The "Long Tail" of Music

Last semester in information technology we learned about a phenomenon called the long tail. It describes the shape of the curve made on a graph. The horizontal axis (in this case) consists of musicians, and the vertical axis consists of how popular the musician is. It creates a sort of long tail off to the left. There are very few artists who are extremely popular (Kanye West, Timbaland, Lady Gaga...) and a ton of artists who are barely popular. These artists who are barely popular individually don't make up much of the graph or total popularity, but combined (because there are so many) they make up a huge segment of the total music industry.

The long tail has become even longer recently because of new technology and how easy it is to make music. Anyone with a mac book that has garage band can create music very easily. The small microphone on laptops works well for recording vocals/instruments. Now, nearly anyone can create music and put it on a site like myspace. Add a little bit of talent to this and maybe $1000 spent at guitar center and you have a very long tail with high quality music. Anyone that has a desire to create original music and put it on myspace can. Very easily.

This long tail of "musicians" may lack talent and equipment that some of the mainstream artists have and more importantly lack the money required to front a major production.