It’s pretty well-known that our economy – and society – is transforming from one where wealth and prosperity came from industrial products and material goods to a system where new ideas, human creativity, and experiences play a greater and greater role. As societies become more educated and basic needs are fulfilled, the attention of their populations shift to favor experiences and self-actualization over physical goods and even luxury items – what sociologist Ronald Inglehart calls the rise of “post-materialist” values.
This shift can be seen in everything from the excitement around the sleek design and user experience of the Apple iPad to the rise in sales of organic, high-quality foods.
But my sense is that perhaps the best place to observe this transition is in the rapid evolution of the music industry. Music is a highly competitive business – one I like to think of as an innovative market in miniature. Musical entrepreneurs compete not only on the basis of musical talent and their ability to create new sounds and arrangements, but also on fashion, design, business acumen, and even spectacle. Music was one of the first industries to experience the brutal effects of the digital transition, and it’s clear that the ability to make money has shifted – even for the most established acts – from selling albums, CDs, and even digital downloads to live performance and, well, designing experiences.
White Stripes founder and musician-entrepreneur Jack White has long been on the cutting edge of understanding and harnessing the trends that are reshaping the music industry and creative industries more broadly. Having already set up his own skunkworks – a combined label, studio, and collaborative workspace in the musician-friendly hub of Nashville – in a new interview (h/t: Patrick Adler) White discusses the broader transformation of the music industry, seeing the upper-hand going not to the virtual world but to the production and consumption of real-world, authentic experiences.
I would never say we’re anti-Internet at all, I’d say we’re pro-real experiences. Pro-things that occur when you get up out of your chair and experience things with other human beings face-to-face. When we have concerts [at Third Man Records headquarters in Nashville], we don’t allow people to film and take photos. That’s not about not letting people have a memento, that’s about: how sick are you of watching people in the crowd not looking at the stage? They’re watching a tiny little TV screen in their hand instead of watching what’s really going on in life.
White also provides intriguing insights into the superstar and hit-driven nature of the music business.
You can’t really sit down and write a hit. Hits are just magical. They come about when the stars align. If they were that easy, everyone would choose to have an album full of hits.
Even in the White Stripes or the Raconteurs, we’d have songs that we would listen to and the label would come by and everyone in the room would say “This is a hit!” and you’d put it out and it wasn’t. You just never know. Even my biggest hit, “Seven Nation Army,” we didn’t think it was that big a deal, we just moved onto the next song. Nobody thought there was anything interesting about that song when we recorded it.
He’s got a point – one that’s supported by the preliminary analysis being done by the music project at our Martin Prosperity Institute. Using the full history of the Billboard Hot 100 chart from 1980 to 2000 as a dataset, we found that generating hits is a very difficult and highly unpredictable business. We found very weak correlations between having a hit in previous years, and also between critical acclaim and hit songs. There’s a lot of luck – or as White would say, a lot of random magic – in creating a hit song.
Music is a particularly good “fruit fly” for learning what we can expect as other industries undergo the wrenching and disruptive transition to idea-driven, creative, and experiential capitalism. So, our music project is examining the role of management, perseverance, and interdisciplinary collaboration in the development of a successful long-run musical career in the hopes that we can generate insights that are relevant not just for music, but for improving our broader understanding of the evolution toward more a free-wheeling, idea-driven, and experiential mode of production across the entire economy. Lots more on this in future posts.
July 17th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
It horrifies me whenever someone makes a statement like the one you made:
As societies become more educated and basic needs are fulfilled, the attention of their populations shift to favor experiences and self-actualization over physical goods and even luxury items – what sociologist Ronald Inglehart calls the rise of “post-materialist” values.
There is a problem with this. By definition, 50% of the population has an IQ less than 100. What you are essentially saying is that 50% of the population cannot take part in the future because it is beyond their intellectual abilities.
For people who work in the academic or professional world are rarely come across anyone with an IQ under 115, this is hard to comprehend, but if you have an IQ less than about 90, you’re functionally illiterate. To take it a step further, every now and then I see a study where people are horrified by the fact that somewhere around 40% of students graduating high school can’t read. Of course they can’t read, they don’t have the mental horsepower to read.
I understand that you defined the the term “creative class”. I love your books and think you have a lot of insight into how the future is changing, but every now and then it might be worth considering how these changes effect the “uncreative class”, which is probably around 75% of the population.
July 18th, 2010 at 8:55 am
I think you’re confusing music with the music industry–a none to subtle difference. The music industry couldn’t care less about creativity, it’s all about profit and shaping cultural norms–which is why Jack White resorts to “skunkworks.” Music is about the pursuit of higher meaning and creative expression of the soul. If your argument about our society becoming more creative holds then one would expect to see higher per capita spending on music interests i.e., people pursuing musical training, enrolling in music programs, and expressing themselves through music for purely amateur reasons. I doubt that we’re at the historic zenith of musical training for society. Most people couldn’t read sheet music if a gun were placed to their head, let alone carry a tune if it were in a bucket.
Your statement that cultural interest in ipads and high quality organic foods flies in the face of a “post-materialist” concept. Surely you must see those are totally incongruent? Waiting in line to buy Apple’s latest gadget or shopping at the new Whole Foods are the ultimate expressions of consumer materialism. Setting up a garden to grow your own organic veggies or sitting down at the piano with your family are *REAL* creative class pursuits. No, what you describe is the illusion of creative class.
July 19th, 2010 at 11:23 am
Nikolai has it exactly right. Shopping, and the consumerist lifestyle is not real creativity. I personally think that devices like Ipads, and app filled phones have a negative effect on the intellect, and brain function in general, reducing individual creativity.
July 21st, 2010 at 12:36 am
The iPad is an example of “post-materialist” values? Are you joking? People knew that it didn’t do exactly what they wanted but still bought it becasue it was shiny and new.
Also, that fact that it took a study to say “we found that generating hits is a very difficult and highly unpredictable business” is just academic nonsense at it’s worse. Did someone actually get paid to figure that out? It’s like that Lewis Black bit where he talks about the study being done about why prisoners want to escape prison.
July 21st, 2010 at 12:38 am
“…at it’s worst.”