Kanye West has perhaps one of the fattest egos of any human being on Earth.
He was once asked what the greatest pain in his life is.
He replied that his greatest pain is not being able to see himself perform live because he's "God's Vessel.
" Let me admit that I think there's nothing wrong with having a big ego-in fact it can be beneficial if you're trying to accomplish very big things-but your downfall begins when you start to think you're invincible.
I think of the spectacular downfall of people like Bernie Madoff and companies like Enron.
They all thought they had the world at their feet.
Until the world pushed back.
I also think of the mighty music industry...
with its guts all over the floor now.
The music industry thought it would have MTV and CDs forever.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The other industry that had the same air of invincibility that the music business did is the newspaper business.
And it's also got its guts hanging out.
They're both now asking for forgiveness from the future.
Powerful people, powerful companies and powerful industries all fall for similar reasons.
Hubris is always the worst of them.
There are five areas where the major record labels really went wrong.
Analyzing them would be instructive to every indie music artist.
Knowing how not to act and think can be just as useful to you as knowing how to act and think.
The reason the major labels are beneath you and me today is because of five characteristics.
I call them habits of the doomed.
If you avoid these ways of thinking, you'll have a much smoother music career and life.
CONCERN WITH PROTECTING YOUR EGO When you come across a problem you don't understand, you act like you understand the situation instead of asking for answers.
The major labels were more concerned with protecting their image as geniuses and the be-all-end-all than they were with addressing the new realities that were bubbling up beneath them.
Steve Knopper of Rolling Stone wrote a book called "Appetite For Self Destruction: The spectacular crash of the record industry in the digital age".
He did an interview about it at rollogrady.
com where he described how the labels just completely ignored the Internet when they knew it was coming.
He says that Universal, for example, "...
had lots of technologists on staff.
It's just that the top executives at Universal weren't really paying attention to them.
I think to an extent that was true at all the labels.
There would be marketing meetings where radio, retail and MTV Video would take up 90% of the time and then the last ten minutes some executive would say, 'Hey, how about this crazy new Internet thing?' Then they'd give their five or ten minute spiel about it and say, 'Hey, we're going to do some MP3 stuff or some AOL chat-room stuff, OK? Alright!' They'd pat them on the head and go away.
That continued all the way up until 2004 or 2005.
It is pretty extraordinary how long that sort of attitude continued at the labels.
" They all ignored the iPod and Napster.
The lesson in this is that you should never stop asking questions.
Never let your ego get in the way of learning new things.
HAVING A CONSUMER MENTALITY The labels lost their way because they became obsessed with selling nihilistic music on overpriced CDs.
They completely sold out to the greenback.
But music is always about music first.
It has to be.
That's what the Indie scene has brought back.
Always remember, the music comes first.
Without it, nothing makes sense.
BEING WISH-FOCUSED A good way to fail at what you want in life is to be a day dreamer...
by spending gobs of time fantasizing about how much money you could be making instead of acting and analyzing your actions and those of others.
The entire music industry was based on wishful thinking...
and a good dose of detachment from reality.
They kept wishing things would stay the same for just one more day.
Unfortunately for them, the future happened now.
And it was a hell of a thing to behold.
RESISTING CHANGE The labels knew about a lot of the changes that were about to happen in the music industry before many others did.
They hired companies like Big Champagne to analyze user behavior on P2P networks.
But they didn't do anything with that data because they thought they were bigger than change.
So did the Republican Party in 2008.
They all resisted change.
And they lost.
If everybody's all of a sudden doing something, there must be a good reason why.
Always try to be a few steps ahead of the curve.
Especially on the Web.
Learn about Twitter.
Learn about Spotify.
Even if you don't want to use them, at least it's good to know what's going on.
BEING PESSIMISTIC AND JEALOUS The major labels dismissed Napster and the iPod.
They didn't think the iPod would ever catch on; that it was a fluke.
Dismissing other people's success by saying "That guy's just lucky" or "It'll never last" isn't prudent.
Instead, you should be asking, "How can I do that?" or "What's his secret?"
He was once asked what the greatest pain in his life is.
He replied that his greatest pain is not being able to see himself perform live because he's "God's Vessel.
" Let me admit that I think there's nothing wrong with having a big ego-in fact it can be beneficial if you're trying to accomplish very big things-but your downfall begins when you start to think you're invincible.
I think of the spectacular downfall of people like Bernie Madoff and companies like Enron.
They all thought they had the world at their feet.
Until the world pushed back.
I also think of the mighty music industry...
with its guts all over the floor now.
The music industry thought it would have MTV and CDs forever.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The other industry that had the same air of invincibility that the music business did is the newspaper business.
And it's also got its guts hanging out.
They're both now asking for forgiveness from the future.
Powerful people, powerful companies and powerful industries all fall for similar reasons.
Hubris is always the worst of them.
There are five areas where the major record labels really went wrong.
Analyzing them would be instructive to every indie music artist.
Knowing how not to act and think can be just as useful to you as knowing how to act and think.
The reason the major labels are beneath you and me today is because of five characteristics.
I call them habits of the doomed.
If you avoid these ways of thinking, you'll have a much smoother music career and life.
CONCERN WITH PROTECTING YOUR EGO When you come across a problem you don't understand, you act like you understand the situation instead of asking for answers.
The major labels were more concerned with protecting their image as geniuses and the be-all-end-all than they were with addressing the new realities that were bubbling up beneath them.
Steve Knopper of Rolling Stone wrote a book called "Appetite For Self Destruction: The spectacular crash of the record industry in the digital age".
He did an interview about it at rollogrady.
com where he described how the labels just completely ignored the Internet when they knew it was coming.
He says that Universal, for example, "...
had lots of technologists on staff.
It's just that the top executives at Universal weren't really paying attention to them.
I think to an extent that was true at all the labels.
There would be marketing meetings where radio, retail and MTV Video would take up 90% of the time and then the last ten minutes some executive would say, 'Hey, how about this crazy new Internet thing?' Then they'd give their five or ten minute spiel about it and say, 'Hey, we're going to do some MP3 stuff or some AOL chat-room stuff, OK? Alright!' They'd pat them on the head and go away.
That continued all the way up until 2004 or 2005.
It is pretty extraordinary how long that sort of attitude continued at the labels.
" They all ignored the iPod and Napster.
The lesson in this is that you should never stop asking questions.
Never let your ego get in the way of learning new things.
HAVING A CONSUMER MENTALITY The labels lost their way because they became obsessed with selling nihilistic music on overpriced CDs.
They completely sold out to the greenback.
But music is always about music first.
It has to be.
That's what the Indie scene has brought back.
Always remember, the music comes first.
Without it, nothing makes sense.
BEING WISH-FOCUSED A good way to fail at what you want in life is to be a day dreamer...
by spending gobs of time fantasizing about how much money you could be making instead of acting and analyzing your actions and those of others.
The entire music industry was based on wishful thinking...
and a good dose of detachment from reality.
They kept wishing things would stay the same for just one more day.
Unfortunately for them, the future happened now.
And it was a hell of a thing to behold.
RESISTING CHANGE The labels knew about a lot of the changes that were about to happen in the music industry before many others did.
They hired companies like Big Champagne to analyze user behavior on P2P networks.
But they didn't do anything with that data because they thought they were bigger than change.
So did the Republican Party in 2008.
They all resisted change.
And they lost.
If everybody's all of a sudden doing something, there must be a good reason why.
Always try to be a few steps ahead of the curve.
Especially on the Web.
Learn about Twitter.
Learn about Spotify.
Even if you don't want to use them, at least it's good to know what's going on.
BEING PESSIMISTIC AND JEALOUS The major labels dismissed Napster and the iPod.
They didn't think the iPod would ever catch on; that it was a fluke.
Dismissing other people's success by saying "That guy's just lucky" or "It'll never last" isn't prudent.
Instead, you should be asking, "How can I do that?" or "What's his secret?"
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