A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away... The route to success in the music industry was pretty clear - Make music. Get good at it. Get out there. Get a following. Record something. Get interest. And repeat - It was all very simple. We all knew where we were, life was good.
That galaxy was not actually that far away or that long ago, five years in fact. But the musical landscape has changed so much in that time, it may as well have been on the moons of Endor.
Since then there has been a seismic shift in the tectonic plates of music, not once, not twice, but thrice. The changes are coming so thick and fast that not even the record labels or the best of PR agencies can keep up with the changing trends or predict where we will all be in twelve months time. There are a lot of people right now, very very worried.
When I started writing back in 2012 the move away from the album had begun in favour of the EP. Clearly anything longer than five tracks had become unpalatable for the folk of 2013. So new lines were drawn and everyone started making EPs. Everyone was happy again.
But no, wait!!! We had barely cleared up the confetti and empty champagne bottles to mark the arrival of 2014 and our patience had become so thin that the consumption of twenty minutes of our busy lives was simply too long - We could watch half an episode of Game Of Thrones... If we forwarded through the boring bits.
We needed a quicker fix, something that we could indulge in for a few short moments. The trusty single track had become the ruling currency of the land, the Woolworths special, the three minute thrill and, slightly worryingly, the one hit wonder.
So here we are in 2015 and nothing has changed since, right? Oh my lordy, has it ever, and you probably have not even noticed.
I was recently at an industry event with all the movers and shakers, and it was clear that those at the heart of the industry are trying desperately to catch-up and monetize the shift towards music streaming. In the past six months our consumption has changed wildly and we are now streaming more music than we are buying. Yes folks, we have become an on-demand world, even searching through your iPod has become a chore.
Streams now count towards the music charts, where five streams constitute as one purchase. This is of major significance moving forward. Forget Napster, this is bigger, we have a revolution happening before our eyes, so much so that even the mighty Apple, who usually set the trends rather than chasing them, are rushing to launch their own streaming platform Apple Music, arguably before it is even ready.
It is not inconceivable that come 2016 new music will no longer be sold via iTunes or at HMV, it will be stream-only. All it will take is one major label to take this path and the entire industry will literally be turned on it's head.
So what does this all mean? Why does it matter how we are consuming our music?
Well speaking as someone who lives in this crazy world, it changes absolutely everything. Streaming opens so many possibilities - An infinite supply of music for free or for the fraction of a download - That to stay on top you need a much larger sample size to increase your probability of return. This means that the machine needs to consume much more raw material.
Back on Endor, things historically ran on a yearly cycle. Artists getting the push would be introduced at the end of a calendar year, they would be in your face for all of the next and then pushed to one side to make way for the next wave. Just cast your mind back, Adele, Jessie J, Emile Sande, it ran like clockwork. But that refresh has gone from yearly, to half yearly, to quarterly, just to feed our impatience. Read the music press, watch your favourite music channel or listen to BBC Introducing - Which is no longer just for the unsigned and undiscovered by the way, a lot of acts who come through this have major label support - The changing of the guard is happening faster and faster and faster. And that as an artist, is very bad news.
Just in three short years I have seen the change. New artists are not being given the necessary gestation period to enable sustainable growth. Not just in popularity, but in stature. Everyone needs time to develop their sound, hone their skills, master their art, these are basic building blocks to success. But young artists are being taken from seed and thrown to the birds far, far too early. They are given their moment in the sun, but before you know it the heat has ended, the spotlight moves on and they are thrown onto the pile with very little to show for it. I cannot imagine how this must feel for a young person barely out of their teens. It is simply not right.
So how can we change this? How can we get back to the old fashioned values where we grow and nurture talent organically and retain them? I'm sad to say we probably can't. The music universe has changed irreversibly and what the future will bring is increasingly uncertain. If my fellow ginger East-Anglian warbler Ed Sheeran released his debut 'A-Team' tomorrow, would it get the solid 12-18 months of radio play that it received from 2011? I very much doubt it. The trigger point was around 2011 and there has been a chain reaction ever since. Unless you had your foot in the door around then your chances of having a long and fruitful career have become significantly less likely.
We may have seen the last of the global superstar who commands music for years. Not because the lights are shining less brightly but because it is simply not what we want any more. We want the mixtape, all your favourite songs recorded onto a trusted C90 and scribbled on in biro.
Marty McFly had one of these. It is ironic that in the year of Back To The Future that these ideologies have changed the future of music.