Former director of strategic research for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) Keith Jopling, a freelance music strategy consultant who says his most recent work has been for Live Nation, picked up on three short lines from David Bowie's 2002 song "Sunday" (listen below) he says explain the state of the music industry:
"It's the beginning of nothing,
And nothing has changed,
Everything has changed."
After explaining how those lines pertain to the music business, Jopling looks ahead to 2012 with their lessons in mind, highlighting five tipping points he says will reinvent the music business by 2012 and hazarding educated guesses about which band or company will execute them first.
Predictions include a major band abandoning the CD completely (most likely: Radiohead), a single retailer emerging to aggregate "the widest possible group of music assets for sale in one place, at amazing prices" (most likely: Amazon) and a Total Music-style unlimited music device (most likely: Apple).
Jopling's analysis is well worth a read, for the way it ties together the brief history of music in its digital era with tangible predictions about the future. To create the proper ambience, here's a free stream of Bowie's "Sunday":
this audio or video is no longer availableSunday - David Bowie
Could Bowie himself be the next artist to reveal a next-generation music strategy? Jopling told us he hasn't heard anything directly, but that such a move "makes sense for Bowie at his stage of career and with his pioneering sensibility."
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