Pundits, pundits, everywhere, but nary a solution the peanut gallery doth provideth. 

As the CEO of a small, fully independent music startup, I, like many of you, have spent the past four years trying to crack the code of an industry whose traditional operating platform has all but been cremated.

I started this process by ditching every bad habit I acquired as a major label A&R guy, with part of this mental cleanse involving a complete fast from all trade magazines and music sites in an effort to avoid “idea contamination.”

Four years later, we’ve built a music company whose subtle operating variations, though by no means earth-shatteringly groundbreaking, have allowed us to enjoy tiny strides in the name of progress and consistent growth in quarterly revenue. This has resulted in appreciative clients and makes our outside investors and shareholders happy to boot.

What’s shocking to me, though, is while I was focused on creating a company with a forward-thinking agenda, it would appear on the surface that most everyone else has spent the past four years rambling on about ad-supported models, cloud-based file delivery and other magic bullet theories, with few real solutions having been presented to address the inherent problems of our industry.

Maybe if some of these widely-ready industry commentators took just a portion of the time that they spend making observations that so eloquently restate the obvious (doom and gloom) and actually used their wit and intelligence to cook up new models that could actually be implemented, the industry could begin to heal and get healthy again.

But instead, it seems that it’s easier to just talk about how bad everything is and regurgitate ideas that, at best, only equate to putting a Band-Aid on a bullet hole.  The problems plaguing our business will not be solved by executives within the music companies, their agendas are for self-preservation first and business-as-usual second. 

This leaves the blowhards to take charge and control.

What’s ironic is that I spent many years thinking that a lack of current industry job experience was a liability for our fellow pundits, when in fact their distance from the machines gives them an informed clarity and freedom to think (and act) in a way that few others can.

The industry just might find itself an unsung hero in the talkers, if they would just take the risks that are necessary to truly affect change for the greater good of all of us.