Hallie and her friends aren’t the only ones discarding Britney like last year’s Razor scooter. Pepsi recently dropped Spears as its spokesgal. The platinum-selling star’s last album failed to move even a third as much as her debut CD. Her peers, who were also created by Svengalis, are doing no better: the Backstreet Boys are all but over; Christina Aguilera’s sunk to baring her underwear in her “Dirrty” video, and half of ‘N Sync are embarking on solo careers. O-Town may soon be playing the local mall–or looking for jobs there.
While discerning music fans are celebrating the downfall of over-choreographed pop, the failure of these former cash cows has spelled disaster for the record industry. With a sluggish economy and music piracy still rampant, CD sales slipped for the second consecutive year, from 763 million in 2001 to 681 million last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan. No matter how many focus groups were studied, labels still couldn’t latch on to the next bankable trend. In 2000, eight albums sold more than 4 million copies, but last year only three did: “The Eminem Show” sold 7.6 million, Nelly’s “Nellyville” sold 4.9 million and Lavigne’s debut, “Let Go,” sold 4.1 million. A&R executives are now like beachcombers with metal detectors, scanning for the next Marshall Mathers or whoever. If labels don’t uncover more original acts–and figure out how to embrace the Internet–the business as it’s now structured may collapse. When Eminem rapped that the music industry “feels so empty without me,” he wasn’t far off the mark.
But there’s good news: the giant gaps left by disappearing sugar-pop acts are windows of opportunity for more-authentic artists to break into the mainstream. As preteen fan Hallie Wilson attests, Avril Lavigne, 18, is the new model of cool for the younger crowd. She’s tough, rides a skateboard and sings un-Britney lines like “Never wore cover-up/Always beat the boys up.” Her success, as well as the popularity of other singer-songwriters like Michelle Branch, John Mayer and Vanessa Carlton, signals that bubblegum pop’s sticky hold is finally slipping. “Public taste is moving away from that slick sound now,” says Arista CEO Antonio (LA) Reid, who signed Lavigne. She’s now up for multiple Grammys in the nominations announced last week. “Kids feel they can identify with Avril. They wear the same T shirt, the same jeans, have the same kind of nonchalant attitude.”
Even more daring eclectic acts are finally breaking beyond the cult club scene. Scrappy guitar bands such as the Hives and the Strokes hit MTV last year, and alternative hip-hop acts got some air time. “There’s no way we would have got the attention we have if things were the way they were even three years ago,” says Jurassic 5’s founding rapper Chali 2na. The L.A. group, which plays socially minded hip-hop, went from selling CDs out of the back of a car in the late ’90s to moving 225,000 copies of its October release “Power in Numbers.” “People say to us all the time, ‘Man, I am so sick of what’s out there. I’ve been waiting for you guys’.” Jazz singer Norah Jones is another artist who’s sprung up between the cracks of a crumbling industry. Her debut, “Come Away With Me,” was a fringe CD when it was released nearly a year ago. Now it’s sold almost 3 million copies and picked up five Grammy nominations, including best album. “Norah and others like her may be the cure for the record industry’s ills,” says Bruce Lundvall, president of the jazz label Blue Note, who signed the long-shot Jones. “When you try and manufacture art, you are headed for short-term gains and nothing more. As Norah’s album attests, there is still a tremendous passion for quality.”
But the industry–a collection of labels now mostly owned by five large conglomerates–has been too busy looking for fast cash to focus on quality. One traditional source of profits has been catalog sales: when you have a lean year, turn toward your tried-and-true sellers like Sinatra, the Beatles, Elvis and the Stones. But the conglomerates, run by businessmen obsessed with the bottom line and stock options, haven’t been trying to develop artists who will qualify as classic sellers 15 years from now. Norah Jones may not release a 13- times-platinum debut like Britney’s, but it’s more probable she’ll sustain over the long haul. She also appeals to the 35-plus demographic, a sector that’s been largely ignored by labels, even though it represents half the record-buying public. “Stupid, very stupid,” says Lundvall. “They are the people with the money.”
It’s the people who aren’t buying any albums, though, who are the big quandary for the industry. Music piracy remains a huge dilemma. Industry analyst Lee Black of Jupiter Research estimates that Napster’s successor, Kazaa.com, is one of music’s busiest crossroads. “Three million people are on Kazaa.com at any given time,” says Black. It’s no wonder that blank, recordable CDs outsold prerecorded albums for the second year in a row. Yet the Internet can work for the good of some artists and labels. Take the revered alternative band Wilco. It released its album “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” on the Internet when it was dropped from Reprise Records in 2001. Once it was signed to Nonesuch, the band rereleased the album last April, and it became Wilco’s best-selling record ever. “We gave our record away for free, which makes the industry very uncomfortable, but for our purposes it worked,” says Wilco singer Jeff Tweedy. “More people heard it and knew it was something they wanted. So my gut instincts tell me piracy is the least of the industry’s problems. People aren’t downloading stuff because they don’t like music–they’re downloading because they can’t get enough of it.” Somehow, labels need to harness that love and turn it into cash.
After a panicky year of layoffs and cutbacks, analysts predict more bad news before 2003 comes to a close. But it’s the kind of shakedown we need. As obviously fabricated idols crumble and corporate executives lose their grip, real music by real artists may finally be able to reach fans. “These companies are decaying and basically destroying themselves,” says Tweedy. “Their business models don’t work anymore, and they’re unwilling to change them out of fear. That’s fine with me. I think there are more exciting times around the corner.” Here’s to the new era of the underdog.
