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I'm surprised to see this getting upvoted. I find it rather unconvicing. There are many problems with it. > The current list of most downloaded tracks on iTune

I'm surprised to see this getting upvoted. I find it rather unconvicing. There are many problems with it. > The current list of most downloaded tracks on iTunes is filled with the names of bands from the last century, such as Creedence Clearwater and The Police. Well yeah, younger generations, who are much more likely to listen to newer music, have moved on to streaming, for the most part. > Just consider these facts: the 200 most popular tracks now account for less than 5% of total streams. It's easier then ever for people to find different music to listen to now. Not everyone listens to the same hits anymore. It doesn't mean people are listening to less new music. Their listening is likely just more distributed across more new music. > Just consider the recent reaction when the Grammy Awards were postponed. Perhaps I should say the lack of reaction—because the response was little more than a yawn. As the article showed, people don't watch the Grammy's anymore. This doesn't mean people don't listen to new music anymore. People look more towards things like The Needle Drop[0] or streaming playlists then the Grammy's for music recommendations. Honestly, the Needle Drop's channel growth alone, should be enough to show that new music isn't going anywhere. Overall, the vast majority of the points here can be attributed to the lower barrier to entry of making music, and to the new ease at which people can find the niche they like in new music. [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/theneedledrop https://www.youtube.com/user/theneedledrop

yunwal 5y ago
Yeah this strikes me as someone who is vastly out of touch with how the music market has developed over the past decade or 2. Are we really using "album consumption" as a metric for how much people are listening to music? The increase in investments in old music catalogues strikes true to me, but this is more a reflection of who is willing and able to pay for music, rather than who's consuming it. I think these metrics are all indicative of real trends in music, but "the death of new music" is absolutely not one of them.
nfw2 5y ago
In addition to all these good points, I was surprised a couple other issues weren't discussed at all in the article. - Playing live shows is a huge part of how bands and artists grow their following and get discovered. COVID has had a pretty significant impact on people's ability to do that. - The amount of high-fidelity music in circulation is continually growing. I would say the "modern era" of music (when record labels figured out how produce and distribute decent-quality songs at scale*) didn't start until the late 60's. All that music is still in circulation, and each subsequent decade there is another decade of "modern era" music to compete with. * To clarify this point, I mean there is a huge gap in the sound-quality between the early 60's and the late 60's. Compare the difference in sound quality between the Beatle's first album and the Beatle's last album. Earlier music (like big band stuff) is even worse-quality, and there is much, much less of it
pavon 5y ago
Yeah, some of the evidence he presented is concerning if true, but it was only backed by weak data or anecdotes. If the absolute number of new streams really is dropping year over year, that is concerning, but a single year's worth of data - a year with massive confounding factors to boot - isn't enough to convince me, and the full report is behind a paywall. Having the market share of new streams drop as a percentage is completely expected, and nothing to be concerned about. The early adopters of streaming services were younger, listening to what was new at the time. Now as they get older, even if they add new music at the same rate, the are still listening to the streams the created earlier, so the mean age increases. In addition, as the services become more mainstream, wider segments of the population sign up, and bring their listening habits with them. So you would expect a general shift towards older music. And as that occurs you would expect the music industry to invest more in older music portfolios. That doesn't mean that newer music is in decline, just that the industry has a new way to monetize older music that it didn't have before. Musical preferences and purchasing have always peaked in ones teens and 20s, and as you get older you tend to buy less music and listen to more radio, or the music you already have. Maybe rebuy a tape or CD or MP3 version of the album you already had. But as consumption moves away from radio and towards streaming, the long term revenue for a hit doesn't drop off as quickly as it used to. This isn't a zero-sum game, and increases in revenue for old music doesn't necessarily imply a decrease in revenue for new music. Likewise, for some of his other supporting evidence. I concur that the rock radio stations around here have pretty much completely stopped playing new music (country stations aren't so stale, can't speak for hip-hop), but that is largely because young people don't listen to radio much anymore, so why cater to them? And yes there is risk that music industry could focus too much on the old music that is making them lots of money now, and not invest enough in new music that will make them money in the future - but his own testimony is that they are still pushing new music hard. There might be something here, but the article didn't convince me.
joshspankit 5y ago
I basically never watched the Grammy’s. It always looked and felt like record labels putting on a show to sell more albums. Just like what radio turned in to. In the meantime I listened to more and more music from friends, the library, the internet, and all sorts of live venues. Great music is flowing like water it’s crazy.
eddyfromtheblok 5y ago
instagram and tiktok are full of zoomers lip syncing to songs, with links to the songs in the post for starters: https://www.tiktokforbusinesseurope.com/resources/how-to-elevate-your-videos-with-tiktoks-commercial-music-library https://www.tiktokforbusinesseurope.com/resources/how-to-ele... one wonders if a 20 second clip of a song nets more royalties than a play count on spotify
- henricao 5y ago
  I don't think you need to pay royalties for playing 20 seconds of a song.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    As long as the sample is recognisably the original piece, you’re technically in violation. Samples of single-digit notes count are supposed to be permitted. So yes, legally speaking you’re supposed to pay royalties for playing 20 seconds of a song, or even 10, or 5. The only time at which you don’t have to is when there is no way for the rightsholder to confidently state that you’re using the piece they holds rights to.
    - throw_m239339 5y ago
      > As long as the sample is recognisably the original piece, you’re technically in violation. Samples of single-digit notes count are supposed to be permitted. Bob James successfully sued rappers using a single note sampled from his original songs.
      - LocalH 5y ago
        Yet another example of how copyright is utterly broken. In no situation should a single note, played on any instrument, be covered by copyright.
  - shakna 5y ago
    O'Sullivan v. Markie for the US, and Pelham, Haas v. Hütter, Schneider-Esleben in the EU. Sampling requires copyright clearance. Flat. The EU precedence is basically that if a sample can be recognised, then it is copyright infringing. That says exactly nothing about how long it is, and that is obviously an issue that scares the big records into legally checking everything, but just burns all the small ones into not sampling unless they're extremely certain. The US precedence is that you require the original copyright holder to approve the sample and its size. Which is somewhat worse than the EU rulings.
PokemonNoGo 5y ago
Yeah, whenever I got to my countries "Top streaming" list on Spotify I have no idea who any of the artists are, I did see that new Elton John rework in there but that was the only "old music" in there. Maybe they, the bands and artists, creating the new music aren't paid and doesn't bring in money like their old counter parts and well end up being less important for the music industry as a whole?

yunwal 5y ago

Yeah this strikes me as someone who is vastly out of touch with how the music market has developed over the past decade or 2. Are we really using "album consumption" as a metric for how much people are listening to music? The increase in investments in old music catalogues strikes true to me, but this is more a reflection of who is willing and able to pay for music, rather than who's consuming it. I think these metrics are all indicative of real trends in music, but "the death of new music" is absolutely not one of them.

nfw2 5y ago

In addition to all these good points, I was surprised a couple other issues weren't discussed at all in the article. - Playing live shows is a huge part of how bands and artists grow their following and get discovered. COVID has had a pretty significant impact on people's ability to do that. - The amount of high-fidelity music in circulation is continually growing. I would say the "modern era" of music (when record labels figured out how produce and distribute decent-quality songs at scale*) didn't start until the late 60's. All that music is still in circulation, and each subsequent decade there is another decade of "modern era" music to compete with. * To clarify this point, I mean there is a huge gap in the sound-quality between the early 60's and the late 60's. Compare the difference in sound quality between the Beatle's first album and the Beatle's last album. Earlier music (like big band stuff) is even worse-quality, and there is much, much less of it

pavon 5y ago

Yeah, some of the evidence he presented is concerning if true, but it was only backed by weak data or anecdotes. If the absolute number of new streams really is dropping year over year, that is concerning, but a single year's worth of data - a year with massive confounding factors to boot - isn't enough to convince me, and the full report is behind a paywall. Having the market share of new streams drop as a percentage is completely expected, and nothing to be concerned about. The early adopters of streaming services were younger, listening to what was new at the time. Now as they get older, even if they add new music at the same rate, the are still listening to the streams the created earlier, so the mean age increases. In addition, as the services become more mainstream, wider segments of the population sign up, and bring their listening habits with them. So you would expect a general shift towards older music. And as that occurs you would expect the music industry to invest more in older music portfolios. That doesn't mean that newer music is in decline, just that the industry has a new way to monetize older music that it didn't have before. Musical preferences and purchasing have always peaked in ones teens and 20s, and as you get older you tend to buy less music and listen to more radio, or the music you already have. Maybe rebuy a tape or CD or MP3 version of the album you already had. But as consumption moves away from radio and towards streaming, the long term revenue for a hit doesn't drop off as quickly as it used to. This isn't a zero-sum game, and increases in revenue for old music doesn't necessarily imply a decrease in revenue for new music. Likewise, for some of his other supporting evidence. I concur that the rock radio stations around here have pretty much completely stopped playing new music (country stations aren't so stale, can't speak for hip-hop), but that is largely because young people don't listen to radio much anymore, so why cater to them? And yes there is risk that music industry could focus too much on the old music that is making them lots of money now, and not invest enough in new music that will make them money in the future - but his own testimony is that they are still pushing new music hard. There might be something here, but the article didn't convince me.

joshspankit 5y ago

I basically never watched the Grammy’s. It always looked and felt like record labels putting on a show to sell more albums. Just like what radio turned in to. In the meantime I listened to more and more music from friends, the library, the internet, and all sorts of live venues. Great music is flowing like water it’s crazy.

eddyfromtheblok 5y ago

instagram and tiktok are full of zoomers lip syncing to songs, with links to the songs in the post for starters: https://www.tiktokforbusinesseurope.com/resources/how-to-elevate-your-videos-with-tiktoks-commercial-music-library https://www.tiktokforbusinesseurope.com/resources/how-to-ele... one wonders if a 20 second clip of a song nets more royalties than a play count on spotify

henricao 5y ago
I don't think you need to pay royalties for playing 20 seconds of a song.
- masklinn 5y ago
  As long as the sample is recognisably the original piece, you’re technically in violation. Samples of single-digit notes count are supposed to be permitted. So yes, legally speaking you’re supposed to pay royalties for playing 20 seconds of a song, or even 10, or 5. The only time at which you don’t have to is when there is no way for the rightsholder to confidently state that you’re using the piece they holds rights to.
  - throw_m239339 5y ago
    > As long as the sample is recognisably the original piece, you’re technically in violation. Samples of single-digit notes count are supposed to be permitted. Bob James successfully sued rappers using a single note sampled from his original songs.
    - LocalH 5y ago
      Yet another example of how copyright is utterly broken. In no situation should a single note, played on any instrument, be covered by copyright.
- shakna 5y ago
  O'Sullivan v. Markie for the US, and Pelham, Haas v. Hütter, Schneider-Esleben in the EU. Sampling requires copyright clearance. Flat. The EU precedence is basically that if a sample can be recognised, then it is copyright infringing. That says exactly nothing about how long it is, and that is obviously an issue that scares the big records into legally checking everything, but just burns all the small ones into not sampling unless they're extremely certain. The US precedence is that you require the original copyright holder to approve the sample and its size. Which is somewhat worse than the EU rulings.

PokemonNoGo 5y ago

Yeah, whenever I got to my countries "Top streaming" list on Spotify I have no idea who any of the artists are, I did see that new Elton John rework in there but that was the only "old music" in there. Maybe they, the bands and artists, creating the new music aren't paid and doesn't bring in money like their old counter parts and well end up being less important for the music industry as a whole?