Musical greed

What makes a song popular? A study has come up with an intriguing clue: people will choose a song if they think others like it.

In other words, at least one key to musical success is the buzz or the bandwagon effect – and while this can be unpredictable, getting a song out there and on people's radars increases its likelihood of it becoming popular.

So, the music industry is doing everything it can to get music to the masses, right? It’s begging public arenas with captive audiences like buses, sports centres and museums to play its stuff, right?

Wrong.

Here’s an eye-popping example of greed and short-sightedness.

A mob called Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA), representing Sony Music, EMI, Universal, Warner and Australian recording artists brought legal action against gyms in a bid for more bucks – and won.

If they want to use popular music for their classes, gyms now have to pay fifteen times more to play it. Copyright fees per class have gone from an affordable 96.8 cents to a whopping $15 a class – which could add an extra $1 to the cost of the class for each attendee.

In a world where money is tight and replicas and substitutions rule, I was gobsmacked by the PPCA’s CEO’s naïveté when he said, ‘Gyms are kidding themselves if they think that cover version music is going to cut it.’

Hobart gyms have decided price hikes for classes is just too big an ask, so it seems most of them have, indeed, ditched original music for cheesy muzak. And people are still turning up to classes.

There is no doubt that this ‘fake’ music is inferior and makes the classes slightly less enjoyable but here’s something else for the PPCA to consider:

When I started at the gym about 20 months ago, my iPod was filled with 80s bubble gum pop. I hadn't bought more than a handful of new songs since 1986.

Being exposed to current hits via classes at the gym – and liking them – I found myself on iTunes fairly regularly, downloading the new music I had heard. In the space of a few months, I threw more money at PPCA members than I had in the previous three decades – because the music was suddenly on my radar.

Since the change to covers, I might have bought one new song (but I don’t think so).

The CEO of PPCA is right when he says about covers: ‘To call it a second rate product is to wildly overstate it.’

These versions are so crappy, they don’t inspire me to buy the originals – or any music at all.

So, gyms aren't coughing up for licensing and, if I am even remotely representative of the gym population, gym members are now buying less music because we don't hear it.
So, who wins?

Image: Francesco Marino