Value Shift

Jonathan Wheeldon

Chapter 3 in Patrons, Curators, Inventors and Thieves, 2014, pp 63-90 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract There is a common view of the value chain of the mature recorded music business as illustrated in Figure 3.1: Figure 3.1 The value chain of recorded music It is only one picture, a prevailing one but not uncontested, and establishes a provisionally fixed point from which to begin a journey of critical analysis. It constructs the music business as a series of value-adding activities, commencing with the artist and ending with the consumer, with the record company characterized as the dominant contributor of value and controller of many of the processes in between. The hard-to-define skills of artist and repertoire selection (‘A&R’) are held to be exclusive to the business, as is much of the mystique surrounding the marketing and promotion of music and artists. Descriptions of discovery, nurturing and development suggest a theme of patronage, whilst filtering and taste-making are more indicative of the role of cultural intermediary. In contrast to the intangible nature of these roles, there are parallel production and distribution processes, which are more tangible and which are described in mechanized terms more familiar to industry. This is the world of recorded music products in predominantly physical terms: to be replicated and disseminated to all corners of the globe in great volumes, and to be collected and valued by consumers as cultural artefacts embodied in technology.

Keywords: Mobile Phone; Music Industry; Record Company; Artist Manager; Recorded Music (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-30667-7_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230306677

DOI: 10.1057/9780230306677_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().