Terug in de tijd 🕰️

1. Een stapel Polaroids 📸

Alsof ze het met elkaar hebben afgesproken, publiceren verschillende media afgelopen week analyses over de impact van streaming op muziek, compositie, muziekbeleving en –consumptie. Twaalf jaar na de introductie van Spotify nemen verschillende partijen van verschillende kanten een figuurlijke Polaroid en schetsen zo samen een mooi tijdsbeeld van waar we nu staan:

These are changes that represent the start of the long-term fundamental shifts that will ultimately evolve into the future of the music business: A+R strategy, composition, genre commodification, decline of the album, restructuring label economics, decline of catalogue, end of the breakthrough artist, massively social artists and value chain conflict.

Next week: where these trends will go.

How new technologies have always impacted artists, how power has shifted in the streaming era, and what artists who don’t want to depend on Spotify and Apple Music are doing to regain a measure of power.

In our interview, we discussed how new technologies have always impacted artists, how power has shifted in the streaming era, and what artists who don’t want to depend on Spotify and Apple Music are doing to regain a measure of power.

Over the last year, the 12-year-old company has quietly struck direct licensing deals with a small number of independent artists. The deals give those artists a way onto the streaming platform and a closer relationship to the company — an advantage when pitching music for its influential playlists — while bypassing the major labels altogether.

2. En die Andere Grote Partij dan?

Dat is Google natuurlijk, die serieus werk maakt van YouTube Music. In de vorige Nielsbrief linkte ik al naar Timo's eerste indruk na een dagje rondklikken. In De Machine #14 spraken Atze en ik er verder over:

Ook: diepgeworteld gedoe bij Buma/Stemra, en zijn de eilanders Great Wide Open zat?

Daar kwamen deze data en analyse even later bij:

Penetration for YouTube music viewing peaks at 73% among 16–19 year olds in Brazil. But its reach is even wider: YouTube is the main way that all consumers aged 16 to 44 discover music. Doubling down on music, YouTube has responded by improving its discovery and recommendation algorithms and gearing them more closely to music. The combined impact of demographic shifts & tech innovation is that YT is making hits bigger, faster.

Music videos continue to be the most popular video category on YouTube, accounting for 32% of views on the platform.

3. Lekkere verhalen

Daar kun je er nooit genoeg van lezen. Wat dacht je van een interview met de manager van The Rolling Stones? Of de impact van The Prodigy's doorbraakplaat The Fat of The Land, op een fraaie manier in de tijd geplaatst en geanalyseerd (via Sander, maar Mindfields het beste nummer op die plaat? Hou op!) En tot slot Dan Wilson aan het woord, songschrijver van de classics Closing Time en Adele's Someone Like You. Heerlijk leesvoer:

What's the biggest lesson you've learned since becoming The Stones' manager? Joyce Smyth: “The third parties you deal with are sometimes a bit imbued with the myth of The Stones. So sometimes you’ve got to break that myth down for people who are coming on board, to make them feel comfortable.”

“Like with Public Enemy,” [Liam Howlett] told SPIN, “I'm not into what Chuck D was talking about. I liked it on a dumb level — the beats, the way his voice sounded. I have a philosophy that our music works on a really dumb level, which is the level that most people understand.”

Dan Wilson: “A hit is a coming-together of all these factors, and each one has to be a lucky break your way. Your creative mind has to accidentally write something that everyone in the world can understand. Then you need a support system in your life to prevent suffering from depression, drugs, OCD. Then you need a record label that sees you as an opportunity to make money, and you hope those people don't get fired or become real estate agents all at once. And then the public has to be in the mood for it.”

4. Wat een kolder!

Mijn hemel:

“Dit is een krachtig signaal van de rechter dat de Staat het illegaal downloaden ten onrechte heeft toegestaan en de door de film- en televisieproducenten geleden schade zal moeten compenseren.”

Ik twitterde er afgelopen weekend met schrijver Jan Kuitenbrouwer en Mathilde Santing over (tot ik het gescheld van de diva zat was 👋🏼). Pff, het leek wel 2009!

Dit was het weer. Tot volgende week!

Groet,

Niels