Series of Blogs on Musical Artists Income Streams
Please read all of them (long) and comment.
https://musicindustryblog.wordpress.com/tag/artist-income/
42 Revenue Streams
by the Future of Music Coalition
http://money.futureofmusic.org/40-revenue-streams/
I found the topic of the Music Industry’s 6:1 Ratio to be interesting. More importantly, I found that this recurring ratio was significant but understandable. Many great philosophers have decoded the way that psychology and nature mimic patterns (think Fibonacci’s Sequence or the Golden Ratio), and this can be found in music as well (Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, Mvt. 1).
Thus the application of a ratio to this behavioral (key term: behavioral/ psychological) only makes sense.
But that is not the only place that this ratio makes sense, as one must think of this “problem” from a business mindset. Why would someone pay for a service when they could reap the same benefits for free?
Of course, I’m alluding to the YouTube Freemium service upgrade, where the majority of the site’s audience is using the free version of YouTube. I suppose YouTube should also be given credit when we think about the issue of live shows and the turn out versus that of the digital music sales for an artist.
One key phrase I found to be well encompassing is: “The recorded work has become the advert for live [performance]”. This makes sense, as we can see artists like Beyoncé and Ariana Grande blowing up after they release their albums, and the effects this has on their ticket sales.
The only instance where this ratio does not make sense from a philosophic/ scientific sense is the ratio of 6:1 label income to artist revenue. This only makes sense when you look at this situation from the eyes of the label. They are providing a service to the artist and the artist (sometimes unknowingly) has signed up for a premium version of a service.
To read more about the golden ratio and how it is interpolated into business aesthetics, click here:
https://medium.com/@quick_brown_fox/why-the-golden-ratio-matters-583f6737c10c
One of the blogs on the first link speaks on how “playlists” are becoming “the” market for artists and that is where the revenue, if any, is to be made, from sheer exposure artist can have by having placement on a large playlist curator like A-List, RapCaviar, or any streaming services rotating playlists. These new algorithm methods have gave way to new growth for an artists, having the ability to start careers and take them beyond an audience where they couldn’t previously. This particularly happened with artists like 6lack who went from having roughly “‘6,000’” followers to “a million streams,” by the end of that week and “based on placement on iTunes of that song in Hot Tracks, he sold 10,000 units, independently, before he got signed.’” according to his manager Chery for his song “Prblems”. Before something like this would be near to impossible to do in such a short span, unless you had the budget to do a widespread campaign.
Having a outlet like these major blogs with so much potential energy that is of to no cost to the artist is yielding incredibly successful results. As can be seen with Kendrick Lamar’s “real first successful hit” as determined by this article, where having the recorded feature on RapCaviar and A-List made it the No.2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Lamar’s highest charting song to date according to Interscope representative Kelly.
It is clear that having a spotlight of such magnitude can be key for an artists breakthrough to mainstream success. To learn more about the effect sites and algorithms have impacted some artists in today’s market and more information on how it is playing a significant role in artist discovery:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.yahoo.com/amphtml/tech/meet-playlist-curators-minting-music-011539262.html
This article talks about the rise of live music and the drop of recorded music in the 2000’s, specifically in terms of compensation. It mentions how in 2000 recorded music was 53% of the market, now sitting at only 38%. Live music went from 33% to 43% by 2000. Though it does briefly mention how recently recorded music is starting to go back up. A point that stood out to me in a crazy number was how in live music, only about 29% of the revenue makes it to the artist themselves. ONLY 29%!! That is crazy considering there wouldn’t even BE a show if it wasn’t for them. They move on to talking about streaming in the now and how to help compensate artists for their hard work by implicating subscribers and paying for streaming which I 100% agree with.
This website mentions the way people are getting paid for streaming already by certain sites, which in my opinion still isn’t enough for all their hard work. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/01/16/streaming-music-services-pay-2018/
Something I found interesting about the first article is that it reiterated a lot of what we have talked about in class. Including, how the album is no longer THE market for artists, Steve Jobs Revenue Share Legacy, changing the course of the music industry forever with the invention of iTunes. Also, skewing the market to big tech companies, the invention of the new music industry.
What I learned the most was about how YouTube needs to reassess it’s relationship with content creators, specifically musicians. “YouTube is abusing it’s position of absolute power” The truth is folks have become accustom to listening to free music specifically on YouTube. What I took from the first article was that YouTube is seemingly taking advantage of musicians because they are being forced to upload their music on a platform where they are making little to no money.
I was able to find an article by thegaurdian that talks about how music labels are starting to fight back with YouTube to insure that artists are getting paid.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/15/music-industry-youtube-video-streaming-royalties
The Music Industry Blog included great breakdowns of music streaming and the impact it has on artists’ incomes. As discussed in class and in the blogs, streaming is not yet financially beneficial to musicians, instead most artists look to live performances to make most of their money. Something I found interesting was that one of the blogs provided examples of what can be done to help artists get more income from streaming, which include: better rates for artists; more ways for artists to monetize on streaming services (e.g. artist subscriptions, pay per view live streams and gigs); more artist-centric experiences. These are all great ways to increase an artist’s streaming income.
Also, I really enjoyed reading the “42 Revenue Streams” article, especially since I’ve only ever thought of the most basic ways an artist can make money (album/single sales and live performances.) There are truly many ways an artist can make money, ranging from ringtone revenue to digital performance royalties. After reading both articles, I became interested in learning if any changes have been made currently within the streaming market so that musicians are paid more. I came across the following article that discusses Spotify and a 5% increase in paid users in its third quarter. I found this interesting because if more consumers are willing to pay for music, Spotify and other streaming platforms may be willing to increase the royalties paid to artists: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/01/music-streaming-leader-spotify-reports-a-modest-rise-in-paid-users.html
Reading this first article was essentially a refresher from a lot that we have learned in class. I was already aware that streaming doesn’t help artists, financially, as much as we would like. I like how the article touched on streams in 2014 compared to now. With how quickly the times are changing, I would not be surprised if there are no free services by 2022. Just four years could make a huge difference in the way artists are paid or can make money.
The second article really helped me to understand the different ways I could potentially make money as an artist. I do not comprehend nearly all of the streams of revenue available to me, but this article definitely cleared my head of a bit of fog. Previous to reading this article, I had the predisposition that CD’s, merchandise, and signing to a label were the main ways to make money.
Both articles make the point that musicians are making most of their money nowadays from touring and doing live shows, rather than selling albums/songs. Most artists put out albums, either physical or on streaming platforms, to promote upcoming tours, rather than touring to promote albums. I found an article that discusses all of the ways artists make their money that have nothing to do with putting out music. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/nine-ways-musicians-actually-make-money-today-159937/t-shirts-and-merch-168968/
This is the reason Chance the Rapper is successful. So what if he doesn’t make money from steams, he gets to keep almost all of his money made from live shows and merch sales. He’s a great musician and a great performer and he’s proving that that’s what you need to be successful in the music business. I wonder how long it’ll take for everyone to follow in his footsteps.
Here’s an article describing Chance’s process in more detail:
https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/what-distinguishes-chance-the-rapper-from-other-hip-hop-artists
The shift in the music industry has been so dramatic over the years thanks to the innovations from the tech industry. It seems now that using curated services has become a way for music to be delivered to the listener. With many of the revenue still being lost in the online shuffle, the consumer really goes for what may be the easiest and the digital providers seem to continue cutting out the artist via royalties.
As a market we’ve shifted from having physical products to actually having a non-tangible item to listen to. This shift is a new trend where ownership is more of a fluid concept than having a vinyl record in your hands.
The biggest takeaway quote in my opinion was: “Experience is the product”. Imagine this: elaborate dynamic lighting and laser displays, amazing visuals effects, an immersive complex sound system, waves of people all around you, and everything moving in synch with the music… doesn’t that sound like an amazing sounding experience already (Tomorrowland, EDC, Ultra, etc)? Big acts, big crowds, bigger income and the age group being catered to, 18-34 age range, happens to also be the age group that most pays for music and craves experiences rather than ownership of content. “ On average, a festival-goer will throw down $207 a year on music downloads, streaming and other live events. That may not sound like much, but it’s nearly twice what the average American spends on music. “That range also exhibits the most music festival attendance that fuels live music, not just for electronic tailored events such as what was listed above. I believe keeping the experience of the listener in mind and the further implications of how the artist would like their music to be experienced outside the studio is a key aspect of music production that is missing or at least under minded
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-at-coachella-brand-bands-20150413-story.html
The general sense among the two articles is that nowadays artists make a majority of their income in ways other than just selling music. The first article goes over a number of different things. For example, one post talks about the revenue in live music is rising. The main thing that stood out to me was in the post titled, “Note To Struggling Bands And Singers: Sorry But Most Of Your Fans Don’t Care.” That title really tells it all. We all know that people for some reason don’t generally see the value in buying music. That is the reason why streaming is so popular today. Why would they buy individual albums when they can have them all for a small monthly fee?
This article from 2015 talks about the death of music sales.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/buying-music-is-so-over/384790/
Although, streaming is the most popular form of fans listening to music, live music is where the most revenue comes from. The first article mentions that there would be a major positive impact on streaming revenue if music listeners found music to be worth paying for. I found this video on ” How to be a Responsible Fan in the Age of Spotify”.
https://youtu.be/OQT6UfvyGP8
While I found both of these articles to be interesting, the first article provided a lot of insight into the streaming aspect of the music industry. I felt that Future of Music Coalition article mainly restated what I already knew. I found the Music Industry blog fascinating, mainly because it pointed out that labels are not very creative or innovative when it comes to marketing their artists and generating an increase in income.
The author pointed out that a subscription type system for exclusive artist content would increase revenue. This is a brilliant idea as I know many people would buy into this, but it is almost always free on YouTube. While keeping it free could grow an artist’s fan base, offering an exclusive artist experience would not only increase revenue, but it would most likely convert fans into loyal fans. Who would want to give up on an artist when you have already invested a substantial amount of time and money?
This article also points out that the biggest problem with streaming services is that they are not consumer oriented. To me, this doesn’t make sense as most businesses are consumer oriented. That’s how you continue to make money off of customers, by producing more content that the customers are already buying.
I attached a link to an article from Music Ally titled “How would user-centric payouts affect the music-streaming world?” This article talks about how a new user-centric streaming model would affect the music industry. The article also mentions how most musicians want a user-centric streaming model.
https://musically.com/2018/03/02/user-centric-licensing-really-affect-streaming-payouts/
I found the first article more informative when it comes to how artists really make their revenue. It was able to break down the differences in the streaming & live. Lately I do here artist speaking on touring is when you make the money even J cole said it in one of his songs but to read in this article that the only recive about 29% from Live is very interesting but it make since they they throw out all this music for their fan base to keep up streaming numbers .
The second article I think that it would be very beneficial for our upcoming assignment and as well other pass assignments I found a lot of useful information.
This article I found ties more into the first article because it was the one I was more interested in http://blog.sonicbids.com/6-musician-revenue-streams-youre-probably-forgetting-about
The first article that I read discussed that that streaming is of today and not tomorrow so we should treat it that way. In some sense this is true, because getting revenue from these streams is super important and will help the artist gain more exposure. But from my understanding of the class, what brings the most revenue to the artist is live performances. And the article stated that was a thing of the past, but I believe it is actually shooting towards the future. Since now artists are more focused on streams and becoming more online, audiences tend to love to hear live performances and get more intimate with the artists. And as we are straying away towards online music and streams, the audience will continue to crave that intimacy of live performances. Here is an article going deeper into how live performances affect the audience:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/live-in-concert/201204/music-made-peak-perception%3famp
I read both articles and figured out that much has changed in the last 40 years involving revenue for artists and how they stay afloat. I started reading around the internet about the evolution of concerts and festivals and it came to me that these event have become commercialized (even beyond what a consumer might think is reasonable) because artists can’t survive with just digital streams and the limited physical copies they sell. The concert experience has had to have become so much more at the expense of artists’ music meaning less to us as we stream for almost no artist return/giveback. You can read more here:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/pete-mason/the-commercialization-of-_1_b_7873236.html
While reading further into the first article I truly didn’t realize how bad streaming is hurting artist revenue. The First article quote mentioned, “The problem with streaming services is that they inadvertently weaken music fans relationships with musical works.”. Which is, in the public’s eyes, hard to see figuring that we are only benefiting for streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. It becomes more evident that there are only a few alternatives that can bridge this large gap in the Music Industry that has recently hindered artist compensation.
Article two outlines different jobs that you can find in the Music Industry whether your background involves Education, Performance or Music Industry related qualities. A great tool to use for future references when looking into different career paths.
Here is an Article By Digital Music News outline what each streaming platform pays artists.
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/01/16/streaming-music-services-pay-2018/
The first article really caught my attention data wise about how while money comes from touring for music artists these days, 1% of artists run 68% of the industry, making it that much harder for anyone to reap anywhere near the top 1 percent’s revenue. It also spoke of using streams continuously to engage fans and get bigger tours but that puts a lot of pressure on artists to constantly produce music. While he tides are turning streaming wise and the money is growing in that sector of music retail, there’s still more growth to happen and more money to be made.
Here’s an article speaking on ways for artists to reap as much as possible from their music productions:
https://blog.landr.com/8-totally-overlooked-ways-get-paid-music/
The post about playlists was very agreeable with. Younger people are showing a trend in decreased attention span and therefore it’s easy to see how people would rather compile songs of their choice in one playlist and use that as their go-to than listen through a whole album. By selecting songs that they enjoy the most, songs that standout to them, and having a variety of artists in one playlist, they create a listening experience that keeps them interested and features only what they want to hear the most. Playlists get rid of listening through “filler” tracks on an album to get to the best parts by having the best parts of every album or artist playing in succession. This changes how artists should release their music and explains why some may have many singles and music videos featuring songs from one album or EP . A real life example would be how my band Postcards from the Moon went about creating our upcoming release. Every song on the EP has a different vibe to it and were all recorded with the same amount of attention to detail for every song. Not only was done to ensure that every song appeals everyone differently, but it also has the intention of giving every song the characteristics of a single. One song may fit in a softer, sensual playlist, another may fit in a louder, upbeat playlist. All five songs were given music videos. This ensures that in the time leading up to the full release there is an steady flow of content to keep listeners’ attention and attract new followers. A flow of content keeps your name on the map and search results, and allows listeners with shorter attention spans to obtain an experience from one song alone in a playlist of many.
This article only strengthened my perspective that the music business today is not as much about music as it is about business. I don’t mean to be facetious, but it seems to me that this talk about how to get these different labels, tech giants, and streaming services to develop ways for royalties to be paid to those who have it coming is just talk. Moreover, just getting them paid is not enough. More must be done to get the compensation quotient properly balanced. As for the different models I observed in the article, I feel that the User Centric model more closely represents how artists, producers, performers, and license holders could receive the fairest share for their work. When it comes to the artists, I still believe that live performance is the way to go, because in this area of music business the trade-off is mutual. The fans pay for their ticket and the band gives them the experience they paid for (something you can’t achieve no matter how big a screen you have). Another thing that gets my goat, is the use of the word “fans” in these articles. The word “user” is more appropriate when referring to many of the folks streaming music and free services. A fan has no problem paying to hear or see their favorite acts and takes pride in owning physical tangible items that represent their appreciation for the music and the people who created it. I will end this post with some questions.
Why do these tech giants believe in the sanctity, and propriety of their intellectual property ( coding, algorithms, techniques, etc.) yet they don’t see the necessity to protect that of the artist?
In a world with an overwhelming consensus that utilization of new technologies, and the internet are the best ways to achieve success in the music business today, why can’t someone develop an algorithm that can get a paycheck, or EFT to an individual artist, when they should get it and wherever they are on the globe.
After all these years of technological advancements it has been an ongoing struggle and fight for an artist to get compensated correctly for their art. With all the new streaming platforms there are pros and cons to it. While the first article highlights an important pro which is that when streaming you are engaging with fans faster and making it easier for them to not only access the content but also making it more organized by simply being able to add an album to your phone, tablet or computer. You are not conformed to going out and being a CD or vinyl. I found interesting that every recording has two copyrights to it which I was unaware of. Both the lyricist and singer have copyrights to the song which is explained in the second article. I found another article that talks more about streaming services such as Spotify and how they are growing our labels. You can find it here: https://musicindustryblog.wordpress.com/2018/10/26/spotify-may-already-be-too-big-for-the-labels-to-stop-it-competing-with-them/
With streaming becoming the dominant way that people listen to music, profit from recorded music sales has gone down immensely. Though this has been something that industries and artists have been concerned about and have made efforts to go toward a more profitable direction with streaming, this is the way that the future is headed; away from physical copies of recorded music. The real money maker in the industry as of right now is sponsorship, live music, branding and merchandise.
Live music has gone up in revenue in recent years, as reported by Live Nation. Live nation has increased ticket prices as well as number of fans which has driven this profit.
Streaming is what is happening now and should not be looked at as a negative thing. Streaming platforms create massive exposure as well as many opportunities for brand deals and sponsorships. Social media also provides sponsorships and brand deal opportunities that make up for record sales.
Here is an article that goes more into depth on how streaming has helped the industry: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/apr/24/weve-got-more-money-swirling-around-how-streaming-saved-the-music-industry
I agree with the first article when it talked about how artist can’t rely on just their music to make them money, but to rely more on their tours and business deals to provide money. With the music industry being so digitized and everyone living on the assumption that music is “free”, artist are getting the backlash for that. Live music and merchandise sales are whats driving the industry right now and many smaller artist are suffering because of it. The article stated that “In 2000, recorded music represented 53% of the global music industry, that share is now just 38% while live went from 33% to 43%”, showing how the industry is changing today in regards to how consumers take in there music.
In the article I found on the why we should stitch back to buying music rather than using streaming platforms, it goes into detail on many problems we face daily with streaming music.
Article: https://lifehacker.com/ditch-streaming-services-and-start-buying-music-again-1822835715