gimmesound embraces the paradigm shift in music

The music business is in undergoing a huge transformation — but you already know that, so why are we stating the obvious?  Two reasons:

1) Once in a while when you find yourself in the middle of a major paradigm shift, it’s worth stepping back for a moment to notice what’s going on before you arrive at the next level and exclaim, “Oh! Look what happened.”

2) 2014 was a dramatic turning point for music as evidenced by two Earth shattering stats that you might not be aware of:

• Taylor Swift was the ONLY artist to release a platinum album in 2014.
• Digital music sales were down in 2014 for the first time in 10 years (maybe ever, it’s hard to get good stats on music downloads).

Even with all the tech advances that empower musicians to record and distribute their own music relatively inexpensively and without getting “signed” by a major label, it’s harder than ever to make a living as a musician.  We believe that recorded music sales will never again be the major source of revenue for musicians — just like sheet music sales are no longer a major source of revenue.

Vickie and I believe that live music holds the most promise for the future of the music business, both for musicians and fans.  In this new world where we spend more and more time staring at a screen of some kind, we find people crave live concerts where we make powerful connections with musicians and other fans that transport us to a magical place we just can’t experience any other way.  Musicians who can draw fans to their concerts are able to make a good living doing what they love most–playing music.  Everybody wins!

We’re embracing this musical paradigm shift by focusing our efforts on presenting and promoting live music even more than we have in the past.  Our new focus is reflected, in part, by changes to gimmesound.com.  We’ll continue to provide live music listings while we transform the site into something new that helps musicians and venues promote their live shows better and works well on all devices, including phones.  You’ll notice that songs on gimmesound can now be played on phones and tablets (including the iPhone and iPad).  More mobile enhancements are coming.  Stay tuned . . .