Meet The Man Who Live Streamed The First Concert With Ben Harper

Today, we take music streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music and Soundcloud for granted, despite their relatively new existence. The growth of digital consumption over the past decade has far exceeded any other period in the music distribution timeline. We decided to take a closer look at how music streaming services came to fruition, beginning with the very first platforms. One such platform was Virgin Jamcast, founded by Scott Roulet in partnership with Virgin Entertainment.

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In Today's Music Industry, Streaming Is Everything (Almost)

BuzzAngle’s midyear report on the music industry was released last month, revealing some pleasant (& not so pleasant) surprises concerning music, the way that it’s listened to, and the revenue it generates.

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On-Demand Music Content Now Stands At The Center Of US Recording Industry

While some artists see streaming as a thorn in the marketing side of music business, the recording industry itself can look at it as its future and saving grace.

Indeed, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the country’s recording industry made more money last year at $7.026 billion from just $6.951 billion in 2014. The 0.09 percent increase was brought about mostly by sales coming from music streaming across various platforms such as Spotify, Tidal, Pandora, and iTunes.

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Spotify: The Music Industry’s Life Support?

Recording Academy president Neil Portnow, does not believe that Spotify is out for anyone, but themselves. On Grammy night Portnow took to the stage to aim shots at music streaming services for making less-than lucrative deals with artists and musicians. Neil Portnow said, “Isn’t a song worth more then a penny?”

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Spotify Remains King, But Until When?

Spotify’s acquisition of Irish startup Soundwave just goes to show that it remains the ringleader of the music streaming niche. The company is fast-expanding amid the growing competition in the sector, seemingly leaving competitors Tidal, Rdio, and Pandora behind its shadows.

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Free Streaming - A Musician's Saving Grace

The topic of free music on the internet has been a point of discussion since the late 90’s, and with how much the industry and culture as a whole has evolved with technological progress, the conversation has changed a reasonable amount. In 2015, we have somewhat of a mediary with streaming services that don’t allow downloads, but let the music be listened to for free. While the debate can go back and forth between the opinion that artists shouldn’t care to the claim that streaming does nothing for an artist financially, I’m here to defend the thought that maybe it actually does. 

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Nielsen's Music 360 Report

By Spencer Ritchie from Berklee’s Music Business Journal, thembj.org. 

Nielsen recently published its annual Music 360 Report, detailing consumer spending in music, especially subscription services. According to Nielsen, the appetite for music in the United States is high. Apparently, 91% of the US population is listening up to 24 hours of music a week, a much larger number than reported for similar surveys in the 1990s.

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5 Ways To Integrate Playlisting Into Your Digital Marketing Campaign

 So you have a new track and you’re ready to release it. Great work! What’s your game plan?

There are many marketing avenues for you to map out before you’re ready to release, and each one is just as important as the next. In fact, it’s the decisions you make right now that will either launch your career to new heights, or simply simmer away into obscurity.

Out of the many avenues you are strategizing when it comes to launching your song, one you must consider spending some time on is the phenomenon of Playlisting - which simply refers to a list of songs compiled to represent a certain mood, genre, or event. Playlists are how music fans are discovering most of their new music these days, thanks to the current boom of streaming services like Spotify, Rdio, Deezer, Songza, and Pandora. In fact, Spotify users find, on average, 26 new artists a month through the platform. That’s pretty cool.

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Spotify's Clout

By Spencer Ritchie from Berklee’s Music Business Journal, thembj.org.

In the last four months three new streaming platforms were launched: Apple Music, Tidal, and Google Play Music. Others, among them YouTube, Deezer, and Rdio, still compete for market share. The Freemium camp, with Spotify, Google Play Music, and Pandora, collects revenue from advertising & subscriptions. The Premium camp, with Apple Music and Tidal, produces receipts exclusively from paid memberships. Spotify is the very embodiment of Freemium, and the release of Apple Music will undoubtedly be a big challenge—coming, as it does, from the largest company in the world, with a remarkable market cap of more than $700 billion.

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It's Time To Rethink Everything

As many of you who normally read my blog post know that I do not support the music-streaming model that is currently being used. I believe that streaming in the current business model is not sustainable revenue for the music industry. To date there hasn’t been any music streaming service that has yet made a profit. It’s easy math here, the record labels and artists spend big time dollars to produce, market, and distribute music. In turn they receive pennies to the dollar, this seems like a no brainer. No wonder why music-streaming services have not made a dollar.

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Value Added Streaming

The internet-fueled debate about the pros and cons of Spotify went another round last week, with contributions by David Byrne, Dave Allen, Jay Frank, Bob Lefsetz and Fast Company. I read them all, as I’ve done with the previous public debates about whether Spotify is a good or bad thing for musicians. As an indie record label owner and a long-time advocate for musicians through the Future of Music Coalition, I care deeply about these debates and, more importantly, about ensuring musicians and songwriters are fairly compensated for their work.

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The Artist Side of Internet Radio and Audio

Our digital age has not made it easier for indie artists to get exposure; it’s only created more options to consider for reaching that end.

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Thom Yorke vs. Spotify: Rebel Without a Plan

More subscribers, more problems. As Spotify continues to grow, in both users and catalog, so do its detractors. Thom Yorke and producer Nigel Godrich recently took a stand against the streaming music service, citing that it’s “horrible for new artists.” 

We’ve seen this before.  The Black Keys recently refused to put their newest album “El Camino” on Spotify citing its detraction from album sales.  

There’s a common thread here.  Only established bands who have already made their money are the ones taking the stand against streaming music.  New and upcoming bands are more willing to cast a big net to get ears to their music. It’s been proven time and time again that artists make more money off touring than album sales, so why not do everything you can to maximize your exposure to potential new ticket buyers?  

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Streaming: What Netflix Can Teach The Music Industry

It has become commonplace to hear artists, management, agents and labels complain about how streaming will crush the music industry.  This same mentality arose during the transition into the CD and digital downloading eras.  Don’t fear the numerous myths that have saturated our industry, streaming is not evil; merely different.  And it is about to become the next powerhouse, quite possibly changing music distribution in a way never seen before.  This transformation has already commenced in television and film.  The music industry has fallen behind, but is quickly catching up with vengeance. 

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