The "celestial jukebox" era is dead. What's next for music streaming?
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View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) http://hotpodnews.com/presents.... A Newsletter about Big Ideas in Music and Technology, by Cherie Hu This is issue #71, published on December 13, 2019 Happy Friday!
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2020 is in 19 days. Isn’t that wild? In honor of this decade coming to a close, the last two Water & Music issues of the year will take a more reflective look at the past few years in music and tech, distilling key lessons we can learn and apply to our work in and around music over the next 10+ years.
Today’s main essay ended up being so long (>4,800 words… sorry not sorry) that I decided not to publish the full version in this email for your convenience. What you’ll see below is merely the introductory section of the essay, which lays down the groundwork in terms of why I was inspired to write this piece in the first place. The full version lives on a free post on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/posts/celestial-era-is-32326028) , which I’ll also link to later in this email.
Thanks so much again for reading, listening and supporting!! <3 The “celestial jukebox” era is dead. What’s next for music streaming?
A few days ago, I noticed something extremely petty, but nonetheless important to our discussion today: Apple Music changed the number of songs advertised on its homepage (https://www.apple.com/apple-music/) from “50 million” to “60 million.”
As you can see in the above screenshot, the homepage frames music streaming as a seemingly infinite, fantastical forest in which users can “lose themselves” at their own whims. Importantly, this rhetoric isn’t new; it’s reminiscent of the decades-old concept of the “celestial jukebox,” which was first imagined in the 1990s as a jukebox that literally lived in the sky (or, in modern parlance, in the cloud?) and could give consumers access to literally any music or media they wanted on their personal devices on demand.
Apple Music first posted (https://twitter.com/applemusic/status/1093553362384183296) about the fact that it had 50 million songs in February 2019 — implying that it added 10 million more tracks to its catalog in a matter of months. And it’s not just Apple who wants to boast its size: Today’s music streaming platforms can’t stop talking about how many millions of tracks they have on their respective apps.
Tidal apparently beat (https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/streaming/8491063/tidal-my-mix-new-personalized-playlists-radio-99-cents) Apple to the 60-million-songs mark in December 2018. SoundCloud boasted (https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/13/18223596/soundcloud-tracks-uploaded-200-million) in February 2019 that the size of its catalog officially surpassed 200 million tracks. Not only does Spotify now tout more than 50 million tracks as of April 2019, but the company’s CEO Daniel Ek recently confirmed (https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/nearly-40000-tracks-are-now-being-added-to-spotify-every-single-day/) that nearly 40,000 new tracks are now being uploaded to the service on a daily basis — nearly double the previously reported daily volume (https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/in-ar-gut-vs-data-isnt-actually-a-binary-choice/) of 20,000 tracks just over a year ago.
What I want to talk about today is why this collective emphasis on volume is actually irrelevant to how streaming consumption and curation actually work today — and why we need a new metaphor for understanding music streaming in 2020, instead of aggressively clinging to the “celestial jukebox” with which we once fell in love.
I’ll use myself as one example. According to my Spotify Wrapped, I’ve listened to around 19,000 minutes of music so far in 2019. Assuming that the average song lasts 3.5 minutes long, I could have listened to a maximum of 5,500 songs this year — or 0.01% of Spotify’s entire catalog of 50+ million tracks.
While 5,500 is a pretty big number, in the context of Spotify’s catalog, that’s far from “celestial.” In fact, when I stream music, I don’t really feel like I’m wandering through an endless forest at all. Instead, I end up making my listening decisions, either consciously or subconsciously, in an environment that has several external commercial and technological forces whittling the infinite forest of music streaming down to only a select few trees for me to choose from.
In short, in the modern music business, the “celestial jukebox” that captured our imagination in the early 2000s has since been pinned down to earth and winnowed by a combination of market control and technological control. Click here to continue reading. (https://www.patreon.com/posts/32326028) Writing + Patreon updates
More and more corporate brands are starting their own record labels (again). Will they last? (https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/more-and-more-corporate-brands-are-starting-their-own-record-labels-again-will-they-last/) — For Music Business Worldwide, I studied the 15+ corporate brands that have started their own record labels since the early 2000s, and analyzed why so few of them have lasted beyond just a few years. * As part of writing this piece, I created my own Airtable database (https://www.patreon.com/posts/31709414) of brands that have started their own record labels, which is available exclusively to $7+/month members on Patreon.
The gamification of the global music business (https://www.patreon.com/posts/32323890) — I published a longform essay on Patreon about how “gamification,” or the application of game elements to non-game scenarios, now touches every aspects of the music industry, from artist branding and the creative process to both online and offline fan engagement.
Exclusive database: Degree programs and courses in creative entrepreneurship (https://www.patreon.com/posts/32221918) — I shared a database that I put together for my book research on degree programs, certificates and resource centers in “creative entrepreneurship,” “arts entrepreneurship” and “cultural entrepreneurship” around the world. There are around 40 universities featured in my list so far, but it’s definitely still a work in progress! What I’m listening to
BUBBA (https://open.spotify.com/album/5FQ4sOGqRWUA5wO20AwPcO?si=C3H2WJZnTTWyWPUhVwfpZg) — The latest album from Kaytranada, out today. I saw someone describe it online as “elite lo-fi beats” and that’s mostly accurate; nothing wrong with it. :) Favorite track: “Go DJ.”
Lucid (https://open.spotify.com/album/5zM1YPLVNvxe6S8I3MIAbg?si=KGLOsEzZQBKQTUaQAnxPAg) — The latest album from Raveena. This is what a picture of a silk or lace dress in a candlelit room at midnight would literally sound like if it were translated to R&B. Favorite track: “Nectar.”
Yuletide Bangerz (https://authorsrecording.bandcamp.com/album/yuletide-bangerz) — An instant-classic, Christmas-themed beat tape from the rapper/producer Jonwayne. If you’re curious to hear what Vince Guaraldi sounds like flipped as a hard-hitting hip-hop sample, this is the project for you. Favorite track: “The One Everyone Does.” Epilogue
Here are some interesting music- and entertainment-related articles I came across over the past few weeks:
Million Dollar Voice (https://www.middleclassartist.com/single-post/2019/12/09/Million-Dollar-Voice) — Zach Finkelstein gets into the nitty-gritty of finances for “middle-class artists” and explains why it arguably will cost over one million dollars for a classical musician to turn a profit and sustain a full-time career off of their creative work, especially after accounting for education and housing expenses.
Why Mike Posner Walked Across America (https://www.outsideonline.com/2406234/mike-posner-walk) — A surprisingly captivating meditation on success, happiness, self-promotion, motivation and fame. As someone who is both deep in the weeds of the music industry and needs access to nature (bodies of water, trees, mountains, etc.) to feel happy, this somehow hit me hard.
TV and Film Composers Say Netflix, Other Streaming Services Insist on Buying Out Their Music Rights (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tv-film-composers-say-netflix-streaming-services-insist-buying-music-rights-1261940) — Apparently Netflix wants to circumvent paying composers residual royalties for including their works in soundtracks on the platform.
Here’s a Kinda Genius, Kinda Evil Way People Are Gaming Spotify Playlists (https://onezero.medium.com/heres-a-kinda-genius-kinda-evil-way-people-are-gaming-spotify-playlists-9e1a78fb8118) — Petty playlist SEO, here we are again.
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