So I dunno about the UK, but over here, in Canada, record stores are closing down.
We're talking major record stores chains that have been around since forever. We're talking the Go-To spots for all your CD needs (and cassettes, once, and vinyls, then and again).
These places are closing, because CDs aren't selling anymore.
The music business, or industry, is changing.
Soon, the only place where you'll be able to find CDs will be at independent record stores.
Now, does the future of music thus lie in indie record stores? Not really. Its past certainly does, and independent retailers will always remain a key outlet for the physical releases of any local indie band. The answer, however, lies in the bigger picture. The reality of our times is indeed that soon, they will stop making devices to play CDs. They already stopped making portable CD players a few years ago.
Soon there will be no more stereo systems.
Furthermore, it's not that great of an idea anymore, especially for independent musicians, to release a CD. It's no longer a sustainable artefact.
The reinvention is us, right here, right Now.
Sure, Bandcamp out there's got our backs for our online platform needs, but when the time comes to think of a physical format for us to put our music on, a product to put in people's hands, a token of ourselves as our art for people to hold, cherish and remember us by, we need to rethink our mediums.
The economy right now is shit, let's face it, and so if you want people to give you their money, it better be worth it, and it better be a sustainable medium for you.
You're investing your own money into this, after all.
Everything is changing.
Everything about the music business as we know it is changing.
Eveyrthing our parents did, the one before us and the ones before them.
Everything is ending, and everything is beginning. And it's up to us -the generation of us, making music in 2017, to figure it out all over again.
Music on USB supports.
Videos on YouTube channels and the like.
And streaming soon will kill the video star.
We are now our own media -power to the people, and our power lies in the art of Sharing, and a good Wifi connection.
There has never been a generation more amidst the Change than ours.
We are the Change. We are the Evolution. We are the ones that are to determine the future of music for the generations to come.
We are the Reinvention.
The truth is we all know where we're going.
We just don't know exactly how to get there, but we sure as hell can figure it out.