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How streaming services are changing the music market
The advent of web radio and streaming has ushered in a new era in the music industry. Accessibility, ease of listening and personalization of music have led us to listen to it more often. Specialists from GlobalWebIndex, along with Universal Music and Spotify, interviewed almost 57 thousand people and found that most users already listen to music online - on average, 64%.
Thanks to machine learning technology, platforms like Spotify analyze listener behavioral data, including the number of times they listen at different times of the day. Such analytics are used to form playlists - for example, it is believed that tracks in the spirit of "Acoustic Calm" or "Nature Sounds" are logical to offer to listen to users before bedtime.
Russia is also one of the leaders in the share of listeners of streaming services . A study by the International Federation of Phonogram Manufacturers (IFPI) showed that 87% of Internet users use music streaming in our country. Along with the growing popularity of streaming services, people stop listening to the radio as often as before. The broadcasters themselves are talking about the changes. So, last year, the BBC found that young people aged 15 to 34 spend more time streaming music than all BBC radio stations.
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In general, with the advent of streaming, the global music market is constantly growing : for example, in 2018, sales grew by 9.7% compared to last year and amounted to 19.1 billion dollars. Another interesting fact: studies show that thanks to streaming services (but not only them), the share of piracy in the music market has decreased by more than 50% since 2013 (p. 30 ).
What happens to the music itself
Spotify and Apple Music not only change the way you listen, they change the music itself. Streaming services provide artists with statistics on tracks and user behavior: you can see how many times they put a song, at what second they switched to another, when the volume of the track was increased as you listen. Musicians look at and write tracks on all these indicators based on similar metrics. So the authors try to immediately catch the attention of the audience and, as a rule, prefer to start their tracks with a catchy bit or even a refrain.
All this is for the platform to automatically advance a particular track higher in the charts. Usually for this they should listen for at least 30 seconds. Another life hack is to open the track with a sample already familiar to the mass listener (this can be done in the conditional remix format). So with a high probability he will not switch what is already familiar or causes a feeling of nostalgia. Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj took advantage of this technique to record the single “Swish Swish”.
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One of the leading trends in popular music is duets, whether it is joint recording of a single or remix. When two artists release a song, it appears in the profiles of each of the musicians - hence the great chances of success. For example, Justin Bieber’s remix of the already “shot” song “Despacito” took the first line of the Billboard Hot 100 rating and lasted there for a record sixteen weeks. Russian-speaking artists took a different path, albeit fairly similar: this fall, rock musicians released a joint album for the anniversary of Yegor Letov, which included his hits - some of them were in the top 20 of Yandex.Music chart.
Among other things, the songs are getting shorter: the average track duration has decreased from four minutes thirty seconds in 2000 to three minutes and forty seconds. Initially, the radio market dictated the restrictions: the station’s broadcast was scheduled in seconds, so a track length of three to four minutes was considered optimal. Now experts believe that songs are getting shorter due to a change in the principle of payment: platforms charge money for listening as soon as the notorious mark of 30 seconds is recorded. The need to write long songs has disappeared: a musician with five three-minute songs will earn more than someone who made three five-minute compositions.
How the attitude towards music is changing
We can listen to music constantly and at any given time. Albums gave way to smart playlists, in which tracks are compiled based on user preferences or moods - music is cheaper and more accessible than ever. Streaming services encourage listening to prefabricated playlists, so listeners are less attached to certain musicians.
Research has shown that streaming has increased the number of music tracks played by 49% compared with what was before platforms like Spotify. They also found that the number of unique artists auditioned for six months through streaming services increased by 36%. However, listeners acknowledge that music is now less valued than before streaming:
"I used to have to think carefully before I buy an album, and now I often add songs to playlists that I might never listen to."
So, the Ypulse agency conducted a survey among thousands of young people, asking them about their favorite artists. As a result, many respondents were not able to answer this question. Experts concluded that millennials are “a generation without a genre,” while 76% of people aged 13 to 17 said they could not live without music for even a week.
From art to background
Streaming services cardinally change music. On the one hand, musicians and producers pay more attention to analytics and often start not from creativity, but from how much the track will go on the Spotify and Apple Music charts.
Music ceases to be perceived by listeners as art, becomes routine or a backdrop for familiar activities: for example, it helps to concentrate while studying. On the other hand, streaming allows music lovers to discover more musical groups and genres than before, and generally spurred a general interest in music contrary to forecasts.
What else to read on our blog:
“For every taste”: streaming services for listening to music
The first profit in the history of Western streaming services: why this is not so good news
What is happening in the audio streaming market: discussing the development of streaming platforms
Why did vinyl come back, and how are streaming services related to this?
Join the Stream: The Present and Future of Music Streaming
“Just take and listen to music”: 5 ways and formats to choose from