Essay

Changing Distribution Practices in the Music Industry

As someone who wants to pursue a career in the music industry, one part of Miles’ excerpt about network literacy that stood out to me was the idea that the way we produce and distribute media is constantly evolving. Miles states that part of being network literate is ‘being comfortable with change and flow as the day to day conditions of knowledge production and dissemination, and recognising that all of this may change, and appear differently in six months’. With the music industry struggling with the rise of piracy since the turn of the century, there is a constant push for new ways to distribute content. The way music is distributed, marketed, consumed and shared is always changing. Sometimes this is in response to piracy or as a way to draw attention to a particular event, album or artist. Other times these changes occur through the embracing of new technologies or through trying to look for new ways to consume media by pushing the boundaries of more traditional forms. Technology has influenced all aspects of the music industry — from publishing and journalism, music distribution, marketing and live broadcasts to how fans engage with live music and listen to music in general. In this essay, I will explore some of the more recent changes in the way music is distributed and how technology has or has not been embraced — and what this will mean for me as an aspiring music professional.

 

Change is not a new thing for the music industry. In the last century we’ve seen the platform music is distributed on change from vinyl to cassettes to CDs to MP3s, with online streaming services gaining popularity in recent years. The emergence of Napster in 1999 kick-started the piracy of music and the industry has struggled to keep up ever since. Changes in the way music is distributed have significantly impacted the way music is consumed. Instead of listening to full albums from start to finish, since the emergence of MP3s, there has been a trend in consumers simply buying and listening to single tracks, and music is produced to reflect this trend.

 
Anderson (2004) reflects on this idea, stating ‘Even though 99 cents per track works out to about the same price as a CD, most consumers just buy a track or two from an album online, rather than the full CD. In effect, online music has seen a return to the singles-driven business of the 1950s.’

 

Anderson also speaks of a ‘Long Tail’ effect, where all songs added to online streaming services such as Spotify or digital stores like iTunes and Amazon will find an audience. He notes that while physical stores such as Walmart only stock ‘the hits’, the low or virtually non-existent cost of stocking online content means that streaming or digital sites can stock a much wider variety of content. Instead of listens or downloads dropping off completely for obscure content, tracks continue to find an audience as they are added to the library.

long_tail_graph

(Picture credit: http://www.novelr.com/2008/02/08/the-long-tail-and-online-fiction-how-to-get-read)

 

‘Not only is every one of Rhapsody’s top 100,000 tracks streamed at least once each month, the same is true for its top 200,000, top 300,000, and top 400,000. As fast as Rhapsody adds tracks to its library, those songs find an audience, even if it’s just a few people a month, somewhere in the country. This is the Long Tail.’ (Anderson, 2004)

 

This phenomenon, along with a variety of other changing practices, has led to a much wider scope of music being consumed and has greatly increased the globalisation of the music industry. I am not limited to the content stocked in my local record store. If I want to listen to a widely unknown, up-and-coming Icelandic artist, for example, a quick search of Google can lead me right to his album, be it on SoundCloud, iTunes, YouTube, Spotify or his personal blog.

 

In the 19th century, the music industry was based upon the sale of sheet music. In the early 20th century, the emergence of technologies such as the phonograph and the rise of radio broadcasting saw a shift in the music industry to the recording industry we are now familiar with. Traditional distribution formats would see artists sign to a record label, who would facilitate recording, promotion, and, depending on the size of the label, distribution practices. The record label would liaise either directly with retailers, or through a distributor to get the record stocked in stores. The song would also be promoted through broadcast on radio stations. Without a record label, artists would have to seek a distributer to help them to get their records on shelves, or approach record stores directly to sell their album — much in the fashion of a door-to-door salesman. As new technologies have emerged, music distribution practices have changed and evolved and are now much less straightforward. Digital sales now make up about 68 per cent of total sales revenue for the music industry in the United States and the growing popularity of streaming services such as Spotify, has seen downloads from online stores such as iTunes fall somewhat dramatically in recent years, with online downloads falling from 69 per cent in 2013 to 60 percent in 2014 (Sisario, 2014).

 

Online video hosting site YouTube has had an enormous impact on the music industry. It has provided aspiring artists with a free, easily accessible platform to promote their music. Following the emergence of online sites such as YouTube, SoundCloud and Myspace, it is has become much easier for aspiring or independent artists to distribute and promote their music, bypassing traditional distribution through record labels and distributers. When a young Justin Bieber started posting videos on YouTube in 2007, he was contacted by talent manager Scooter Braun, who arranged for him to meet with RnB singer Usher, which eventually led to Bieber gaining a recording contract. Examples of this are seen in all spheres of the music industry. Australian independent electronic artist Chet Faker saw a quick rise to fame after his cover of Blackstreet’s ‘No Diggity’ went viral online. YouTube also enables the sharing and widespread viewing of music videos, now delivered in partnership with singles.

 

With the establishment of MTV in 1981, another factor was added to music distribution — the creation of a music video. People were no longer solely listening to new content via the radio or individual records — there was now the opportunity to watch it as well. Music videos are now one of the primary ways fans engage with music. Some artists and bands, such as OK Go, have become famous arguably  from their music videos alone. OK Go’s Here It Goes Again, is often ranked among the best videos of all time, with more than 22 million views on YouTube. Sawdey questions this idea of the viral music video, stating:
 

‘In the modern MTV era, often times a music video can actually solidify the “idea” of a song in a listener’s mind more so than just the audio itself… In truth, there is a bit of shrewdness in the way OK Go seems to be so compulsively bent on creating videos that exist simply due to their viral nature: the more times that you hear a song over and over, the more your brain grows accustomed to it, gradually familiarizing itself with the tune’s nuances even if you don’t particularly like it all that much. But as time wore on, OK Go stopped existing as a functioning rock band, and instead turned into something much worse: an internet novelty act.’ (Sawdey, 2014)

With the globalised society we now live in, there are numerous platforms and ways for fans to listen to and discover new music. Some may continue to find their music through radio stations, but even this has changed. They may listen to music on a radio station’s playlist, such as the triple j Hitlist on Spotify, or they may choose to source their music from international sources, such as Zane Lowe’s show on BBC Radio 1. They may stay up to date through watching music videos, be they on cable music channels, weekly video shows such as Rage or from sites such as YouTube. There is now the opportunity for fans to listen to music that is yet to be released, by watching recordings of live performances from around the world. With such an abundance of sources and content, artists, labels and managers need to constantly think of new ways to make their content stand out from the crowd.
 

Sometimes artists try to draw attention to a new release by releasing their content through an unorthodox platform. Thom Yorke of Radiohead fame did this recently, releasing his album Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes through notorious file sharing service BitTorrent. For $6 (USD), fans could purchase the Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes BitTorrent bundle, which includes eight tracks and a music video. There is also the option to download the first single and its music video for free. In a statement released by Yorke explaining the reasons behind his use of the service, he says:
 

‘It’s an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around. If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work — enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves, bypassing the self-elected gate-keepers. If it works, anyone can do this exactly as we have done.’ (Yorke, 2014).
 

U2 also chose to release their latest album, Songs of Innocence, in a less than traditional way, uploading it to iCloud. This meant that, without warning, everyone with an Apple iTunes account or Apple device such as an iPhone or iPod had the album added to their music library — whether they liked it or not. This method of distribution was met with a lot of anger and criticism from Apple consumers, who claimed they should be able to choose what songs they want to listen to and have on their device. Following the criticism, lead singer Bono apologised, stating:
 

‘I had this beautiful idea. Might have gotten carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that thing. A drop of megalomania, a touch of generosity, a dash of self-promotion, and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years might not be heard. There’s a lot of noise out there. I guess we got a little noisy ourselves to get through it.’

 

With the expansive number of listening platforms that exist for music today and constant threats to the industry from piracy and low-cost or free online services, there is demand for all sides of the industry, be it distribution, promotion or the artists themselves, to continue to adapt and evolve to succeed in a changing digital environment. Artists and labels must work hard to ensure content stands out from an ever-growing crowd of competition and as a result, continually experiment with new ways to distribute content and gain exposure.
 

References

Anderson, C 2004, ‘The Long Tail’, Wired, vol. 12, no.10.

Miles, A 2007, ‘Network Literacy: The New Path to Knowledge’, Screen Education, no.45, pp. 24-30.

Sawdey, E 2014, Optical Illusions: The Problem With OK Go’s Accidental Legacy, Pop Matters, viewed 22 October 2014, <http://www.popmatters.com/feature/182996-optical-illusions-the-problem-with-ok-gos-accidental-legacy/>.

Sisario, B 2014, ‘U.S. Music Sales Drop 5%, As Habits Shift Online’, New York Times, September 25, viewed October 21 2014, <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/business/media/music-sales-drop-5-as-habits-shift-online.html?_r=0>.

Yorke, T 2014, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, BitTorrent, viewed 22 October 2014, < http://blog.bittorrent.com/2014/09/26/tomorrows-modern-boxes/>.

 

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