Have you ever heard an artist on the radio or in concert and thought, “Why is this person singing?” I think that nearly every time I turn on Christian radio. I’m going to give you my honest opinion; most of the music that is in the marketplace is horrible. This problem manifests itself more often in gospel music due to the fact that anyone who can scrap up a thousand dollars can send a song to radio in hopes of cracking the charts (whatever that means). Then we wonder why CD sales have slumped 15 to 20 percent every year for the past five years. The reason is that we simply are not competing with other forms of entertainment anymore.
I had a gentleman recently tell me his hypothesis for the decline of music business revenue. He passed music off as nothing but an “old form of entertainment.” Let us look at another form of “old entertainment.” The NFL is still thriving. The NFL falls in the category of old entertainment however is has continually reinvented itself over the past few decades. In my opinion, music simply is not completing with other forms of entertainment.
The music industry will bounce back. Although the industry is not at its peak, I am thankful for this time. Everything in business is cyclical. Right now, especially in gospel music, the market is weeding out a lot of artists. The market is simply oversaturated. We are at a point where only the strongest will survive.
There are many artists who have a genuine call upon their lives to minister. However, there are many people who placed a call upon their own lives to minister the gospel. For whatever reason, people are simply fascinated with the music business. I have found over the years that people have an illusion of fame, power, and money that comes by being in the music industry. Those who are in it know that it is nothing but an illusion.
So before you decide to send another single out to radio or spend your hard earned money with some recording company that gives you a line-item budget that is padded to such an extent that you can use the excess to make a down payment on a house, consider why you do what you do. Are you called by God or are you called by man?
Here’s the shameless self-promotion. My name is Steve Allen. I produce records and I run a recording studio. Let me know if I can help you.
Steve Allen
Square One Studio
http://www.squareonestudio.com
Author: Steve Allen
| Author's Website: http://squareonestudio.com
Written: 02/01/2008
| 
Category: Steve Allen
Comments: 7
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Great article. You are right, SG is over saturated and is being shaken up. Many of the people who are going strong right now will be out of business in the coming years.
If we concentrate more on the music side of the music business and less on the business side of it, the music would improve and so would the business.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit
- Galatians 5:25.
I love gospel music and the people that sing it. Although lately it seems as if everybody is wanting to get into it.
I've been in the business side of the Christian music business for over 27 year, and it seems to me there's ALWAYS been a lot of wanna-be's. Not limited to southern gospel, but it seems like there's always been a glut of weekend warriors, who think they're top tier material. A lot of them are very good, while there are (obviously) a lot who have no business opening their mouths.
God does not call a person to a ministry He does not equip them to do. It's a lot like watching the preliminaries of American Idol. Somebody's mama has lied about her child's singing ability, and no one has had the nerve to set the record straight.
I do agree, there seems to be a sifting, not just in s/g, but in ccm and p&w;, too. As the method of distributing the music changes (mp3, et al), I think we'll see a slower demise of cd's in s/g than in most other genre. Let's face it, s/g is one of the areas most consumers of the music have no idea what an ipod is, let alone have one.
It's all going to be fun to watch.
It would really help sales if Southern Gospel radio stations would announce the artist. The CCM stations are very good at letting their audience know the artist but most SG stations never or rarely announce artist.We have a local station that never announces the group. their reason is that they are on the air to promote Jesus and not artists. We all need to promote Jesus but if the music is to survive that promotes Him, then they need to be able to know who we are listening to in order to buy the music and attend concerts of groups we enjoy. Naming the artist will not solve all the problems that music is facing but it might be some help to keep the music selling!!!
Steve, You couldn't be more right. "You hit the nail on the head" with this article. I am so tired of turning on Southern Gospel Radio and hearing terrible singing. We are the only genre of music that allows anyone to sing on the radio that has the money to pay. It is hurting our industry because the people we try to reach that aren't southern Gospel fans don't take us serious. In every other genre of music you have to have talent to get air-time and in most cases you have to be on a major label in that respective genre. There are professional singers and there are singers called to sing in their church or churches in their communuties. My only prayer is that we start realizing the difference so that SGM can grow and be a little more competitive. Again, thanks for having the boldness to speak out and tell us the truth.
“Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right”
Good article! Thanks for writing it. As an addition, the music industry, as a whole, is down in sales anywhere from 15 - 20%. This is not just southern gospel; this is every form of music. Secular music is in a recession as well. Music thievery is the biggest cause. Statistics have repeatedly proven this. Christian music fans, unfortunately, are just as big, if not bigger, culprits of this. A man I know recently was telling me about a song he loves listening to on Southern Gospel radio. Instead of supporting the artist, song writers, and publishers who are trying to make a living through music by buying their CD, he had the DJ at the local Southern Gospel radio station make a copy of the song for him. This is just one example. Illegal downloads are taking up where "high speed dubbing" left off. We need to educate people on the fact that copyright infringement is serious. It is not only a federal offense, i is a sin against God.
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