Vinyl Bay 777, Long Island’s top music outlet, takes a look at the state of New York City's music scene
Last week, a report was released by the City of New York on
the state of the music industry in New York. The report, commissioned Mayor de
Blasio and Office of Media and Entertainment Commissioner Julie Menin and conducted by Boston Consulting
Group, discusses the importance of the music scene on the city’s economic
growth, as well as its vulnerability to rising costs and gentrification.
New York City has a rich musical history. It has been home
to countless music scenes, from Tin Pan Alley to the jazz scene that developed
during the Harlem Renaissance and the downtown underground punk scene of the
late 1960s and 1970s. Music is still a big part of the city’s culture,
fostering even more bands of wildly varying genres than ever before.
And according to the report, the music industry has been
heavily important to the city’s economic health as well. As of 2015, the year
the report surveyed, there were roughly 60,000 employed in music-related jobs
while the industry generated more than $21 Billion in revenue for the city. The
amount of people who are looking for work in New York’s music scene “outpaces”
other job fields in the city. None of this is overly shocking though, since New
York also happens to be a metropolitan city and a hub for commerce that many
record companies and big businesses call home.
The report also confirmed something that we’ve feared for a
long time: the decline of the local, small-scale live music scene. It found the
city’s “local artist communities” to be the most vulnerable part of its
economic health, even though it makes up nearly 20 percent of the city’s music
industry. In recent years, it seems like more of the once beloved venues that
became bastions for local and live music have gone away. In the last week
alone, Brooklyn’s Shea Stadium and Don Pedro both announced that they were
shutting their doors, while this past December saw the demise of Lower East
Side staple Cake Shop after 10 years of business. In fact, 20 percent of the
city’s small venues have shut closed down in the last 15 years. The report
deemed rising rent for venues, high cost of living for artists and venue owners,
the decline of album sales and increased competition for live performance slots
as the reasons for this vulnerability.
These findings have led to a proposed plan of action to make
sure the city’s musical legacy and economic health thrive. The four points the
report feels the city can improve on are helping to provide support for local
artists and communities, creating new opportunities for locals artists to
perform and hone their skills, working to increase mass music consumption and
using digital music services to their advantage. Support would include
sponsoring educational programs to help artists become more business-savvy so
they have the means to develop themselves as artists within the industry, as
well as creating a governmental task force to work with music communities and
give them a voice in the execution of said programs. On the city’s end, the
report mentions making it easier to secure permits for shows and giving more incentives
to companies who bring their industry events here.
Two things are made abundantly clear from this report on the
state of New York City’s music industry: the music industry in New York is booming
and adding greatly to its economic health and that it needs to take better care
of the music communities that have been its bread and butter for decades. New
York has always been a great place to discover new music and without the
necessary aid to the artists that make it so great, the city’s declining music scene
becomes more real than ever.
---
Music is alive and well at Long Island’s top new independent
record shop, Vinyl Bay 777 and vinylbay777.com. Boasting a wide selection of
new and used vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, DVDs, memorabilia and more, we have
one of the largest collections on the island. Choose from the thousands of
titles we have in store and online. More titles are being added all the time,
so now is the perfect time to stop by and see what’s new.
No comments:
Post a Comment