Tag Archives: #streaming

State of the Music Industry…

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Depending on your perspective, the music industry is in fine health. 2023 saw a record year for sales (physical, digital and streaming), and touring artists are generating more income from ticket sales and merchandising than the GDPs of many countries. Even vinyl records, CDs and cassettes are achieving better sales than in recent years!

On the other hand, only a small number of musicians are making huge bucks from touring; while smaller venues are closing down, meaning fewer opportunities for artists to perform.

And despite the growth in streaming, relatively few musicians are minting it from these subscription-based services, that typically pay very little in royalties to the vast majority of artists. (In fact, some content can be zero-rated unless it achieves a minimum number of plays.)

Aside from the impact of streaming services, there are two other related challenges that exercise the music industry: the growing use of Artificial Intelligence, and the need for musicians to be recognised and compensated more fairly for their work and their Intellectual Property.

With AI, a key issue is whether the software developers are being sufficiently transparent about the content sources used to train their models, and whether the authors and rights owners are being fairly recompensed in return for the use of their IP. Then there are questions of artistic “creativity”, authorial ownership, authenticity, fakes and passing-off when we are presented with AI-generated music. Generative music software has been around for some time, and anyone with a smart phone or laptop can access millions of tools and samples to compose, assemble and record their own music – and many people do just that, given the thousands of new songs that are being uploaded every day. Now, with the likes of Suno, it’s possible to “create” a 2-minute song (complete with lyrics) from just a short text prompt. Rolling Stone magazine recently did just that, and the result was both astonishing and dispiriting.

I played around with Suno myself (using the free version), and the brief prompt I submitted returned these two tracks, called “Midnight Shadows”:

Version 1

Version 2

The output is OK, not terrible, but displays very little in the way of compositional depth, melodic development, or harmonic structure. Both tracks sound as if a set of ready-made loops and samples had simply been cobbled together in the same key and tempo, and left to run for 2 minutes. Suno also generated two quite different compositions with lyrics, voiced by a male and a female singer/bot respectively. The lyrics were nonsensical attempts to verbally riff on the text prompt. The vocals sounded both disembodied (synthetic, auto-tuned and one-dimensional), and also exactly the sort of vocal stylings favoured by so many contemporary pop singers, and featured on karaoke talent shows like The Voice and Idol. As for Suno’s attempt to remix the tracks at my further prompting, the less said the better.

While content attribution can be addressed through IP rights and commercial licensing, the issue of “likeness” is harder to enforce. Artists can usually protect their image (and merchandising) against passing off, but can they protect the tone and timbre of their voice? A new law in Tennessee attempts to do just that, by protecting a singer’s a vocal likeness from unauthorised use. (I’m curious to know if this protection is going to be extended to Jimmy Page’s guitar sound and playing style, or an electronic musician’s computer processing and programming techniques?)

I follow a number of industry commentators who, very broadly speaking, represent the positive (Rob Abelow), negative (Damon Krukowski) and neutral (Shawn Reynaldo) stances on streaming, AI and musicians’ livelihood. For every positive opportunity that new technology presents, there is an equal (and sometimes greater) threat or challenge that musicians face. I was particularly struck by Shawn Reynaldo’s recent article on Rolling Stone’s Suno piece, entitled “A Music Industry That Doesn’t Sell Music”. The dystopian vision he presents is millions of consumers spending $10 a month to access music AI tools, so they can “create” and upload their content to streaming services, in the hope of covering their subscription fees….. Sounds ghastly, if you ask me.

Add to the mix the demise of music publications (for which AI and streaming are also to blame…), and it’s easy to see how the landscape for discovering, exploring and engaging with music has become highly concentrated via streaming platforms and their recommender engines (plus marketing budgets spent on behalf of major artists). In the 1970s and 1980s, I would hear about new music from the radio (John Peel), TV (OGWT, The Tube, Revolver, So It Goes, Something Else), the print weeklies (NME, Sounds, Melody Maker), as well as word of mouth from friends, and by going to see live music and turning up early enough to watch the support acts. Now, most of my music information comes from the few remaining print magazines such as Mojo and Uncut (which largely focus on legacy acts), The Wire (but probably too esoteric for its own good), and Electronic Sound (mainly because that’s the genre that most interests me); plus Bandcamp, BBC Radio 6’s “Freak Zone”, Twitter, and newsletters from artists, labels and retailers. The overall consequence of streaming and up/downloading is that there is too much music to listen to (but how much of it is worth the effort?), and multiple invitations to “follow”, “like”, “subscribe” and “sign up” for direct content (but again, how much of it is worth the effort?). For better or worse, the music media at least provided an editorial filter to help address quality vs quantity (even if much of it ended up being quite tribal).

In the past, the music industry operated as a network of vertically integrated businesses: they sourced the musical talent, they managed the recording, manufacturing and distribution of the content (including the hardware on which to play it), and they ran publishing and licensing divisions. When done well, this meant careful curation, the exercise of quality control, and a willingness to invest in nurturing new artists for several albums and for the duration of their career. But at times, record companies have self-sabotaged, by engaging in format wars (e.g., over CD, DCC and MiniDisc standards), by denying the existence of on-line and streaming platforms (until Apple and Spotify came along), and by becoming so bloated that by the mid-1980s, the major labels had to merge and consolidate to survive – largely because they almost abandoned the sustainable development of new talent. They also ignored their lucrative back catalogues, until specialist and independent labels and curators showed them how to do it properly. Now, they risk overloading the reissue market, because they lack proper curation and quality control.

The music industry really only does three things:

1) A&R (sourcing and developing new talent)

2) Marketing (promotion, media and public relations)

3) Distribution & Licensing (commercialisation).

Now, #1 and #2 have largely been outsourced to social media platforms (and inevitably, to AI and recommender algorithms), and #3 is going to be outsourced to web3 (micro-payments for streaming subscriptions, distribution of NFTs, and licensing via smart contracts). Whether we like it or not, and taking their lead from Apple and Spotify, the music businesses of the future will increasingly resemble tech companies. The problem is, tech rarely understands content from the perspective of aesthetics – so expect to hear increasingly bland AI-generated music from avatars and bots that only exist in the metaverse.

Meanwhile, I go to as many live gigs as I can justify, and brace my wallet for the next edition of Record Store Day later this month…

Next week: Reclaim The Night

 

 

 

Defunct apps and tech projects

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In the early days of this blog, I featured many new tech projects and start-ups that I came across by attending pitch nights and meet-ups in Melbourne. I also signed up to beta test numerous apps, and I contributed to quite a few crowd-funding exercises. In doing some research for a recent blog on music streaming, I realised that many of these ventures are no longer with us.

Here’s a random selection of projects and products that I either used, subscribed to, funded, or covered in my blog:

1. Klout – launched in 2008, this app used data from social media profiles to create individual “Klout Scores”, designed to calculate how “influential” your content was. Nice idea, but there was probably no money in the business model, because as far as I can recall, it was a free service. It was purchased in 2014 for $200m by the company that eventually became Khoros, who then closed Klout in 2018, as it was not seen as core business. Khoros itself is a customer engagement, social media and content management solution for corporate clients and consumer brands – obviously, there is more money to be made from capitalising on customer behaviour…

2. Do.com – founded in 2014 as a productivity tool, focused on making meetings more efficient. Acquired by Amazon Web Services (amount undisclosed) and folded into its Chime web-meeting and conferencing application. From my personal experience, the only company using Chime for external-facing calls is Amazon itself, but perhaps it’s more of a white label solution, or it’s mainly used by internal teams to communicate among themselves (especially if these teams are using AWS?).

3. Paper.li – launched in 2010, and grew to 2 million users within 6 months, this was a neat product that enabled users to curate their own “newspapers” from Twitter and other online content. Closed in April 2023 – probably too much noise and competition in this space, and too hard to monetise?

4. Pandora – one of the earliest internet radio and music streaming services, Pandora launched in 2000 – and as recently as 2019, had a market valuation of US$3.5bn, based on a stock acquisition by SiriusXM. But by 2017, Pandora had already decided to exit the Australian market, so I have no idea about the current content or service quality.

5. Twitter Music – as featured in my previous blog, this “service” was launched in 2013, and closed within a year. But watch this space – since re-branding his new toy as “X”, not only has Elon Musk taken back the @X handle from a Twitter user, he’s also just claimed @Music from another customer.

6. 8tracks – another early-ish player in the internet radio and music streaming service (launched in 2008), 8tracks is primarily a social media app that allows users to share their favourite playlists. Despite industry accolades, and various integrations with Android, Windows and Soundcloud, 8tracks ran into problems, including a copyright and licensing issue which meant it could no longer stream music outside of the US and Canada (instead, having to rely on content from YouTube). In 2019, the company announced it was shutting down. Then, in early 2020, the brand was relaunched under new ownership, but is only available in the USA.

7. Sensel Morph – this tech business began life as a Kickstarter project in 2015. The product was a touch-sensitive computer interface that allowed users to run various applications, such as graphic design, video editing, gaming, digital audio workstations, MIDI devices and coding (e.g., for Arduino and Raspberry Pi). Despite a successful funding campaign, the Morph devices did not start delivering until 2017 – and some of the promised features never appeared, or were scaled back (or support was dropped soon after development). In early 2022, Sensel announced it was discontinuing support for Morph – instead, the company is focused on providing touch-sensitive and pressure pad technology to third party developers and OEMs. I can’t help feeling that the Kickstarter campaign was really a way for Sensel to fund its early R&D (especially given the 2-year time line to deliver the first physical devices).

8. Swatchmate – a Melbourne-based startup, this optical device for scanning colours, surfaces and patterns had a big future when it launched in 2011. Aimed at designers, illustrators, printers, textile manufacturers and paint companies, initially, there appeared to be significant interest from major brands. Yet, within a few years, and following a name-change to Palette, the product (and the company behind it) have disappeared – although the device can in theory be ordered online. I suspect that as mobile phones’ own optical quality has improved (along with AI-trained apps to handle colour-matching), the standalone Swatchmate cube was doomed to failure.

9. Broadcastr – this was an interesting angle on audio content creation and curation. It was designed to bring location-based stories, travelogues and events to remote audiences and visitors via streaming. It only ran for 2 years (2011-13), and simply ran out of money, in the face of Soundcloud and the emerging podcast industry.

10. iTunes Ping – a cross between a social media platform and a playlist sharing app, this was Apple’s attempt to help fans discover/recommend new music, and for artists to engage with their fans. Launched in 2010, it survived for 2 years, before Apple decided to integrate iTunes within Facebook and Twitter…

11. MySpace – despite reaching its 20th birthday earlier this month, and after much hype and a one-time over-inflated price tag, MySpace has failed to deliver on so many counts. It’s a wonder how it has survived, although I’m not sure how “active” this former darling of social media actually is. Scrolling through it’s clunky UI, it’s easy to get the impression MySpace is nothing more than a digital scrapbook of a by-gone era, forever preserved in virtual aspic (and slowly decaying for lack of attention or maintenance). Nothing works on this platform, so it was interesting to see a recent fan message on Justin Timberlake’s page: “1.Get off TikTok. 2.Fix MySpace. 3.Launch App.”

12. Friends Reunited – finally, the OG of SoMe, which launched in 2000 (4 years before Facebook, 6 years before Twitter, 3 years before LinkedIn, 10 years before Instagram…). Designed to help people re-connect with their schoolmates, work colleagues, college friends and other community groups, it was actually more of a research resource, and ended up like a huge directory of your past associations. Gave up the ghost in 2016, just as TikTok was unleashed on the world (although I’m sure that was purely a coincidence).

Next week: Ballarat International Foto Biennale (BIFB)

More on Music Streaming

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A coda to my recent post on music streaming:

Despite the growth in Spotify‘s subscribers (and an apparent shift from free to paid-for services), it seams that the company still managed to make a loss. Over-paying for high-profile projects can’t have helped the balance sheet either….

Why is it so hard for Spotify to make money? In part, it’s because streaming has decimated the price point for content. This price erosion began with downloads, and has accelerated with streaming – premium subscribers don’t bother to think about how little they are paying for each time they stream a song, they have just got used to paying comparatively little for their music, wherever and whenever they want it. So they are not even having to leave their screen or device to consume content – whereas, in the past, fixed weekly budgets and the need to visit a bricks and mortar shop meant record buyers were probably more discerning about their choices.

Paradoxically, the reduced cost of music production (thanks to cheaper recording and distribution technology) means there is more music being released than ever before. But there is a built-in expectation that the consumer price must also come down – and of course, with so much available content, there has to be a law of diminishing returns – both in terms of quality, and the amount of new content subscribers can listen to. (It would be interesting to know how many different songs or artists the average Spotify subscriber streams.)

While some artists continue to be financially successful in the streaming age (albeit backed up by concert revenue and merchandising sales), it means there is an awfully long tail of content that is rarely or never heard. Even Spotify has to manage and shift that inventory somehow, so that means marketing budgets and customer acquisition costs have to grow accordingly (even though some of the promotion expenses can be offloaded on to artists and their labels).

Not only is streaming eroding content price points, in some cases, it is also at risk of eroding copyright. Recently it was disclosed that Twitter (now X) is being sued by music companies for breach of copyright.

You may recall that just over 10 years ago, a service called Twitter Music was launched with much anticipation (if not much fanfare…). Interestingly, part of the idea was that Twitter Music users could “integrate” their Spotify, iTunes or Rdio (who…?) accounts. It was also seen as a way for artists to engage more directly with their audience, and enable fans to discover new music. Less than a year later, Twitter pulled the plug.

One conclusion from all of this is that often, even successful tech companies don’t really understand content. The classic case study in this area is probably Microsoft and Encarta, but you could include Kodak and KODAKOne – by contrast, I would cite News Corp and MySpace (successful content business fails to understand tech). I suppose Netflix (which started as a mail-order DVD rental business) is an example of a tech business (it gained patents for its early subscription tech) that has managed to get content creation right – and its recent drive to shut down password sharing looks like it is paying dividends.

Of all its contemporaries, Apple is probably the most vertically integrated tech and content company – it manufactures the platform devices, manages streaming services, and even produces film and TV content (but not yet music?). In this context, I would say Google is a close second (devices, streaming, dominates on-line advertising, but does not produce original content), with Amazon someway behind (although it has had a patchy experience with devices, it has a reasonable handle on streaming and content creation).

All of which makes it somewhat surprising that Spotify is running at a loss?

Next week: Digital Identity – Wallets are the key?

 

 

Music streaming is so passé…

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Streaming services have changed the way we listen to music, and not just in the way the content is delivered (primarily via mobile devices), or the sheer number of songs available for our listening pleasure (whole catalogues at our fingertips).

These streaming platforms (which have been with us for more then 15 years) have also led to some more negative consequences: the deconstruction of albums into individual tracks (thereby undermining artists’ intention to present their work as a whole, rather than its component parts); shifting the relationship we have with our music collections from “ownership” to “renting”; paying paltry levels of streaming fees compared to royalties on physical sales and downloads; pushing suggested content via opaque algorithms and “recommender engines” rather than allowing listener self-discovery; squashing music into highly compressed audio formats, thus impairing the listening quality; and reducing album cover art work and design into tiny thumbnail images that don’t do justice to the original. (If you can’t appreciate the significance and importance of album art work, this forthcoming documentary may change your mind.)

Of course, streaming is not the only way to consume music – we still have vinyl, CDs and even cassettes in current production. (And let’s not forget radio!) Although optimistic numbers about the vinyl revival of recent years have to be put in the context of the streaming behemoths, there is no doubt that this antique format still has an important role to play, for new releases, the box-set and reissue industry, and the second-hand market.

For myself, I’ve largely given up on Spotify and Apple Music: with the former, I don’t think there is enough transparency on streaming fees (especially those paid to independent artists and for self-released recordings) or how more popular artists and their labels can pay to manipulate the algorithms, plus the “recommendations” are often out of kilter with my listening preferences; with the latter, geo-blocking often means music I am looking for is not available in Australia. (As I am writing, Spotify is playing a track which has been given the wrong title, proving that their curation and editorial quality is not perfect.)

Streaming can also be said to be responsible for a type of content narrowcasting – the more often a song is streamed (especially one that has been sponsored or heavily promoted by a record label) the more often it will appear in suggested playlists. Some recent analysis by Rob Abelow suggests that fewer than 10% of songs on the Spotify billion stream club were released before 2000. This may have something to do with listener demographics (e.g., digital natives), but it also suggests that songs only available as streams (i.e., no download or physical release), or songs heavily marketed by labels wanting to promote particular content to a specific audience, will come to dominate these platforms.

Further evidence of how streaming is skewed towards major artists is a recent post by Damon Krukowski, showing how independent musicians like him are being “encouraged” to be more like megstars such as Ed Sheeran. Never mind the quality of the music, just think about the “pre-saves” and “countdown pages” (tools which are not yet available to every artist on Spotify?).

I’ve been using both Bandcamp and Soundcloud for more than 10 years, to release my own music and to discover new content. I began with Soundcloud, but soon lost my enthusiasm because they kept changing their business model, and they enabled more popular artists to dominate the platform with “premium” services and pay-to-play fees that favour artists and labels with bigger marketing budgets. Whereas Bandcamp appears to be doing a better job of maintaining a more level playing field in regard to artist access, and a more natural way for fans to connect with artists they already know, and to discover new music they may be interested in.

But all of this simply means that streaming has possibly peaked, at least as an emerging format. The industry is facing a number of challenges. Quite apart from ongoing disputes about royalty payments and album integrity, streaming is going to be disrupted by new technologies and business models, thanks to blockchain, cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens. These startups are going to improve how artists are remunerated for their work, create better engagement between creators and their audiences, and provide for more transparent content discovery and recommendations. Elsewhere, the European Union is considering ways to preserve cultural diversity, promote economic sustainability within the music industry, remove the harmful effects of payola, make better use of content metadata for things like copyright, creativity and attribution, and provide clear labeling on content that has been created using tools like AI.

Just for the record, I’m not a huge fan of content quotas (a possible outcome from the EU proposals), but I would prefer to see better ways to discover new music, via broadcast and online media, which are not dependent on regimented Top 40 playlists, the restrictive formats of ubiquitous TV talent shows, or record label marketing budgets. Australia’s Radio National used to have a great platform for new and alternative music, called Sound Quality, but that came off air nearly 10 years ago, with nothing to replace it. Elsewhere, I tune into BBC Radio 6 Music’s Freak Zone – not all of it is new music, but there is more variety in each 2 hour programme than a week’s listening on most other radio stations.

Next week: More Cold War Nostalgia