Music In The Streaming Age
09/30/2020
Written by: Jade Zalevsky
Something often heard by the younger generation, such as myself, is "it's so cool that you all can listen to any music you want to hear, with the click of a button! In my day, we had to go to the record store", and then they proceed to ask you if you know what a record store is, and so on. Streaming has changed the way music is delivered to the consumer. It removed the record stores and physical copies from the equation and became a completely streamlined producer to consumer experience, especially in the social media world. Beside the obvious, which is that CDs and vinyls are virtually unneeded, how has streaming changed the music industry into what it is today, and the more important question, where is it going?
I've read a couple of interesting books and articles about streaming in 2020, most of which state that streaming was the best thing to happen in the music industry. However, there are some that fight back, saying that music was meant to be heard from a vinyl, not through headphones on your smart phone. I would have to agree with the streaming supporters (although the pops and scratches of a record are unmatched), from a business perspective, it makes more sense. When calculating how one CD sale equates to one stream, it would seem that CDs make more sense to sell, because one album CD sale equates to roughly 1,250 premium streams. However, the sheer volume of people that could be reached by social media promotion to stream an album, compared to advertising to a small amount of people without social media and trying to get them into the physical store to buy the album, is astronomical. It would allow for many more streams by each person, and if a single listener did enough streaming, would profit more than a one time purchase of a CD or vinyl. The potential to profit is bigger than ever before.
Along with reaching more listeners and profiting more, streaming has allowed for independent artists to be heard louder than ever before. Streaming services such as Spotify, SoundCloud, and Apple Music enable a small, just starting artist to grow a fanbase and release music before a record label even steps into the equation. It has never been easier to start an account on Youtube or put music out on the aforementioned platforms, and grab the attention of a label. With streaming, finding a plethora of talented artists with potential just became as easy as logging into your phone and tapping the play button.
We've seen how streaming plays a role in the artists' lives from the business perspective, but what about the fans who do all of the listening? Speaking as an avid fan of many talented people, I cannot fathom what life would be like without streaming. I grew up with CDs and MP3 players, but right around the middle of my teenage years is when streaming blew up, and now I stream music every single day. With streaming, listeners gain access to music, not just when a CD player is available to them, but wherever their smartphone is (which from my experience, everyone has their smartphone on them all the time). This means ten times the listening, which means more profit for the artists, which means more content from the artist, which inevitably means a stronger fanbase than ever before.
The combination of social media, allowing artists to connect to their fans at all times, streaming platforms being accessible to everyone, and that a stream never scratches or skips like a CD, has made streaming the most powerful tool in the music industry today. It will continue to influence the way that music is listened to by fans and released by labels and artists.
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