IN THIS POST:
- Spotify Charts
- Monetisation & Streaming Revenue Controversy
- Brexit for artists
- Coronavirus
- Women in the music industry
- Big 3
- BBFC age ratings
- Web 2.0
- Vinyl and cassette revival
- Monetising brands and merchandise
- Bauer close regional stations
- The Tidal and Soundcloud battle
- Imogen Heap - broken industry?
- Lana Del Rey tone-deaf comments
Spotify, the giant streaming service, has come out with its own list of charts. They will now be launching weekly top 50 lists for albums and songs. These include the US Weekly Album Chart, a Global Weekly Album Chart, a US Weekly Song Chart and a Global Weekly Song Chart. These weekly chart launches are seeing Spotify move into the territory currently occupied by Billboard/MRC, Rolling Stone/Alpha Data and Official Charts, however, these charts are only based on Spotify's numbers and not any other platform. Spotify is causing disruption as they are digitising the charts by converging it with the streaming service. Spotify's charts are now globalising non-American media, which is apparent in the Global Weekly Chart.
Billie Eilish came 7th on the Top 10 Artists of 2020 chart and 1st on the Top 10 Female Artists of 2020 chart.
MONETISATION & STREAMING REVENUE CONTROVERSY
On this website, you can figure out how much a stream is worth roughly, whether it is on YouTube, Spotify or many others. Billie Eilish's most streamed song on Spotify is Bad Guy (2019). It has 1,565,329,342 streams which is equivalent to roughly $6m.
YouTube hasn't openly said how much they pay per stream, however, after some research, this streaming royalty calculator appears to be the most realistic. Billie's most viewed YouTube video, the Bad Guy music video, has over 1 billion views (1,040,721,468). YouTube's royalties are a lot less than Spotify, so this is equivalent to roughly $2m.
Tidal is a Norwegian subscription-based music, podcast and video streaming service. Tidal was launched in 2014 by Norwegian public company Aspiro and is now owned by Project Panther Bidco (Jay Z). Tidal is under investigation after accusations of manipulating stream counts and royalty payments. The accusations were specifically about two albums, Beyoncé's Lemonade and Kanye West's Life of Pablo which in total allegedly added up to more than 320 million fake streams.
As recently as early last year, the music industry was just getting on with its thing. Artists, bands and orchestras were performing, touring and recording, while casually adding £2.9bn to the UK economy in 2019, an impressive 9 per cent up on the previous year. The prospect of leaving the European Union was looming but there was talk of a deal and musicians are always flagged up as such an important part of our heritage, envied throughout the world. Surely the politicians negotiating the deal wouldn’t sell us out.
Without visa-free tours of Europe, it will be economically impossible for many artists starting out. The music industry added £2.9B to the UK economy in 2019. Whilst the global pandemic brought the music industry to a halt in 2020, the implementation of Brexit on 1st January 2021 has only made the situation worse. Previously, artists from the UK could tour in 27 other European countries under the same rules as at home, but now it turns out that the UK rejected an offer of visa-free tours by musicians to EU countries. It's more than just getting a work visa, for tax reasons, every single piece of merchandise will have to be accounted for at every border crossing.
A 'standard' proposal to exempt performers from the huge cost and bureaucracy for 90 days was turned down because the government is insisting on denying that to EU artists visiting this country. From this month, UK musicians must, like non-EU artists, apply for visas - to visit for more than 30 days - as well as providing proof of savings and a sponsorship certificate from an event organiser.
Bigger artists who can put on stadium shows, like Billie Eilish, will survive, but anyone below that level will struggle to keep their head above the water. 
If the government withdraws their support, the live music industry could face losing 170,000 jobs. The live music industry contributed £4.5b to the UK economy in 2019
It found that revenue for the live music sector had plummeted to almost zero since March, while the drop of 81 per cent compared to 2019 is four times the national average.
Live music isn't the only area facing the effects of the Coronavirus, studios are being forced to close as well which caused a halt in the music industry in general.
(source)
A lot of artists have found the lockdown difficult but helpful for their creativeness and have written a lot or used the time to figure out how to produce their own music, or record it to send to a producer. Other people and groups have combatted the situation by having socially distanced rehearsals. In Canada, the Luminous Voices professional choir bring their cars to an empty parking lot and sing whilst hearing other voices through their car radio.
Newman's method uses a few simple tools — microphones, a mixer and an FM transmitter.
(source)
Music listening has soared during lockdown. The public rely on music for escapism and entertainment especially through the tough times of a global pandemic.
More than 155m albums were bought or streamed in 2020, an increase of 8.2%, according to record label body the BPI.
“You’re on a music video and the director goes, ‘I definitely think you need to wear a skirt’ – because someone wants to see, you know, ‘UK’s pop star in a cute outfit’,” Lipa said.
“I’m like, ‘Well, I’m going to wear trousers because it’s f***ing freezing.’ I know how to stand my ground and hold it down.”
In 2014, Kesha sued songwriter/producer Dr Luke for 'sexually, physically and verbally abusing her to the point where she nearly lost her life' which shone a light on the extreme exploitation in the music industry.
(source)
Women are representing less than one-third of all performers and 12.5% of songwriters across 800 songs, with women accounting for 2.6% of producers across 500 songs in January 2020. The Musicians' Union survey showed that almost half of their 31,000 members have faced harassment at work.
BIG 3
There are 3 major music groups, known as the big 3, which are dominating in the industry currently, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.
The Association of Independent Music (AIM) defines a 'major' as "a multinational company which (together with the companies in its group) has more than 5% of the world market(s) for the sale of records or music videos."
In 2014, AIM estimated that the majors had a collective global market share of some 65–70%.
Before 2012, there were 4 major music groups, which included Electronic and Music Industries (EMI). In 2012 & 2013, the major divisions of EMI were sold off separately. Most of EMI's recorded music division was absorbed into UMG. EMI Music Publishing was absorbed into Sony/ATV Music Publishing. EMI's Parlophone and Virgin Classics labels were absorbed into Warner Music Group.
In 2019, Universal Music Group had the US and Canada market share of 54.5%, Sony Music Entertainment had 23.4% and Warner Music Group had 12.1%.
In 2019, the big 3 music groups made $19m a day from streaming. In 2018, the big 3 music groups earned a combined total of $6.93b from streaming services, which was $1.6b more than what they earned the year before. This was the first significant resurgence in the music industry in two decades.
As the influence of streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music continues to grow, the domination of physical music sales has been erased in tandem. All three major record companies saw multimillion-dollar declines in sales of physical formats like CDs and cassettes in 2018 — with Sony, which has a suite of artists like Adele who outperform in physical sales, losing as much as a quarter-billion dollars in that category. Vinyl sales continued to be an outlier in the streaming-is-quashing-physical-records narrative, but their numbers were too small to offset the broader physical losses.
WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY?
Indie labels are the more minor music groups in the industry. Although they are often discarded, the indie labels have a combined larger market share than Universal.
The indie labels have a combined larger market share as Universal. We don’t have full 2018 numbers yet, but in 2016, the indies had a market share 1.6% higher than Universal. In 2017, that had shrunk to .1%. Still, the independent labels, as a group, are powerful. We tend to forget about them when talking about the Big 3.
Although less common, artists can still become big through being independent or signing to an indie label. Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas, self-distributed their first song together, Ocean Eyes on the famous streaming platform SoundCloud. This became a massive hit, and Billie has since signed to one of the big three conglomerates, Universal Music Group's subsidiary, Interscope Records. Arctic Monkeys had a similar start to their career, with using the internet as their distributor, which helped them gain recognition without the help of a label.
The BBFC is an independent, private, not-for-profit company which classifies films, video on all physical formats (DVD and Blu-ray Disc for example) and certain video games, advertisements and trailers. Since 2015, it also classifies, on a best practice voluntary basis, video content for distribution online, like music videos on YouTube and VEVO. The Big 3 and other UK independent labels have signed up for the BBFC classifications, however only the music videos produced in the UK will be classified, so international artists won't come under the same agreement. In 2015, out of the 132 videos submitted to the BBFC, 56 were rated 12 and 53 were classified 15. They are under no obligation to submit them to be rated.
With convergence and digitisation making everything accessible with the touch of a few buttons, these ratings are easy to get by, like most things on the internet, but the BBFC aren't trying to hide these videos from children, but make the rating known for parent's, so they can decide whether they will let their child view it. In 2015, the BBFC published research into public attitudes toward online age rating labels for music videos. These were the results:
- 70% of parents of under 12s are concerned about their children being exposed to inappropriate content in music videos.
- Up to 60% of children say they have seen content in online music videos of which their parents would disapprove.
- 78% of parents value age ratings for online music videos.
- Given the choice, 86% of parents would encourage/ensure their children watch online channels with clear age ratings.
- 75% of parents would like online channels to link music video age ratings to parental controls.
The age ratings were found in the description of the music videos on YouTube, however I can't seem to find them. The only one that appeared to have a rating was the Dizzee Rascal music video, Couple of Stacks, where you can only watch it if you have a YouTube account which states you're over 18.
Dizzee Rascal - Couple of Stacks The video for Dizzee Rascal's last single was graphic enough to earn an 18 rating. The BBFC cited the video's "strong bloody violence, gore [and] very strong language" in its ruling.
(source)
And for fans of music videos, the good news is that the move looks unlikely to curb creativity and fetter artistic freedom. “I don’t think [age rating] in anyway restricts creativity,” argues Hackett. “What is bad about making someone aware that the content of something their child is about to watch might not be appropriate? It allows them to make decisions as a parent, giving the viewing public more information.”
(source)
LOOPS MEDIA'S RESEARCH
WEB 2.0
- Wikipedia
- YouTube
In specific reference to the music industry, the artist releases the music (in audio format or video format), and the audience take ahold of this, and create their own content surrounding this. This is proposed to generate as much attention to the artists music as their released music. Examples of different fan contributed videos are:
- Lyric videos
- Animated recreations
- Artist compilations and fan edits
- Covers
- Reaction videos
- Other platform videos (TikTok videos)
- Video remakes
- Remixes
- Dance videos
- Song teasers
- Album teasers
- Fan compilations
- Several remixes
- Dance videos
- and more
VINYL AND CASSETTE REVIVAL
To cover the recent revival of both of the physical formats of media, it is important to address their history and years of popularity. Vinyl discs were popular throughout the 1900s, first rising to popularity in the 30s and 40s. Despite rising to popularity, they were originally a commercial 'flop', as consumers were hesitant during the great depression, and with a lack of playback equipment. Columbia Records and RCA Victor were dominating the industry for decades, fighting for control over the industry for years, known as the 'War of the Speeds'. On the right is a graph denoting music revenue from 1977 to 2017. Vinyl were clearly dominating before this time period as well. Vinyl sales peaked between 1977 and 1980, receiving just under $16b in revenue. After this period, it began to drop off with the introduction of competitors, with the key being cassette tapes.
Audiocassettes were introduced for home use in the 1960s, however were unsuccessful in comparison to Vinyl's dominance. In 1966, the first music albums released on the cassette format, with the first artists being Nina Simone, Earths Kitt and Johnny Mathis. In the mid 1970s, cassette decks were introduced to cars, replacing the previous 8 track players. This boosted their popularity, and in the 1980's, Cassette tapes began to dominate the industry. Another key reason being Sony's release of Walkman (a portable music player that revolutionised the way that people consumed music on the go.
MONETISING BRANDS AND MERCHANDISE
In the rock and metal genres, alcohol (specifically beer) is quite popular. In 1983, iron maiden released their own beer, named after that years single 'Trooper', and even set up a whole website for this product.
Here is a powerpoint on some of the more rare items of merchandise...
BAUER CLOSE REGIONAL STATIONS
LINK
In August of 2020, Bauer (a UK-based radio division) shut down many local, regional radio stations, in an attempt to bring in more listeners, advertisement and revenue through forming a large, national station named 'Greatest Hits Radio'. It will follow a slighter more nostalgic root than most other popular radio stations across the UK, in an attempt to attract a wide audience. Many critics are 'outraged' by this decision.
“This is an act of breathtaking cultural vandalism from a company which has been busily acquiring local stations unchecked by regulators or government,” said the former Labour MP John Grogan, who campaigned on the issue while in parliament. “Many of these local radio stations are heavily involved in community activities and provide news bulletins to a young audience which other outlets find it hard to reach.”
John Grogan feels it is an act of vandalism, as stripping local towns and cities from local radio stations will have a negative affect. Yorkshire Coast radio revolves around updating the town on life in Yorkshire, creating relatable content, creating the sense of relatability, with call-ins being very common on the show. Workers at these local stations will lose their work.
It is clear that the audience attempting to be reached my 'Greatest Hits Radio' is similar to the wide audience of local stations, however it loses its sense of relatability. It bares the question, where does this leave local stations. Radio is becoming increasingly digitised, with Beats Radio being a clear example, however that is less likely to be accessed by the older audience. Much like all media industries, the industry is less likely to perform as well without the competing indie companies, with a monopolised industry restricting the audience to the content available. Bauer are likely to make more revenue from creating a larger scale station, but not without upsetting many villages in the process.
The most recent Rajar audience figures show Yorkshire Coast Radio was listened to by 43% of the local population every week and a large number of local advertisers, but with just 113,000 adults in its catchment area, the potential for big profits was always going to be limited.
The most recent Rajar audience figures show Yorkshire Coast Radio was listened to by 43% of the local population every week and a large number of local advertisers, but with just 113,000 adults in its catchment area, the potential for big profits was always going to be limited.
THE TIDAL AND SOUNDCLOUD BATTLE
LINK
Both Tidal and Soundcloud are popular music streaming platforms. Tidal, best known for being owned by Jay-Z, was formed in 2014. Soundcloud, best known for being the 'start up' website for many music artists, was formed in 2007. In recent years, Tidal and Soundcloud have been on a very similar level, with Tidal's 2019 revenue being $166.9m. This was a 13% rise from the year before, however 2018 saw a 26% rise from the year before. With Tidal's revenue slowly in progress, it meant Soundcloud could accelerate their revenue, catching up heavy ground to Tidal in 2019, with their revenue being $166m. This was a 37% increase from the year before. The year prior to this (2018), Tidal were $20m ahead.
Overall, Soundcloud's 2019 was ultimately significantly more progressive than Tidal's, as they ended with a much higher profit, due to their losses being half of Tidal's. Although 2020 figures are yet to have been releases, it is a safe bet to assume that Tidal have fallen behind Soundcloud.
UPDATE:
Soundcloud have released 2020 annual revenue, exceeding $200m for the first time. (source)
IMOGEN HEAP - BROKEN INDUSTRY?
LINK
I couldn’t live with myself if I continued to work in an industry that was hostile for music makers, so I came up with a solution to end the woes of artists around the world
Imogen Heap, a popular musician, most famous for 'Hide & Seek', is an electronic/dance music artist, from Essex. She has recently released a statement on the treatment of artists in the music industry, arising her own solution from this. Here proposal is this:
I’ve been talking about, writing about, soliciting feedback about and pouring any spare cash I have into what I feel is the solution to all of these woes. I call it “The Creative Passport”.
The Creative Passport is a verified digital ID for music makers, allowing them to update, manage and control all information about themselves and their works from one place. No more multiple profiles to keep updated, and passwords to remember; and no more identity scams and verification due diligence for music services. A new music services digital marketplace can thrive, bringing fresh income streams to music creators and the music ecosystem.
Musicians are becoming extremely unhappy with the large control over the music industry, stating the record label controls everything, including revenue, social image and distribution. This leaves the artists isolated amongst millions of different opinions and press statements. The lack of input from artists is harming their image, and overall, creating an industry that surrounds the wrong expectations from society. The 'creative password' is proposed to give artists the option of presenting their own image in the way they intend to. She emailed every artist she had every worked with, optimistically asking them to believe her website and prospect.
The Creative Passport is a verified digital ID for music makers, allowing them to update, manage and control all information about themselves and their works from one place. No more multiple profiles to keep updated, and passwords to remember; and no more identity scams and verification due diligence for music services. A new music services digital marketplace can thrive, bringing fresh income streams to music creators and the music ecosystem.
Musicians are becoming extremely unhappy with the large control over the music industry, stating the record label controls everything, including revenue, social image and distribution. This leaves the artists isolated amongst millions of different opinions and press statements. The lack of input from artists is harming their image, and overall, creating an industry that surrounds the wrong expectations from society. The 'creative password' is proposed to give artists the option of presenting their own image in the way they intend to. She emailed every artist she had every worked with, optimistically asking them to believe her website and prospect.
LANA DEL REY TONE-DEAF COMMENTS?
LINK
She wrote in part: “Now that Doja Cat, Ariana [Grande], Camila [Cabello], Cardi B, Kehlani and Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé have had number ones with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, f***ing, cheating etc – can I please go back to singing about being embodied, feeling beautiful by being in love even if the relationship is not perfect, or dancing for money – or whatever I want – without being crucified or saying that I’m glamourising abuse??????”On Instagram, Lana Del Rey released this statement, in hopes of clearing herself from all the hate she had been receiving over her harsh representations in her music videos. In the process, she ended up receiving more negative comments than positive, with a lot of other 'influencers' disagreeing with her opinion. Model, Tess Holiday, said, "I'm disappointed", while general comments included throwing around the 'tone-deaf'. Other comments believe there was an aspect of racism in this comment, with one comment stating:
“The women you mentioned are all but one women of colour, black and brown women are not the reason for the negative criticism in the music industry,” someone else commented in part.
“The success of those women have NOTHING to do with you... they’re not even in the same genre as you, why even mention them?”
Another comment:
“The success of those women have NOTHING to do with you... they’re not even in the same genre as you, why even mention them?”
“Come on, you should know better. You could’ve gotten your entire point across without dragging those other women by name. Be mad at the game not the other players. Disappointing.”
Although I feel Lana Del Rey should be allowed to create her music videos, as they have a strong yet impactful effect on educating her fans, I agree with this last statement. Her 'calling out' these other artists seems as though it is an unnecessary attempt to cause to attention.
Overall, this comment was Lana's attempt to repair her image, and for the internet to fully understand her vision when creating her abstract videos, however caused backlash, leaving her comments section with more preconceived opinions.
She added: "The singers I mentioned are my favourite singers so if you want to try and make a bone to pick out of that, like you always do be my guest.
"It doesn't change the fact that I haven't had the same opportunity to express what I wanted to express without being completely decimated.
"If you want to say that that has something to do with race that's your opinion but that's not what I was saying."
