
The music business is growing again - prostoalex
https://www.recode.net/2017/9/20/16339484/music-streaming-riaa-spotify-apple-music-youtube-2017-revenue-subscription?utm_source=Benedict%27s+newsletter&utm_campaign=e16eb5eec2-Benedict%27s+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4999ca107f-e16eb5eec2-70267629
======
ghaff
The power of convenience.[1] It doesn't really work for me personally with
music. I already had a big collection of music ripped, digitally purchased,
etc. before streaming got big. And I have limited interest in discovering a
lot of new music. But if you grow up in a world of subscription services where
at least enough stuff is just available in the ether...

Of course, one of the big questions is how the dollars work out for everyone.
But the overall trend seems to be toward convenient non-ownership.

[1]
[http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2012/12/19/convenience/](http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2012/12/19/convenience/)

~~~
shmerl
I don't see why convenience has to be conflated with renting and not allowing
you to buy music or other digital goods. Bandcamp sells you DRM-free FLAC, but
you can as well stream music from them.

TL;DR: convenience has nothing to do with non ownership, they are artificially
conflated.

~~~
siquick
If Bandcamp sorted out the UI and made it easy to discover music and create
and stream playlists then they'd kill it.

~~~
nerdponx
It would be nice if their search was actually useful in the mobile app. I can
type in a band name verbatim and pages of completely unrelated bands. Not sure
if it's as bad in the web app.

------
Jaruzel
I am utterly old school in that I only buy my music on CD.

I've got about 1,100 CDs in my collection, all ripped into a lossless format.
The problem for me with streaming is that you never know if that album you
love to stream will still be there on the streaming service, or whether the
rights have expired and it's now gone, whereas once I've bought and ripped the
CD, I can play it forever. Some of my CDs are over 30 years old, when you
consider the cost of purchase, and the number of times I've played those
tracks over those years, that's amazing value for money.

Streaming also has variable audio quality, at least with my CDs I know I've
got a standard quality, mastered for playback on a proper music system, and
not optimised for headphones, or computer speakers.

So streaming maybe convenient, but it's definitely not for me.

~~~
bigiain
About 3,500 albums on vinyl, and just over 6000CDs last time I counted. These
days I pretty much stream everything - even the stuff I own and have ripped on
my home network.

I still buy vinyl and cds - but almost always directly from artists at gigs or
from their own websites, and less often in 2nd hand record shops/markets.

I love owning the objects with music on them. I just don't actually use them
very often...

(obligatory snarky reaction: "CDs??? _Old school?_ Please..." ;-) )

~~~
Jaruzel
I bow down in envy at your collection. :)

What are your preferred musical genres?

~~~
bigiain
Pretty much everything except country and show tunes. And I'm softening on the
country lately, kinda enjoying a fair bit of alt-country and sad-core... Still
can't get into the "YeeHa! My wife just left me, my dog die, do si do your
partner girl!" kind tho...

(Oh, and don't envy it _too_much, it's mostly a result of me being _old_...)

------
nickgrosvenor
This is interesting because the music business is usually the canary in the
coal mine for other entertainment businesses. It's the first to change because
it is lower bandwidth than films for instance so we see what happens in music
before film, television, etc.

~~~
d33
Just curious, do you have any data to back this up?

------
jv22222
I wonder what must it be like for the streaming generation to not have the
concept of an "Album".

I used to love buying albums and going through the artwork, reading footnotes,
the familiar smell etc.

I get that we still have vinyl but for most streamers that's not a thing.

~~~
Mikeb85
When you pay a streaming service, you get access to full albums, and thus can
listen to them, beginning to end if you like. I often do...

~~~
ghaff
You can but I'd be willing to wager that's the (vast) minority approach. I'll
deliberately listen to an album now and then but the vast majority of the time
it's some sort of playlist, even if it's a playlist from a single artist.

~~~
marpstar
I'm not sure it's much different than in the 1990s and people buying singles
of their favorite songs instead of the full album. I may even go as far as to
say that more people have access to the full albums today than ever before.

~~~
ghaff
90s I'm not so sure. I was probably mostly buying CDs then--at least before
Napster, etc. in the late 90s. I was thinking about more the pre-digital
download eras when albums were the default through long play vinyl, CDs, and
cassettes.

I agree that initial per song digital downloads definitely favored buying
individual hits even given some discounts for buying entire albums.

------
tuxxy
I've always wanted a service that lets me have something like an RSS/JSON feed
of new artists, albums, etc added to a streaming service during a timeframe
(day, week, etc).

Does anyone know if Google, Apple, or Spotify provide any such APIs or
services?

~~~
bigiain
Apple Music offers me a "new music mix" every week, and I'm happily impressed
by it's algorithm, there's almost always something new I really like that I'd
quite likely never have heard of otherwise... Some particular highlights this
year have been Die Young by Sylvan Esso, Shruggy Ji by Red Baraat and Black
Mesa by Biosphere (I probably would have found that last one, but not nearly
as quickly...)

------
jaequery
i used to love spotify but now i do all my music streaming from youtube.
youtube just have more selections and it's free, even comes with music videos
for times i'm bored.

~~~
brink
Yeah, but the sound quality.

------
shams93
But are artists making more money? I'm sure for the biggest artists the answer
is yes but for indie artists the internet is still the place where you get
buried, discovery of new music is even more controlled than the pre-internet
era.

~~~
KGIII
In most of modernity, independents haven't, on average, made much money. Given
the rise of creation and distribution tools, I suspect independents have
gained more (proportionally and as a group) than mainstream artists have.

Historically, the group wasn't making a whole lot. Now, some of them are doing
well with things like Patreon and YouTube monetization, as well as selling
through streaming services.

Those routes weren't readily available to them while production, distribution,
and advertising were largely controlled entirely by the big production houses.
Now, the independents are able to produce qualities on par with the larger
houses and able to reach the same audiences.

So, numerically speaking, they've probably benefited much more than the folks
on the major record labels. They are no longer just playing for 50 to 100
people in a bar, they are having their music listened to by that many people
in an hour, across multiple streaming services, and making a few dollars
they'd have never had the chance to make, even thirty years ago.

One of my friends does nothing but make music for online distribution. He's
developed quite a following. He doesn't even have a garage band, he makes all
of the music himself in a spare room in his house. That wouldn't have been an
option, just thirty years ago. Even a decade ago meant he still had a regular
job.

I imagine there are many similar cases and that, in aggregate, the
independents have benefitted far more than the major studios - at least
proportionately in terms of growth.

~~~
icebraining
_production, distribution, and advertising_

Don't forget sale of merchandising. If you can gather a bit of a following on
YouTube, even if the monetization is still low, you might be able to make a
decent income just selling personalized caps and tshirts online.

~~~
KGIII
I'll have to ask him about merchandizing. I don't believe he has done any. I'm
not sure how much income it might add, but it's worth bringing up.

Thanks! I hadn't even thought of that for people who don't do live shows and
only do online stuff.

------
FraKtus
Does the streaming services have finally started to pay artists ? Musicians
always complained they received almost nothing from streaming... Looks like
everybody is winning except the artist...

