The Day the Music Died

How Technology Killed the Music Industry

How Technology Killed the Music Industry

January 2025

Read Time: 2 ¾  minutes

There has been a seismic shift in what and how music is received in today’s high-tech world.

Once upon a time, there was anticipation when a new or major artist or band released an album.  Now because of technology, the immediacy of the moment, and the need for instant gratification there is no pent up desire, no build-up, no suspense, no desire to go any deeper than what Spotify or any other streaming service offers the end user.

For a while, when a major recording artist released a new album there would be a huge advertising campaign.  Record reps would be visiting and flogging the new release at local radio stations.  There was excitement and fans would rally, share and talk about the new release of any given artist (providing the work had merit and resonated with the listener).

Now, we barely hear about any new album release.

The whole experience of listening to music has diminished to a nonstarter status.  And we did this to ourselves.  No one seems to care. 

Is this a problem of the recording artist, the record company, the streaming services, the listening public or all the above?

It’s probably all of the above with the primary reason being technology. 

Look, I am a music fan and have been all my life.  My greatest music story is how I hitchhiked into town in the mid 70’s to be one of the first in line to buy the Beatles Double white album for $2.99 at Sam the Record Man.  The moment I got back home with my new purchase I tore off the shrink wrap, unfolded the gatefold double album to find a poster size collage of the Beatles, four individual-coloured pictures of the fab four including lyric sheet.  Then I would sit with my headphones perched on my ears to spend hours on end listening to the album front to back.  Reading the liner notes, credits, lyric sheet, etc.

Another quickie is when I bought Alice Cooper’s “Billion Dollar Babies” and received a faux billion-dollar bill with tear out pictures of Alice, Neil, Glen and Dennis and how I would pour over the lyric sheet, song credits and liner notes of the new Rush album.  I could never get enough information and felt I was part of the band and knew the artists, the players and songs personally.

I am hard pressed to think that today’s teenager would suffer through listening to an entire album or even listen to a full song before looking for the next instant gratification on their phone.

I don’t think I am different than anyone else.  I enjoy the convenience of having Joni Mitchell, or Mao Sone or the Glorious Sons at my fingertips but I loathe having to dig deep to find out where it was produced, who produced it, who played on it, who was involved in the making of the album and those glorious album covers of days of yore.

Some may argue that music is just not as important as it was in the 60s and 70s or the product is not as good.  Gone, it seems, are the days when newly released albums chocked  full of excellent material like “Hotel California”, “Rumours”, “Sgt. Pepper”, “The Wall”, “Running on Empty”, “Blue” – The list is long.

Yet, when I do discover something that catches my ear like the last Stones or National or Dave Mathews or David Gilmour release – there are no lyric sheets, no liner notes, no song credits.  It was a part of the package.  Part of the experience.  Now it is just a “song” and on to the next one.

Technology has given me a world of music at my fingertips (thank you) but I don’t own it.  I merely rent the album if I ever cancel my streaming subscription I say goodbye to all the albums and playlists that I have saved/created and I am back to square one.   

A huge hole in my album collection and nothing to show for it but the immediacy of the moment rather than creating the memories I had with good old vinyl.

Dan is President of Danny R. Gall Consulting.  For more information contact Dan directly at dannyrgall@gmail.com