The Music Man

The Music Man is an interesting article about a man named Rick Rubin, and Columbia Records. Rick Rubin is a music producer that was hired by Columbia Records with hope that he would save the company from their declining sales because many people decided it was alright to steal their music, or even people downloading the hit singles from every CD that was available. Rick Rubin was one of the most open minded people ever to step foot into Columbia Records. He had a gray beard that covered most of his face and people said that he “resembled a medium sized bear.” He was born into a Jewish family but as he got older he decided not to have any particular religious beliefs. He also was the person who started Def Jam Records. Rubin started this business in college and ran it out of his dorm. Sony, who owns Columbia Records, chose to hire Rick in “hopes that he would hear the answer in the music.” At first, Rick was against joining Columbia Records due to a past experience with them and he felt that he needed to protect artists against big record companies. He later changed his mind because he knew that he could be a force of good for the company and instead of protecting the artist from the company, this gave him the opportunity to protect the company from itself and help bring it out of its current downfall. This is exactly what Rick did, as he came up with new ideas for the company, for example he came up with the subscription service idea. He knew this would save the music industry.

This article had so many examples of “The Four P’s,” which include product, promotion, price, and place. The product was the music and the subscription to the music, which was one of Rick Rubin’s brilliant ideas discussed. This idea was to offer music in a similar way that cable is offered, through a subscription service. They also talk about price in this article on page 5, when they talk about making music around $5 to $6. They decide on this price because they believed that if...