MIDEM. Crisis, what crisis ?

Imagine a really cool semitropical French city. Now imagine it full of all the best and brightest in the music business. Brings to mind Ray Bans and limos doesn't it ? Thats MIDEM. The music biz annual get up in the south of France.

Well lets change the image slightly.
Turn off the heat so its cold and windy. Now remove all the rock and pop royalty. Not so cool anymore eeeh? Then get rid of all the label babes and fun people who used to populate the record business. Not much left anymore.

Well its a good and a bad thing. The good part is that you do not have to live in a roach infested dive because there are actually rooms vacant. Also, you can talk to the people you need to meet because no one there is kidding themselves that they don't need the next deal any more. Everyone is in dire straights. That is everyone apart from Sonicbids, thebizmo and all the companies rising to meet the fact that only a very limited amount of musicians will be flying in their own Lear jets in the future and your trusty band van will be more familiar to you than the inside of a limo.
The old business is dead. Face it. The sooner the better. The age of the mass of niches has arrived. Now all we need is for the artists in question to get their acts together, stop clicking around for more myspace friends and actually pick up the ball where they hoped some label would do it. Sure there are a bunch of hard working indies out there, but if you had real Learjet ambition you always dreamed of Universal music right?

Well stop it, wake up. there is nobody home there any more. The streets are cold and empty like the streets of Cannes.
But being inside a happening club, or behind your fave earphones is still the warmest and coolest place to be.
Remember it was always about the music. Make a living, have fun, get the girls (or guys) play loud and forget about the free ride .
It was never really free anyway
David