The Fashion Model

Fol­low­ing on from the pre­vi­ous post: I’m begin­ning to think - as Dan Hill orig­i­nally sug­gested - that the demise of pack­ag­ing in music might be lim­ited to the main­stream, with the future of music dis­tri­b­u­tion fol­low­ing the fash­ion model, so to speak.

As the major labels move toward music down­load ser­vices like the iTMS, they’re begin­ning to look a lot like the high street. Just as one might now drop a few quid in Top Man on gear that isn’t designed to last beyond the season, so the majors may well begin punt­ing main­stream music as a semi-​dispoable com­mod­ity; small, lo-​fi files unen­cum­bered by pack­ag­ing for a few pence a pop.

Then there’s the inde­pen­dents. Like a designer’s prêt à porter line, they’ll serve cus­tomers will­ing to shell out a little more for the musi­cal equiv­a­lent of a decent cut and qual­ity cloth - the pretty sleeve wrapped around high-​fidelity media.

Last - but obvi­ously not least - come the spe­cial­ist imprints, like our exam­ple label Rune Gram­mo­fon. These are the cou­ture houses of music dis­tri­b­u­tion, cater­ing to a dwin­dling band of die-​hards who demand the high­est qual­ity, most beau­ti­ful pack­ag­ing money can buy.

Okay, so the par­al­lels aren’t exact and I’m using woolly words like ‘mainstream,’ but it does seem to be the way things are headed.

Please feel free to return, laugh­ing, to this post in 20 years time, bran­dish­ing a lav­ishly hand-​crafted three-​LP mar­bled vinyl edi­tion of Now That’s What I Call Music! Vol. 7826.

Posted at 5pm on 03/03/04 by Jack Mottram to the music category.
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Tags: future, labels, music, packaging