Was words for the Music Industry

Grammy Award winning producer Don Was had a few choice words for the music moguls in this past issue of Billboard. 

Was, who produced the newest Rolling Stones studio album "A Bigger Band", Bonnie Raitt’s "Nick of Time" and Bob Dylan’s "Under the Red Sky" echos many of the views put forth in the Future of Music book.

On recording costs: "I’ve always advocated spending less money.  Greed is the biggest problem facing the music business.  People are tending to make shitty records and charging way too much for them and are not running the business in accordance with established principles of good management.  We should take our energies a little bit away from chasing down teenagers who are file-sharing and go after the real problem and deal with those issues:  Make better records and run the businesss better."

On the current state of the music industry: "It’s really a beautiful business.  It reminds me of a national park.  Maybe we should be thinking, ‘why don’t we leave this in a little better shape than we found it?’ And if you’re dumping garbage at your campsite and being reckless with matches, the ranger’s going to throw your ass out of the park."

On music marketing with car manufacturer Lincoln Mercury:  "We’re talking about some larger things.  Lincoln sells at least 5000,000 cars every year.  What if you put a CD in every car?  People aren’t buying music through the conventional means the way they have been.  So get it out there by other means."

Excerpted from Nelinda Newman’s interview in Billboard 9/05/05

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