Keynote Address Wows Attendees

by Christopher Walsh AES Keynote Image

In his keynote address at the 125th AES Convention’s opening ceremonies yesterday, San Francisco native Chris Stone, co-founder of the Record Plant studios, delivered an upbeat assessment and an optimistic forecast of an upended music industry.

Though long-established business models were brusquely and abruptly cast aside by the personal computer and the internet, Stone insisted that opportunities abound in the new era, in which “The Artist Owns the Industry.”

While Napster and its progeny decimated record label revenues, however, the same tools offer artists the keys to audio production and independence.

“The music industry is alive and well,” Stone said. “It truly is. We’ve gone back from being pretty much run by the major labels to pretty much being run by a cottage industry that satisfies all the needs of the artist today. This has given us a great number of opportunities.”

In our industry, Stone explained, it’s who you know: “What better place to do that than AES?” The Convention, he added, “is an incredible place to learn, to make contacts, to build your phone book—and as we know, you’re only as good as your phone book.”

“Who is this person who controls the industry?” Stone asked. The artist today, he explained, can be a musical artist, a film or TV director, a game developer, even a pastor. “This makes the artist our target customer,” said Stone, “and our target customers want that we do everything for them. We not only service our target customer, but we build products around the customer; we build services around the customer.”

The music artist today has to be 360 degrees, unlike the era in which he or she focused solely on composition and performance. “They need to understand the business side of creativity, just as the businesspeople need to understand the creative side.” Marketing, touring and promotion, he added, are mandatory for success.

Stone did acknowledge that, “the Golden Age for music recording studios, with very few exceptions, is gone.” But, he noted, John Storyk, of the Walters-Storyk Design Group, had just told him that, “we can’t build project studios fast enough.”

Going forward, Stone said, catering to peer-to-peer, unrestricted “anywhere consumers” is essential, and downloading, music discovery and social networking offer unlimited opportunity. Citing recent research by the Yankee Group, he added that downloading is projected to be a $5.34 billion business by 2012.

Trends and opportunities, he illustrated, are seen in the metamorphosis from four major labels to thousands of independents, and the return of regional distribution and promotion. Illustrating the plentiful job opportunities created by websites and YouTube, he added, “The thing we have to remember is, it’s a visual world.”