As an avid Rhapsody user there’s little I hate more (other than Rhapsody being literally completely broken on the Mac – is anyone paying attention over there?) than wanting to listen to a track on Rhapsody and not finding it in their catalog. Someone with veto power, artist, composer, label, etc. said “no thanks”.

I genuinely believe that ultimately just about every music rights holder will cave and sign up with the sales and subscription services. But that will take some time. Even more importantly, I wonder if this is a generational problem. In other words, will the next generation of music lovers have the same problem with their favorite groups? I speculate they won’t.

Right now record companies are having such a hard time retaining failing to maintain their former revenue levels that some are not even focusing on developing new talent and instead spending their time working to better monetize their back catalogs. At the same time a new generation of artists is putting their music directly on the internet through MySpace, iTunes, or just their plain old website. These artists, even when they do sign with labels, are super comfortable getting their music to their audience on the net.

It seems that fewer artists are being solely developed through the standard label-oriented process. As such, I suspect that the gaps will narrow and eventually disappear in the online catalogs as modern artists who understand the internet not only give permission for their music to be distributed digitally, but would be incensed if it wasn’t.

I often make it clear that I have zero predictive power over what will happen in the industries I pay attention to. This one is no exception. Perhaps these musings are really wishful thinking on my part. I sure do hate those gaps in the catalog.

UPDATE from Valleywag:

“All the record-label kevetching that the Internet is killing their livelihood may actually be true. But it’s not college kids sharing files in broadband-equipped dorms that they need to worry about. Radiohead is releasing its new album sans label. Novel, but the interesting bit is that the band is giving a choice to consumers: Pay $82 for a super-fancy, boxed edition of In Rainbows, or download the album — for whatever you think it’s worth. This follows a similar campaign by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails who says once his band’s label obligations are completed, it will release digital albums for about $4. Of course it’s not just the music industry that should be concerned.”