ADVANCED COURSE MUSIC PLUS
The future of music: Contextual creativity and iTunes.
Mante Schneider 2084158 CO4ACG Music Plus Jan Bijlsma 17-‐01-‐2014 3021 woorden
1
Introduction
“there have never been more opportunities for a musician to reach an audience.” - David Byrne The music industry has experienced massive changes the last decade. The digitalization of music and the increased accessibility of music through internet and file sharing have left the traditional music industry - especially the record companies - in confusion as to what will happen next1. The consumers have gone from purchasing music in record shops to streaming their cherry picked songs directly to smartphones and laptops. This evolution of technology has left the industry leaders struggling to stay alive while new challengers emerge. Statistics have shown that record sales have at least been cut back in half over the past decade 2. This has been causing lively debates on whether and how the intellectual property rights of artists and record companies should be protected, and how music should be distributed.3 The most significant role is for the changing habits and purchasing habits of consumers and the actual income model for musicians today, namely illegal downloading. This is the reason why I will not go back in time and see where 'things went wrong' back then, but I will look more into 'where will it go' from now on. The biggest issue to tackle is obviously music file sharing, and the internet is filled with solutions and opinions on whether it is wrong or right. I have taken in my opinion the best solution that comes from a promoting file sharing point of view, which is the evolution of iTunes. To understand this choice I have presented an analysis of the current music industry contextual creativity evaluating the role of the musician. To gain knowledge of the current music industry I have used Google.com, Google Scholar and obtained additional articles from the source listings in literature which I found online. Research has primarily been done online, ‘I’ve also discussed the subject at large with many of my contacts in the industry.
1
Price Waterhouse coopers, Global entertainment and media outlook 2009-2013, (America, 2009)
2
Price Waterhouse coopers, Global entertainment and media outlook 2009-2013, (America, 2009)
3
Byrne, D. (2013, December 11)., Garofalo, R. (1999)., Miller, Seth A. (2006). All have interesting things to say on this subject, and have interesting ideas on whether to keep the system the way it is or dismantle it. 2
The first section of this paper will presents the matter of musical context from subjective reasoning. The second section will give trend predictions for streaming and iTunes. The importance of contextual meaning Beyonce At the end of 2013 Beyonce launched her new album without any notice, straight to iTunes. "I didn't want to release my music the way I've done it," the singer said. "I am bored with that. I feel like I am able to speak directly to my fans. There's so much that gets between the music, the artist and the fans. I felt like I didn't want anybody to give the message when my record is coming out. I just want this to come out when it's ready and from me to my fans."4 No marketing campaigns, no gimmicks and no teasers. This unprecedented strategic move has been done before by Radiohead, Jack White, David Bowie and My Bloody Valentine who launched their album with less than a two week notice 5. A new movement in music marketing you could say. Beyonce however, gave an extra touch of spice to it by making the album one big multimedia package. 14 songs and 17 videos, giving it a longer credit list than the average Hollywood blockbuster, taking this album to the next level of conceptualization. Aberrant from the usual artificial release schedules, and it turns out to be a great idea. The album headed straight toward No. 1 on the billboard chart and sold 80,000 copies in the first three hours after midnight. Thus we can state that there is a trend growing of big artists doing something different in digital interaction, if knowing that it will get an amount of awe in media coverage. The technical innovations of the past decade have also helped to establish this; leaks, P2P and fans knowing they can get everything of internet. Bu fully designing a preventive plan which also included leaks to detract from the big release, this plan was grounded. More common was for fans to hear a couple of songs from the album on the radio and then had to purchase an album to check out the rest. Nowadays we have already cherry picked our songs, favorite them in a streaming list or in our iPod and leave the album for what it is. 4
StarRainbow. Beyonce Exclusive Interview - Reveals Beyonce Album 2014[link in full bibliography] (2013, December 30) 5
Suddart. Business week [link in full bibliography] (2014 , 13 January) 3
The way Beyonce has presented it has forced people to listen and watch the whole package. Even if we only want to listen to one song, her brainchild is presented with a video. Intending to make us see the bigger picture. However, this kind of approach will only work on settled artist with a big fan-base or on smaller acts in a niche market with a very engaged fan bases. Due to the necessity of media attention around it, and the committed fans who aren’t going to wait for streaming services to put it online. The element of the album coming with more than a dozen music videos has thereby given focus back on the visual aspect and the purpose of music videos, the meaning of her songs are put in a different daylight. Instead of it just being an encouraging method on Youtube to purchase songs. There has always been lots of music innovation but never has there been innovation around music videos in the marketing mix. Beyonce herself said that the visual aspect was added as she thinks people are beginning to lose appreciation of full albums and the way that each song works together to tell a story. Which is when I again come back to the importance of (music) context, when we cherry pick songs do we lose the initial context? Context Context is important for creativity, to name a few; technology, environment and social context. As an artist it’s important to consider all possible ways to express your music. Playing in an opera house, on a festival or in a concert hall can unexpectedly effect what you end up hearing. These external forces can take or make the expression an artists wants to make. When playing on a festival it’s better just to go through the hit songs rather than play unfamiliar songs to the audience. Because the festival environment is just not the place for attentive listening in most cases. On the technological side people shift from exquisite stereo sets to phone speakers. Which obviously doesn’t take away the emotional enjoyment but needs to be taken into the consideration of the artist when deciding over all round marketing tools. Another thing that comes to mind when speaking of context is the format pop songs are made. Strict formats for radio play, a three minute pop songs in which for radio mostly the lyrical or emotional force are discussed. This form exists first to a point where we hardly even acknowledge it. The way pop musicians compose their songs hasn’t changed much in the past twenty years. There is a reason though to be more flexible with the concept of a pop song and to make an album which can be listened to like a single. The commercialization of dance music has done this to some extent, stretching this ABABCB 4
format with the extended remix. Furthermore the live performance gives freedom to play with the song structure. When are we going to hear more of this on the radio? Rules are also in the music scene, like I said before an eligible environment must be balance with what the act wants to tell. Words about new acts get around much quicker than they used to do. The way music is discovered and then disseminated in the past decade has had a change. From word-of-mouth and tracking bands in magazines to viral internet communication. This however does make several changes for beginner bands. They used to be able to play for small audiences and try out new things, bands were allowed to fail. Now the show has to be perfected in the garage before hitting the stage. This is not a bad or a right thing, it just is and it means that bands think much more all round more quickly 6 The technological innovation of file sharing has also brought people more into an isolated place online. People in online communities also need psychical contact, vibrant scenes based around the performance. Making the performance an even more important contact moment. The communal aspect and the surge towards performance have been around longer. People want to get out as to being alone and staring at a screen. Making the performance not necessarily a secondary thing anymore. A lot of beginning and middle class acts survive of the performance pay, they have to be good at it and not expect for record companies to fund these shows. Which directly gives a dilemma; some acts are just not born for the stage, or emerging acts with no stable name can’t get a booking. In order to do so an act needs someone to give the extra marketing push. Having said that, it must be clear that bands with no musical talent, no image and bad songs are excluded from this statement. But it is hard to get a booking agent or a record deal these days, emerging bands therefore really need to know what they are doing and look at all the creative contexts they can present their music and style in. More musicians will go back to looking more deeply into what they want to tell, look at who they are, what they stand for and make an album which can be heard as a single, like Beyonce. The performance comes inline with this and will be, as it was in the days of the Beatles, the most important marketing tool but also a way to connect to the fans in times where only screen is the biggest friend.
6
Byrne, D. “David Byrne: 'The internet will suck all creative content out of the world� [link in full bibliography] (2013) 5
“Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. ...That tension will not go away”-Stewart Brand iTunes Prospects say Apple will become more powerful and behave like a monopoly. It is said that if iTunes recorded music store were it’s own separate company, it’s gross revenues would represent over 30% of the market. This would imply that it’s the biggest record music company by revenue. The problem with Apple, however, is that it does not give any of its revenues back into the creation and development of artists and songs, such as promotion and publicity 7. Apple now takes in 30% of the sales, but with no risk – as opposed to record companies would have as they are supporting the artists (Figure. 1)8 So it seems a bit out of balance when iTunes gets more than the artists; who are getting crushed between the record companies and Apple. In the past if someone risked more than 20% of gross revenues, they had a great risk losing a lot of money.
“In 2010 there were 75,000 albums released. About 60,000 sold less than 100 copies. Only approximately 2,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. Slightly less than 1,000 sold more than 10,000 copies. Most of those artists were record label artists.
An album that sells 10,000 copies for an independent artist would gross around $65,000. With this, the independent artist must pay for recording, a publicist, radio promotion, advertising, photos artwork etcetera. You quickly realize that the independent artist is unlikely to be better off under the new system. In practice, the independent artist is unlikely to net anywhere near the 65% we estimated”.
7
Lowery, D. “Meet The New Boss, Worse Than The Old Boss?” [link in full bibliography] (2012, 04).
8
Figure 1: Lowery, D. “Show the digital album independent artist chart.” [link in full bibliography] (2013) 6
What percentage of revenue from digital sales goes to independent artists? iTunes/Amazon 61%* Google Play 70% Bandcamp 85% -fees** CDbaby 75% Directly off the artists Website. 100%-fees * requires using an aggregator like CDbaby. generally 9% fee. ** looks like Bandcamp pays after the credit card paypal frees.9 When we look at the table above, it would be most profitable for artists to sell directly from their own website. Which I believe most artists try to do, but with the interference of Facebook, Youtube and Twitter traffic towards band websites have decreased enormously. Traffic towards Facebook is available all day for most people and it has made it too easy to get lazy listeners on the band-page on Facebook. The fact that Facebook seeks interaction with other fans easily speaks for it too. Bands now mostly manage their website through Facebook and Twitter. This would make the website a backend control panel for the web-presence, in the case of smaller bands. Reasons to visit the website is either it being an immensely popular artist, or the content is super unique. How Facebook works is related to the way iTunes and Amazon work in marketing ways. It’s so much easier to get tracks when you’ve already got credit in your iTunes store rather than to go to the bands website for purchase. For these reasons I believe that iTunes and Amazon (which share approximately 61% revenue with independent artists) should start investing in things like promotion and publicity. Especially when not everybody is comparable to Radiohead and sell enormously from direct website sales. The reason of course for Apple not to do so is quite simple. The artists that will be discovered on YouTube are sorted out by the internet and thus by the consument, making Apple not have to invest. The 1% that achieves decent sales is given to them. Therefore, Apple doesn’t have to have interest in the other 99% of artist who aren’t going to make it. However, it should be said that maybe 50% of those artists are going to be of any influence to successful artists. They could be trendsetters and innovators, giving the music scene liveliness and excitement. Many forms of popular music have been made possible because ‘winners’ careers are often built on ‘losers’ innovations. Therefore, the health of
9
(Lowery, D. “Meet The New Boss, Worse Than The Old Boss?” [link in full bibliography] (2012, 04). 7
the other 99% is needed in order to achieve this. In the olden days record labels would essentially redistribute the winnings of the 1% to the middle class of artists. This unfortunatly doesn’t work this way anymore. So again, Apple should start returning more to artists and actually see that it is in their best interest to do so for the long term interest. Another reason I would like to push Apple’s iTunes forward, is because it doesn’t have a piracy problem like Youtube has. Apple doesn’t allow user generated content from just anyone, therefore there is a barrier to entry that prevents such events. Which is partly true, because on a third party level anyone can upload an album to CDbaby or Tunecore. However, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) gives thousands more notices to content on YouTube 10 . I’m also implying here that Google is just a big money making wolf that wants to turn YouTube into its cash cow. The intend of iTunes and Youtube is completely different. Because it’s not that YouTube is not able to filter its content. There has never ever been a single flash of porn on YouTube, yet they seem to miss law of copyrights and the enforcement of Intellectual Property. I find it quite disturbing that many platforms effectively manage digital distribution of songs without triggering millions of DMCA notices and YouTube cannot do this. Other reasons that support Apple to take a strong stand for artists are: they actually are the first to make music fashionable with iTunes and its IPod. It was also like I mentioned before the first business that gave artists 70% of each sale, having proper invoices detailing exactly how many tracks were sold and an ability to sell music on just about every device with a chip in it. It set the norm for other companies. (Associated Apple also made equal playing ground for independent labels and artists. Independent artists could get promotional space alongside the major labels making it possible for independent labels and artists to compete with the majors. For the consumer this was also perfect; labels couldn’t decide to let a single record cost more than 99 cents if it was immensely popular. Every single track cost 99 cents. I suggest that digital stores could offer greater incentives to purchase multiple items simultaneously: free album downloads with the purchase of a t-shirt and a poster; three digital albums for the price of two; two free music videos with the purchase of an album, etc. Alas, the value of recorded music seems to have decreased. And by giving greater incentives it could presumably contribute
10
McKay, P. “Youtube refuses to honor DMCA Counter-Notices” [link in full bibliography] (2013) 8
to an even further devaluation. Still, I believe incentives for bundled purchases are something to look into. Back in 2003, 30% turnover for iTunes seemed normal as they set the tone but with any successful business (think of the DVD) setting costs decrease when getting cheaper manufactering costs. Apple has the opportunity to do this. Moreover, Apple pushed the music industry into the digital era, cutting into the CD turnover. Which is something to make up to an endless frustration of many parties, even if they were trying to create a solution of file sharing. Prediction and hopes summed up: iTunes will offer a Spotify style streaming model, namely because it has got the largest music database, doesn’t get notices from the DCMA, and therefore has a great relationship and influence on record labels. They will make a product that is even better than Spotify. Physical sales will remain as they are and digital downloads will lose substance as streaming becomes the next big thing with the growth of smartphones and tablets. All artists will learn that it is much more profitable to act independently as iTunes starts giving shares for promotion etc. They will also be able to integrate their website in Facebook when the band-page passes directly on to the artist his webpage. Giving back the sales to where it should be in the first place, the artist.11 For the time being till the future is here, some music buying tips: #1 best option: Buy directly at a concert or in the bands web shop. #2 The local record store, here they will get the sentiment of a real tangible product. Moreover record stores promote and support artists, not like iTunes does. #3 Buy from online independent record stores or directly from a band’s label. #4 Download from iTunes/Amazon. It’s always better than going to the pirate-bay.12
11
Geller, P. (2000). Geller has a very good description of music history, also for further information of copywrite. 12
Becker, J. “Opinion: Spotify vs iTunes vs file-sharing vs Emily White and the ethical battle over music” [link in full bibliography] (2012, June 15) 9
Literature Aalberts, N. (2009-2013). “Eerste hulp bij plaatopnamen”. Retrieved electronically 2014 from http://eerstehulpbijplaatopnamen.blogspot.nl/. Becker, J. (2012, June 15) “Opinion: Spotify vs iTunes vs file-sharing vs Emily White and the ethical battle over music” Retrieved electronically 10 December 2013 from, http:// twths.org/opinion-spotify-vs-itunes-vs-file-sharing-vs-streaming-and-the-ethical-battle-overmusic-ownership/ Byrne, D. (2008, 03). “David Byrne's Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars.“ Retrieved electronically 3 January 2014 from, http://cla.calpoly.edu/~lcall/ 354/byrne_survival_strategies.pdf. Byrne, D. (2013, December 11) “David Byrne: 'The internet will suck all creative content out of the world” Retrieved electronically 23 December 2013 from, http:// www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world Fursich, E., Avant-Mier, R. (2013). “Popular journalism and cultural change: The discourse of globalization in world music reviews”. International journal of cultural studies. Garofalo, R. (1999). “From Publishing to MP3: Music and industry in the Twentieth Century”. University of Illinois, Vol 17, No. 3. Geller, P. (2000). “Copyright History and the Future: What’s Culture got to do with It?. University of Southern California Law School. Retrieved electronically 10 December 2013 from, http://irandanesh.febpco.com/FileEssay/Copyright.pdf Lowery, D. (2012, 04). “Meet The New Boss, Worse Than The Old Boss?” Retrieved electronically 2013 from, http://thetrichordist.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-new-boss-worsethan-the-old-boss-full-post/.
10
McKay, P. (2013, April 4). “Youtube refuses to honor DMCA Counter-Notices”. Retrieved electronically 4 January 2014 from, http://fairusetube.org/articles/27-youtube-refusescounter-notices Masnick, M. (2011, 07). “How much does a band make from various music platforms?” Retrieved electronically 13 January 2014 from, http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/ articles/20110911/00284415891/how-much-does-band-make-various-musicplatforms.shtml Miller, Seth A. (2006). “Peer-to-Peer File Distribution: An Analysis of Design, Liability, Litigation, and Potential Solutions”. University of Texas Law. [no author stated in article] (2010) Building a digital Economy :The Importance of saving jobs In the EU’s creative industries. Tera. Price Waterhouse coopers (2009), global entertainment and media outlook 2009-2013, 10th annual edition. Suddart, C. (2013), “Why Beyoncé Didn't Tell Anyone About Her New Album” Retrieved electronically on 13 January 2014 from, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/ 2013-12-16/beyonc-s-surprise-album-release-on-itunes-defies-pop-star-marketing StarRainbow (2013, December 30). “Beyonce Exclusive Interview - Reveals Beyonce Album 2014 [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw-iT8QncvA Figures Figure 1. Lowery, D. (2012, 04). “Meet The New Boss, Worse Than The Old Boss?” Retrieved electronically 2013 from, http://thetrichordist.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-newboss-worse-than-the-old-boss-full-post/.
11