I once heard a very startling and earth-shaking statistic. It stated that for every Bruce Springsteen that came into the limelight, there were a thousand like him who are just as talented whose careers never came to fruition.

I was floored. How, as a musician, was I to cope with such a daunting figure?

I had always considered myself at least marginally talented, but never did I hold myself in the same regard as The Boss. I mean, the man is an icon and the voice of a generation. If it was true that a thousand of him existed out there who would never get a chance, then those of my mediocre talent range must number in the millions, and for every million of them, there was only one Taking Back Sunday who would rise above the throng!

There was one thing, though, that I had failed to take into consideration, and that was the revolutionary changes about to take place in the record industry. The mediums through which music had been distributed up to that point were about to become obsolete. As the cassette gave way to the compact disc and the compact disc gave way to the digital music file, we would begin to see a transition in the way that music was distributed to the listener.

The Internet, specifically, now offered musicians a direct path to their listeners without the need to rely on the funding from record companies to mass distribute their music through a physical medium. MP3s, file-sharing and social networking sites such as MySpace now enabled anyone with recorded music to go straight to the listener. These changes not only rendered CDs virtually obsolete, but whispers began to spread in the musical community that the record companies themselves would not be immune to the transformations.

With the obvious metamorphosis taking place in the music industry in favor of the musicians, you would think that I would be very optimistic about my chances of success, right? Wrong–and let me explain why.

It is easy to live vicariously through your idols and fantasize about how simple it would be for you to follow in their footsteps and conquer the world…musically. Your blind optimism will soon be chipped away, however, as you begin your foray into the uber-competitive world of professional music-making. This starts when you buy your first local music rag, then play your first shows, then court record companies or management firms for representation. You’ll be lucky if your optimism isn’t completely eroded by the time you make your first independent record and discover how extremely hard it can be to get people to actually spend money on it. Perspective is everything, and nothing can whither your resolve quicker than gaining said perspective on your competition when MySpace offers you a good look at the 500,000+ people playing the same music you are and vying for the exact same position!

But I do have to almost begrudgingly admit that I prefer the chaos and freedom of the current trend to the focus and coldness of the former. What we have in this new music scene is a 100% free mass-market system with the Internet providing any and every musician the opportunity to bring their music to millions of potential fans. It is easy to think that the change in the scene has been more of a detriment to the record companies than it has to the music-makers themselves, but we must remind ourselves that the shift in strategy not only rests on the shoulders of EMI, Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner, but also down to the acoustic folk singer performing in your neighborhood coffee shop. The medium through which the music is reaching ears has changed, yes, but the revenue musicians garner is still going to come from the same place.

It comes from playing shows and selling your merchandise.

Even prior to the revolution, bands were making very little money from music sales. If they were lucky, after recouping costs from their record company, they could plan on receiving maybe five cents from every album sold. As you can imagine, a group would have to sell many records before being able to make a decent wage through their music and quit their day jobs at Border’s. These days, with file-sharing, CD burning, and other forms of musical piracy, making money off of album sales has become even harder. The fact remains for musicians:

The real money is in playing shows and selling your merchandise.

There is indeed a positive outcome for both the musician and the record company in all of this change, and it comes from access. Bands now have the ability to access millions of people online through social networking, and the record companies have access to thousands upon thousand of unsigned acts without having to dig through piles of unsolicited press kits clogging the paths of their already inundated mail system. For me, though, it is promising to see musicians from all walks of life and from all different realms of influence getting their music out to the people scouring the Internet for a sound they can identify with. It is also heartening to know that the thousands of Bruce Springsteens and millions of Taking Back Sundays out there now have the audience that, before this reform, would have been nearly impossible for them to reach.

The fans are there waiting. Musicians have only to type “Hello” and click “Send”…