One of my own goals of 2009 is to cover more news about the music industry as it changes each and every day. I am first and foremost a fan of music and with that comes the constant challenge of “Where do I find my music?”. We have the luxury here at Roots headquarters to get new CD’s in each and every day however CD’s are a dying breed. For musicians don’t worry, CD’s are built for live shows. That won’t change as audiences love taking away something tangible from a show. Take note of the latest figures from music sales in 2008. While digital sales were up 10.5% in 2008, CD sales dropped 20%. In 2008, we had a big causality in the Americana scene with the loss of MilesOfMusic.com which was a staple online CD store for Americana. It’s a clear sign of the shift in the consumption of music.
With physical cd’s sales dropping like a rock, the trend is clear as it has moved to digital sales. In general, this is a VERY bad thing for Americana Music. The issue is now artists have lost premier cd shelf space in your local cd shop and must rely on the mammoth online sales venues to get some notice. Getting notice is near impossible as discovering new music online is often like finding a needle in a haystack unless you know exactly what your looking for. iTunes is the dominant site for digital music sales however Amazon.com, eMusic and Walmart have slices of the pie online. The problem with online music is dependence on the platform from which you buy. iTunes is notorious for it’s DRM (digital rights management) which prevents you from using any other player than an iPod however in 2008, the rolled out a lot more artists as iTunes Plus music (which means this will play on any mp3 player). Amazon.com is completely DRM free which is great but their software to browse the site is horrid. This brings me to the point of the whole article — Spotify.com
Over the past few days there has been a tremendous amount of buzz around a new site called Spotify.com. Spotify is an online system which allows you to pull in music from there servers and build your own streaming playlists. While this may not sound great, it truly is. The interface is fast, vast and simple. The sound quality is absolutely crystal clear. Their music catalog is extremely deep. Overall, Spotify.com is one hell of a setup. The problem? It’s not available in the USA yet. Spotify has a large amount of work to do to handle the licensing issues, however as it stands right now you may never need to “download” a song again with this great setup.
How does this impact the Americana Music artists? In my humble opinion, it will help. Here’s my theory which may be completely wrong but I’ll let the artists speak up. Americana Musicians make no money on digital sales today. They make all of their money at live shows. Which is why the majority of artists have no issues giving their music away for free to gain fans which in the end directly impacts their show revenues. Spotify’s system makes it very easy to sample all kinds of music. Their goal is to have advertising offset the licensing so in the end musicians will get paid. The freedom to listen to full cd’s will directly help all Americana musicians.
Time will tell how Spotify impacts the industry. This could be a real powerhouse that defines the future of music. To be continued.
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I actually think that finding new artists today is vastly simpler than ever before. My main method is eMusic and I’ve discovered more new favourites in the last couple of years there than in the previous 15 years of buying music. This is partly due to browsing, similar artist recommendations but really mostly due to price — I can sample across genres and take risks at that price point the way I never could forking out $20 or $30 (AUD) for every phsyical CD. (Even though I have largely shifted to digital, I rarely buy full albums at iTunes because the price difference between the digital versaion and the physical version is not large enough to make it attractive.) Then there are the legion of other outlets, Amie St, Last FM, 8tracks, blogs, YouTube, whatever. I really find it impossible to believe people can’t find new music they like online in a relatively fuss free way. Is it really harder than flipping through CD cases at a record store where you can’t easily listen to something that catches your eye?
I don’t see how Spotify is any kind of paradigm change (its not available in Australia either son I can’t check it out fully) and I have some reservations about live streaming. First, its dependent on you being physically at your computer at that time, you can’t “time shift” or put it on your iPod for the commute. Secondly, it depends on a high speed internet connection and bandwidth to burn — I have an iPhone but in Australia data charges are high and not unlimited like in the US so no live streaming on the go over the phone for me. Thirdly, if I like something I want to own it — as far as I can see it is a subscription service like Napster V2.0, you stop paying (for the ad free version) and you lose access to the music. And then of course are the usual global licensing issues which mean pretty often I’m left out. Granted, most of these are technical issues which will likely less of a problem over time. The more options the better, of course, but I tend to think the “iTunes killa”, if there is one, is a combination of technologies, including ones we haven’t thought of yet.
Interesting reading, but I think that anywhere that makes a real difference will have to have a huge marketing budget behind them – in my experience a large majority of people aren’t actually that bothered by DRM (or at least don’t understand why it’s a bad thing), and therefore have no problem with using iTunes. Coupled with the ubiquity of the iPod/Phone and the fact that it’s a million times easier to add music to one of those using iTunes than anything else, it’s going to take a lot to knock iTunes from the top spot.
I agree……
thank you for sharing
thank you for sharing