The music business is moving into the long tail fast. Catalyzed by piracy and then legitimate downloading, the current form factor shift is about fluidity and is defining the “New Normal” for them whether firms like it or not. Pre-packaged albums are the head of the curve and singles are the tail. Downloading favors singles. Period.

We could spend alot of time prognosticating the end game for the music industry and where the media end of things will finally get a real foothold on the vertical cliff that they are barely hanging on to, but I am also intrigued by the changes on the production end. The manufacturing part of the business.

Big music labels live and die by the blockbuster strategy, even more so than movies studios. Even in niche sub-verticals of rock they clamor for winners like the Strokes or the Killers instead of judiciously promoting and peppering the market with specialized versions of these folks.

Hip-hop on the other hand has taken a different approach. It may have come from the “put my boys on” mentality where one successful artist will try to parlay his success into solo albums by every supporting member in his crew even if they are orthogonal to mass market quality (Wu-Tang exemplify this strategy). This strategy has now evolved into the diversified label approach where one successful artist is granted a separate sub-label operation with A & R freedom to boot.

This has allowed for an interesting phenomenon to occur: The hip-hop market was previously geographically divided across regions of the US. This kept with the separation of regionally distinctive musical structures with their companion lyrical styles. With the individual personalities as the face of the label, this line has been broken in favor of a hybridization strategy where an up and coming rapper from a particular region can seek out the best musical mind from another market and presto: remix before the original.

The basis of this is that hip-hop has been modular and plastic from the start. The lyrics and musical tracks where created separately and then mixed, often by three separate parties. They also implicitly agreed to simple standards, as a DJ it blew my mind how similar nearly all beat tracks were. Additionally this allowed for a track that was not so successful in its original form to be mindblowingly successful in the remix at low marginal cost. No one plays the original version of MJB’s “Real Love” anymore, but the remix still gets a regular spot on playlists at radio stations and clubs 7 years post-release. That’s some lasting value!

While the delivery end of things sorts itself out, Hip-hop labels should promote this a modular production strategy and outsource remixing on their own sites. Syndicate the lyric tracks, beats and music out as building blocks and let the fans mix their favorite brew. Other genres of music based on analog artists cannot employ this strategy as remixes require costly re-recording of tracks and recomposition of music.