released late in 2012 that Apple would first launch a streaming music service called "Iradio" in the first half of this year, directly impacting Pandora and Spotify.

Is it a blessing or a curse for a singer to listen to music on a monthly basis? From vinyl records to itunes, the singer's record royalties have been counted in the selling price, but in the new economics of streaming music services, a song is played every time, Streaming music service providers pay less than 1 cents to record labels and distributors. Although the streaming media on demand music market is very big, but only like the bird Uncle Psy the rank front singer to obtain the high listening quantity, obtains the considerable income. This is not good news for non-mainstream musicians and orchestras.

However, things always have a forward side. Donnald Pasman, a top music lawyer, recalls that "when the CD technology was launched, artists couldn't make much money, until the CDs became mainstream, royalties Rose and the future was possible." "As subscribers increase, royalties will rise and a whole new ecosystem will be born, a process that has been staged countless times in history."

An industrial model of bankruptcy, behind the inevitable will leave a black hole. When the traditional record industry because the tragedy of HMV is really coming to the end of time, whether the digital music industry has been able to seamlessly docking, so that the development of human music do not have a terrible fault? What we need to do now is to get rid of the music industry's inertia and confront it all.

In fact, the world is worth thinking about the music industry. December 31, 2012, published in 1933, the veteran magazine Newsweek released the final issue of the printed version of the overall shift to digital publishing; in January 2013, the United States Texas announced the opening of the first United States entity of the paperless Library; January 11, Jessops, a well-known British digital camera chain, declared bankruptcy protection.

In Bristol, England, a fan of HMV a bouquet in front of a statue of puppy Nipper. There was a card with no signature on the bouquet, which read: "The deepest compassion is for you, HMV, the puppy." You bring music into our lives and love you forever. ”

Let all the past be silent, and we will talk directly to the times.