Nashville Music Blog

Remember when we told you about author/record industry expert/Rolling Stone contributor Steve Knopper's appearance on NPR's Fresh Air? Shortly thereafter I shot Knopper an email, and he was kind enough to send along some musings about the plight of the record industry, especially as it pertains to Music City. Here's a snippet:

It seems that the RIAA/major labels have smelled the coffee and realized that suing customers and pushing draconian digital rights management merely serve to annoy the public and do nothing to dent the piracy numbers...I'd say labels are not as scared and oblivious as they used to be.

Does Knopper think the RIAA is a pack of out-of-touch knuckleheads? See his full answers after the jump.

Nashville Cream: For a long time, Nashville's (or at least country music's) physical sales weren't down. They are now, but still not as far as the rest of the industry. What do you think accounts for that?

Steve Knopper: It's hard to say. One reason could be from 2000 to 2006 or so there were a lot of gigantic country stars like Kenny Chesney, Dixie Chicks, Toby Keith, etc. And now, despite Taylor Swift, the pendulum seems to be swinging away again. I always hear the theory that country fans came late to the downloading game and therefore CD sales weren't so heavily affected through 2006. And now pretty much everybody downloads. That may well be true, but I haven't seen any evidence for it.

NC: Much of the music industry seems to be attempting to change their image. Country music's top sellers right now really aren't "country" whatsoever. Taylor Swift, etc. Do you think country music will continue to merge aesthetically with mainstream pop? Is this an intentional move on the part of labels/management?

SK: I'd say country and mainstream pop joined many years ago! In fact one could argue that the best country music historically was the mainstream pop of its day--from Hank Williams Sr. to Tammy Wynette to Willie Nelson to Garth Brooks. When I first started writing about music in the early '90s I heard that criticism all the time--Garth and Vince and Clint are pop, not country! But even then you had traditionalists like George Strait and Alan Jackson dominating the pop charts. So I think country has always "crossed over" to mainstream pop and Taylor Swift etc. are just following that tradition. I think the idea of "americana" as some kind of radical punk alternative to country is a relatively new phenomenon.

NC: As a more general question, how do you see the RIAA handling downloading in the future? They're dropping the lawsuits, and I recently saw that they'll allegedly be teaming up with ISPs to regulate illegal downloading. Do they have a clear-cut path here? Are they as scared and oblivious about the future as it seems they might be?

SK: It seems that the RIAA/major labels have smelled the coffee and realized that suing customers and pushing draconian digital rights management merely serve to annoy the public and do nothing to dent the piracy numbers. Working with the ISPs is a good idea but only if the ISPs will actually cooperate--and so far I've seen very little evidence that they will, despite what the RIAA and some label executives are saying. I'd say labels are not as scared and oblivious as they used to be, and in fact are doing smarter things like releasing free Bruce Springsteen MP3s to promote his album and tour and trying to make deals for merchandise and touring. But it's probably too little too late.