Hi. My name’s Sam Chappell from Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve been in Christian music for over 30 years. I’ve been a President of a couple of labels- Integrity Music and 40 Records during that time, and have been the CEO of several management companies. During that time I’ve seen many changes in the music industry. Over the last 20 to 30 years we’ve gone from cassettes to CDs to downloads, to streaming. We’ve gone from needing large studios, to be able to do recordings in your bedroom. Technology has become a very key part of the music industry where it wasn’t 20-30 years ago. Now you see record labels, they still record, they’re still creators of content, but now they have to have technology pieces to go alongside that. Technology could be something from a social media piece. Marketing has totally changed the marketing plans of recording projects.
20-30 years ago, that was done by newspapers, billboards, radio, and retail. You don’t see retail stores anymore. They’re becoming less and less, with the Lifeway and family bookstores going out of business. You’re seeing more sales on the internet. You’re seeing purchases all online. Now you’re seeing streaming as subscriptions and it’s skyrocketing. What has been consistent though over the last 20-30 years is the music still drives everything. If the music’s not good, if it’s not creative, if it’s not something that people want to listen to, you don’t need to go to the second area of the equation. That second area is once you have a great product, or once you have great talent, or once you have great music or great songs, now you add the technology piece. Now with technology today, record labels are looking at databases and who’s listening to what.
They’ve got teams that are just a hundred percent doing social media. Some of the major labels now have technology teams that are viewing if there’s copyright infringements over YouTube and over the internet. Technology has been a tremendous change in the industry – Not withstanding the changes in streaming, the growth of Spotify, Apple, Amazon, I could go on and on. The streaming services have actually really made the music industry well again. I’ve seen the highs and the lows, the ups and downs, but I’m a real believer that the music industry is here to stay. It’s in a healthy state, and I believe the trends are good.
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