Duncan on getting to know the music industry

With summer finally showing its face I have been working in the glamorous world of the music industry for the last month or so. I have worked on the music industry before, whilst doing some due diligence work on one of the major music companies. On that previous project I had been looking at the general market, and understanding the main trends and the expectations for the future sales of both physical CD’s and digital music downloads. This time we are doing some strategy work with one of the industry players, and that means a chance to re-visit the music industry but in a little more detail

We’ve been getting into the nuts and bolts of the industry at a much more granular level than before, with all the interest and challenges that brings. The music industry is very interesting, and also a fairly complex industry, with various layers of detail from record majors, to labels, to artist managers and artists, as well as many peripheral roles like marketing, promotion, live touring, merchandising etc. I have been doing an interview program to get some insight into the more granular levels of detail… how artists chose to sign with a label, the way they are promoted, different strategies for building a repertoire of artists. It has been quite a challenge interviewing people in an industry which I myself am only starting to learn about, but it has also helped me gain a better understanding of how the music world works… as well as getting the chance to speak to some very colourful characters!