8. Too Many Choices and Not Enough Filters
There are simply now too many outlets and too many touchpointswhere everything is just noise and clutter. At the same time no one trustworthy is directing, filteringor grading all the music being created and trafficked out (with the exception of the better known music blogs whose share of voice is still relatively small). Radio stations used to fill this role for the most part followed by the staff at your local record shop. Unfortunately with the gobbling up of local, independent stations by the likes of companies such as Clear Channel, all we have now are generic, universal playlists. Further, potential music enthusiasts are no longer simply being hit with the current offerings of the majors with their traditional marketing tactics. They are also being barraged daily by bands/artists and their management directly via social networking, email opt-in lists, etc. The fact that there is so much out there in the market is not necessarily the problem, however. The problem is that a lot of the good stuff is being missed entirely while a lot of garbage is being shoved down the throats of a consumer that as a result values music less and less, day by day. Put simply, we can't make sense of it all, so we turn a deaf ear. In short, we need better audience targeting and filtering tools.