A new venue in England points to a promising, but different future for live music.
On August 11, a new venue opened in Newcastle, England. The Virgin Money Unity Arena is a 2,500-capacity concert space unlike any other. It’s the world’s first socially-distant venue, and it features 500 concert pods where fans can gather to see their favorite musician perform.
That’s right. People can see live music in large groups again. The performance looks the same as always, with bright lights and loud amplifiers, but the crowd is socially-distancing by design. Some believed such a feat was impossible, or that people wouldn’t be interested, but the Virgin Money Unity Arena’s first show was a total sell-out, and more are happening soon.
Virgin Money Unity Arena has shows planned throughout August and September, but the question remains: What will we do in winter? Countries in the northern hemisphere have two to three months before consumers won’t be willing to stand outside for live music. What happens then? Will more creative venues like the one in Newcastle emerge, or will live music be placed on a seasonal hold? Will people fight for shows, even if science tells us gathering in large groups is bad?
In this Music Biz News update, host James Shotwell discusses the venue and what it may tell us about the future of live music. He also looks ahead and questions whether or not similar spaces will exist when winter inevitably arrives.
After taking a dip in the wake of COVID-19, new data shows that streaming music consumption is on the rise yet again.
Trauma is a strange beast. You never know how you will react to traumatic situations, and sometimes, you don’t even realize you’re experiencing trauma until days, weeks, months, or even years after the fact. A perfect example is the headline-making moment coronavirus had in mid-March. Maybe you felt fear in that instance, or perhaps you didn’t feel the stress of a disease with no cure ripping through your lived ones until much later. Either way, you were experiencing something traumatic that more than likely influenced your behavior.
One change we can find through reviewing consumption data is how the lockdowns that followed the COVID-19 outbreak in the US impacted streaming. As Billboard reports, streaming was measured at 9.4% below average in the week ending March 26. That change can be blamed on a shift in consumer habits as much as a general sense of distraction. People were commuting less because their employers were closed. People were worried about their bills instead of the latest singles. Several big releases got delayed.
For a moment, the industry was scared this downward trend would last as long as the coronavirus itself, but new data says otherwise. Audio streaming rose to 0.9% above average in the week ending May 7, the latest period for which data is available. Music video streams have increased each of the last seven weeks and were 12.5% above average during the week ending May 7.
The report had some other interesting data as well. 84% of people who added a new music subscription service in the previous two weeks said they are likely to continue paying for it after COVID-19. As musicians’ touring income has been gutted during the pandemic, 43% of consumers said they are willing to buy merchandise or music to support artists, up from 36% the week of March 23. One in five consumers said they’ve watched a virtual concert since the lockdown began, although only 29% of the general population and just 17% of teens said they are willing to pay for one.
What does all this mean? The short answer is, the music business is resilient. Life may look nothing like it did before March 13, but that doesn’t mean people have stopped caring about entertainment. If anything, music has proven to be a great sense of comfort. It reminds us of a simpler time while simultaneously helping us cope with the chaos happening outside our homes. People are leaning on music to get them through, and the business is reaping the reward of being able to be there for people who may have no one else.
The internet has ruined our already short attention spans.
In the early days of entertainment, consumers were likely to try anything at least once. New artist? Let’s hear their single. New sound? Let’s see how this compares to what worked in the past.
Today’s consumer is far more fickle, but that didn’t happen overnight. As media has grown, so has the number of options consumers have at any given moment. In 2018, anyone can watch or listen to virtually anything with just a few clicks. From free content to streaming services and (unfortunately) pirate sites, nearly all entertainment ever produced is available at all times all over the world.
With that in mind, who has time for the unfamiliar?
Music blogger Paul Lamere analyzed billions of plays from millions of Spotify listeners all over the world to discover their skip rates. Here’s what he found:
24.14 percent likelihood of skipping to the next song in the first 5 seconds.
28.97 percent in the first 10 seconds
35.05 percent in the first 30 seconds
48.6 percent skip before the song finishes
Digging further, Lamere found that the average listener skips 14.65 times per hour, or about once every four minutes. Females skip slightly more than males at 45.23% to 44.75%.
The mobile skip rate is 51.1% while on a desktop it’s 40.1%. That data suggests that desktop listening is a background activity, something used to fill the void of silence, which makes sense. Most of us listen to music while working, and most of us have a very particular preference when it comes to what sounds help us work best.
Lamere also discovered some interesting correlations between age and skip rates. Teenagers, who are notorious for their short attention spans, skip more than 50% of the tracks they hear. Adults, on the other hand, skip about 35% of the material.
Weekend skip rates are higher than those during the week, which is due at least in part to fewer people listening via desktop. People know what they want to hear on the weekend because they’re often trying to create a mood to accompany a specific activity. Once an attitude or style is identified, skipping anything that doesn’t fit that desired consistency is second nature.
The big takeaway here (and most obvious), is that grabbing the attention of listeners is harder than ever. Artists need to catch us right away if they have any chance of gaining fans, especially if they’re hoping to target a younger demographic.
The industry is changing. Aside from the rise of streaming, which has completely altered the way people consume music and the way artists make money, the business as a whole seems more uncertain than ever about what might come next. Will festivals continue to grow in popularity? Will radius clauses force up and coming acts to choose between high-profile gigs and a series of smaller, more intimate performances? Will venues demand more substantial cuts of merch sales? Will fans still want physical media, and if so, in what format?
These questions and many more are pondered in offices and at conferences every year. They each create an excellent foundation for conversation, but the outcome is usually the same: We won’t know until it happens. Maybe the festival bubble will burst, but then again, perhaps it won’t. Maybe smaller artists will breakout from a single high-profile appearance, but they may fair better with smaller gigs that provide fans more access to the talent. It’s all up in the air all the time, and more importantly, not every answer works for everyone.
One thing that is certain: We will continue to debate the livelihood of albums until the end of time.
Every year for the past decade there comes a time, usually in the fall or winter, when significant publications debate whether or not the albums are practical. The most recent outlet to hop on this bandwagon is Rolling Stone, who just this week published an article claiming records are ‘in deep trouble.’
For those who prefer a TL;DR explanation, the latest round of ‘RIP Albums’ posts stem from a report released by the RIAA a couple months back regarding sales in 2018. According to the numbers, total album sales for the first half of 2018 were down 25% compared to the first half of 2017. If that figure continues for the second half of the year, which many believe it will, then total album sales will plummet 50% compared to the previous year. That is a major drop, and it’s being said that track-led consumption through streaming services. In other words, people love singles, and the popularity of playlists in the streaming arena has made the success of a single track, not to mention its ability to be placed, over the quality of albums.
But there’s more to the drop in sales than the popularity of singles. Cultural trends play a part in consumer behavior as well, and right now there are no two genres of music more popular than hip-hop and EDM. An artist in these areas can make a career out of one song. Sheck Wes, for example, landed a record deal with Kanye West’s GOOD Music off the strength of his viral hit “Mo Bamba.” Similarly, Cardi B found international success with “Bodak Yellow.” She was hailed as a new artist because of the release, despite the fact she had previously released multiple mixtapes.
Both Sheck Wes and Cardi B released albums in 2018, but when discussing their successes and failures, it’s the singles that lead any conversation.
And speaking of conversation, you can probably add social media to the list of things contributing to the belief albums are dead. It is far easier to not only digest single tracks but also to discuss them. It takes less than five minutes to stream most singles, and just a matter of seconds to tweet out one’s thoughts on the material. Albums, on the other hand, require far more time and attention. You could easily spend an hour listening to a record, and expressing your thoughts on the material in full will likely require more than 280 characters (the maximum length of a tweet). Culture has trained people to believe that if they’re not contributing to the endless chatroom that is social media, then they are somehow missing out, which in turn encourages people to stay on top of everything that can be consumed at a moments notice. Singles are more accessible, which means more people can make time to consume them. More people = more conversation.
Rock and country music work differently. Artists hoping to make it in those areas of music need to not only have good singles but also must tour heavily, which means performing numerous songs any given night. One great track may help start a conversation, or even land a meeting with label execs, but those who become household names must also possess a catalog of potential hits. Fans of these genres still buy albums, but because country and rock are less popular than they were ten or even twenty years ago the most successful LPs cannot hold a candle to the streaming numbers artists achieve in other genres of music.
Albums are not dead, and they never will be, but as consumer behavior continues to evolve there may be less of them garnering attention. This same trend can be found in all areas of entertainment. Paintings, for example, were once the height of entertainment. Most people can name iconic talents such as Van Gogh or Picasso, but how many modern painters do you know? There are galleries of all sizes in cities all over the world showcasing current talent all the time, so surely someone is paying attention.
