Disrupting the Music Industry w/ Larry Miller
How Is The Music Industry Being Disrupted?
I was taking a walk recently in my neighborhood enjoying a sunny afternoon and streaming music through my iPhone when the Bruce Springsteen song, Born in the USA came on. It brought back my high school days and listening to the song many times on my Sony Walkman.
Now I know this dates me, but I started listening to music on vinyl records. I briefly experienced 8 tracks, and then converted to cassette tapes -- where I experienced truly portable music for the first time. As the technology evolved, I eventually moved on to compact discs before shifting to digital music on iTunes.
As technology has changed, so has the business model – which has shifted from ownership to access. Most of us no longer buy albums in any form, instead, we either rent our music through a monthly streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music, or listen through an ad-supported service like Pandora.
Did you ever wonder where all this technology innovation came from? Have you thought about how much it is changing the music business model? And are those changes actually good or bad for the artists making the music?
In this episode, I speak with Larry Miller who was part of the team behind the compression technology that helped make digital music possible. And as ubiquitous as this technology has become -- when Larry first pitched the idea to music executives he was laughed out of the room. They thought nobody would want to listen to what they considered to be “low quality” music. Now it’s the standard.
But Larry’s career in music covers so much more:
He worked for one of the most successful radio startups in history,
He started a music label that won multiple Grammys,
And today he’s the director of the music business program at New York University.
Larry offers some great insight as to what he’s learned over a very successful career, including this piece of advice:
“You really can learn from the smartest and dumbest people you’ve ever met. You just need to be clever enough to understand which is which”
This podcast was recorded at Gotham Podcast Studios in New York City.
Please check out the episode in the above link. If you have an opinion on these topics, please feel free to email us through the contact page. The best ideas often stem from the intersection of different points of view. The episode is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you listen to podcasts. Enjoy!
