Releasing music should be a simple process, but in the digital age, that is rarely the case.
The business of music should be simple. An artist or group writes a song, records the song, and then they make that song available to the public.
But that is not our reality. In today’s music business, artists and groups still write songs that eventually get recorded and go on to be made available to the public. However, there are numerous additional steps in the process that must be taken to ensure reach and revenue. Here’s one example:
A local band writes a song they love. The group plays a few shows to raise money and books studio time. After recording, the group sends their material to be mixed and mastered by someone with a history of success in their genre. While that is happening, the band works on the cover art for the song, finding an artist to make that cover art, and funding the creation of their press kit.
Once the song is returned, the band must upload the material to a promotional site to try and get the interest of press and industry professionals prior to the song’s release date, all of whom have to be contacted one at a time. The group must also upload their music to a digital distribution platform (perhaps multiple platforms) and ensure their song will be available on all of the dozens of streaming services. They may also need to order physical copies of their music, which can take anywhere from one week to several months to get back.
The band must also promote the release extensively across numerous channels, all with no guarantee of success or response.
That is the reality of life in music for most artists working today. Fans don’t always understand the work that goes into getting a single song to the public, and some artists don’t grasp why going the extra mile to ensure all those things are to the best of their abilities can impact the response the material receives.
Thankfully, a new video exists that breaks down music distribution in today’s entertainment industry. Check it out:
While the new age of music business can be complicated it also has its fair share of perks:
Faster payment/royalties
Manufacturing costs are much lower (especially for digital-only releases)
Artists can release more music, more often if they choose to do so.
More music is available to more people than ever before, and it requires far less cost/effort to access it.
Considering how much the industry has changed in the ten years since Spotify first launched, one has to wonder what it will look like a decade from now. Will streaming still reign supreme? Will consumers have as many choices as they do now? Will vinyl still have a market? Only time will tell.
Consumers are replacing pre-orders with pre-adds and pre-saves, but is something important being lost along the way?
Fast-rising pop sensation Billie Eilish will release her debut record, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, this Friday, but the teenager’s album is already being considered a massive success. Despite not yet being released, the LP has already accrued more than 800,000 pre-adds on Apple Music, which allows users to register to add an album to their streaming collection before it ships, with Eilish setting a new record for the service.
That volume of pre-adds for Eilish’s album is a sign of how the industry is continuing to evolve. Speaking to Music Business Worldwide, Apple Music boss Oliver Schusser said:
“While most services focus the majority of their efforts around playlists, Apple Music still emphasizes albums because we understand their value as a storytelling tool for artists to create context around their music.
To that end, pre-adds are great early indicators of engagement around an artist and the intention of the fans. To actively pre-add an album, much like the pre-order we invented with iTunes, means that the fan is excited about the content and wants to be among the first to enjoy it the moment its available. That kind of engagement is very valuable to an artist and to us.”
Spotify offers a service similar to Apple Music. The company’s pre-save feature allows users to register to have the album added to their library and to receive an alert regarding the content’s availability. The reliability of the notifications depend on how many pre-saves a user registers, but the content is always added as soon as its made available.
While the figures for Eilish’s album are great, pre-adds and pre-saves are not a perfect replacement for pre-orders. Schusser was right to say the numbers can tell a lot about excitement for a release, and they can also help predict initial performance, but the tools currently available to artists through streaming platforms do not provide context about their audience.
If a user pre-saves or pre-adds an album, what does the artist get? Do they know my name? Where I live? My email address? Do they receive anything other than a counter that tells them I am one of the however many people that have decided to request notification of their release becoming available?
Streaming services also do not offer any data that informs artists as to whether or not consumers who pre-save their release actually listen to it.
The real winner in the rising popularity of pre-saves and pre-adds are the streaming services offering them. By using that functionality, consumers are providing the platforms with additional insight into their listening habits. Their actions are strengthening the algorithms that recommend content and create playlists. Whether they know it or not, consumers are strengthening the services they use more than the artists they’re hoping to support.
Still, streaming is here to stay and there is no getting around that fact. If the industry is lucky, Spotify, Apple Music, and similar platforms will make more listener data available to them as time progresses. That seems more likely than a rise in royalty rates based on recent events, but it’s still not going to happen overnight.
The latest report from the Recording Industry Association of America shows consumer interest in premium streaming music subscriptions is on the rise.
Numbers can be deceiving. When asked to discuss their growth, streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music will often quote their global user statistics instead of those related to a specific country or continent. That isn’t necessarily wrong by any means, but it can lead consumers and investors alike to perceive a company’s standing in a different light.
In January, Spotify announced it now welcomed over 200 million users every month. That figure, which refers to the platform’s total global user count, included 96 million paying premium subscribers. No further details were given related to where paying subscriptions came from, nor has any similar information been provided to the media since.
A new report from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has shed a bit more light on the streaming market. According to the study, 50 million US consumers paid for streaming music services in 2018. Use of such platforms rose 33% over 2017’s numbers, and it’s likely to grow further still in 2019.
“Tremendous output from the artist community fueled a historic milestone of 50 million subscriptions to music services, which in turn helped drive U.S. music’s third consecutive year of double-digit growth,” RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier said in a statement.
“Rejuvenation in the industry means more opportunities to find and break new artists for fans to enjoy,” Glazier said.
Additional data found in the report reveals that 75% of music industry revenue now comes from various forms of streaming. Physical sales of vinyl records continued to increase, up 8% to $419 million, the highest level since 1988.
Unfortunately, other forms of physical media were not as successful. Revenue from CD sales are down almost 34%, to $698 million; music video sales fell more than 28%, to $28 million; and sales of “other physical media,” including cassette tapes, was off nearly 22%, to $9.6 million.
Total music revenue for 2018 totaled just under $10 billion — a significant recovery from the low of $6.7 billion in both 2014 and 2015 — but the industry is only back to a level close to what it was in 2007 when the total was $10.7 billion.
The RIAA did not comment on how the rising popularity of streaming services is impacting the lives of artists. The most popular performers have reported big earning from Spotify and the like, but many smaller and mid-size artists have found it harder to rely on recorded music to pay their bills.
Regardless, it appears the streaming boom will continue for the foreseeable future. Follow HaulixDaily on Facebook and Twitter for more industry news and insight.
SoundCloud is joining Spotify as the latest streaming giant to offer distribution services.
SoundCloud is joining Spotify as the latest streaming giant to offer distribution services.
A good CEO can change everything. With the right person in power, a company can go from the brink of failure to being widely considered an essential component of its industry in a relatively small amount of time. They can also change public perception, raise awareness, and discover new revenue streams that do not alienate users or further complicate a product.
SoundCloud CEO Kerry Trainor cannot is unstoppable. Two years after reports of the platform’s demise began to circulate throughout the industry, Trainor’s guidance has helped the company bring in over $100 million in revenue annually, as well as many significant updates that have raised the profile and utility of Soundcloud to new heights.
Trainor’s next move may change everything. This week, SoundCloud announced the beta launch of SoundCloud Premier, a distribution service that will allow artists to upload their music to numerous streaming platforms, including Apple Music and Spotify. The company hopes the service, which is the first to be built directly into a streaming platform, will make SoundCloud a kind of ‘mission control’ for artists on the rise. Musicians can now choose from their uploaded tracks and albums and distribute to all major music services while keeping 100% of their rights and payouts (SoundCloud takes nothing) and getting streamlined payments directly from SoundCloud.
SoundCloud Premier is available at no additional cost to all eligible Pro and Pro Unlimited subscribers who are 18 years of age or older, creators of original music, have zero copyright strikes, and at least 1,000 monetizable track plays. Eligible creators can expect eligibility notifications via email and in-product notifications over the next few weeks.
In the meantime, you can learn more here. If you think you’d be eligible but haven’t gone Pro, you can upgrade now, and the company will contact you if/when you qualify. In addition to one revenue stream that reigns supreme, you’ll get the pro tools to level up your career, so that you can grow your audience and make even more music to distribute.
Thank you for joining us for another installment in our our ongoing Journalism Tips series. We started this column as a way to help aspiring writers get their start in music, but over the couple months we have been evolving into a place writers come to have their questions about life in the business answered. Today we are continuing that effort with a response to a question posed by multiple reader in regards to how they go about accessing the music distributed by Haulix. If you have any questions about developing as a writer/blogger in music, please do not hesitate email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
Haulix exists to provide artists and record labels a secure platform for distributing promotional material. Keeping those materials safe is our top priority, and we are constantly developing new ways to further prevent piracy. We believe that by continuing to fight piracy we are helping develop the future of the industry, which is something every current and aspiring professional should feel some sense of responsibility to help create. That’s part of the reason this blog exists – to showcase the wide variety of talents and personalities that have come together to fight for the future of this business.
One thing people often do not understand about our efforts is that we do not grant access to the materials distributed through our platform. We exist to serve our clients, and those wanting to access our clients’ media will need to go through them to be invited to experience the Haulix platform. It’s not our media to share, after all, and as much as we love publicity it’s our forte.
Gaining access to unreleased music for promotional purposes and feature consideration is a relatively simple process, but without a little professionalism and tact your request will likely get lost in someone’s inbox. We cannot prepare you for every situation that you will encounter when seeking new music, but we can give you the basics of working with the type of people that use Haulix.
The first thing you need to know about requesting music from labels, PR, or the like is that no two scenarios will be exactly the same. Everyone has their own method for distributing promotional materials, as well as their own requirements for the individuals they grant early access. The best you can do is be yourself and be honest with your position in the industry. You may not have the biggest site on the net, but that usually does not matter. Labels and PR are looking to work with writers and sites that are passionate about music. More specifically, writers and sites passionate about the type of music they are trying to sell/promote. If that applies to you, then there is a good chance a wonderful working relationship can be developed in no time at all.
Before you send any messages I would take a day or two and scour the internet for the companies and groups you want to work with, as well as their point of contact and how/when they prefer to be reached. It will be tempting to send a blanket ‘please send materials’ message to everyone on your list, but the best relationships are built on taking a personal interest in the other person. If you have 55 people/places to contact then you should plan on creating 55 individual messages. The core of each letter will remain the same, but taking the time to personalize each note will go a long way towards leaving a positive first impression on the individual you are trying to reach.
The letter you draft when requesting promotional materials should be short and to the point. Introduce yourself, your site, your reason for writing, and (if possible) let them know how you plan to feature their artist on your site. There may be more details needed down the line, but this should give the person you are contacting enough information to decide whether or not they want to work with you. You can find a sample letter below:
Dear [insert name whenever possible]
Hello. My name is [INSERT YOUR NAME] and I am writing on behalf of [INSERT YOUR SITE WITH A LINK TO THE FRONTPAGE]. I noticed that you are listed as the press contact for [Artist/Group/Label] and I am contacting you in hopes of working together moving forward.
[YOUR SITE] is a music site dedicated to covering [INSERT COVERAGE]. We have been following [THE ARTIST/LABEL] for a while now and would love to work together on [PROJECT – REVIEWS/INTERVIEWS/FEATURES/ETC] in the near future. We welcome [TRAFFIC, IF POSSIBLE] a month and are growing by the week.
I understand that you are busy, but if you could review my request and respond at your earliest convenience it would be much appreciated. Thank you for your time.
Best,
[YOUR NAME]
[YOUR SITE]
As much as it may be a downer to highlight, the hard truth is that not everyone you contact is going to want to work with you. Heck, some probably will not even send you a reply. In those cases, it’s perfectly acceptable to send a follow-up email to ensure the receipt of your original message, but after a certain amount of time you may need to let that request go until you/your site can improve.
Whatever you do, please try your absolute hardest to refrain from attacking, bashing, or otherwise being a dick to label/PR people who are not quick to respond to you. The music industry is a wild place, and anyone working in promotion or publicity spend about twenty-three hours a day working on various projects. They want to work with you too, but their ability to reply right away may be stunted due to what they currently have going on. BE PATIENT. I know you want to hear the new album from that band you think is going to be huge, and trust me – they want you to hear it to. Being pushy and/or coming across as frustrated with the people on the other end will go you nowhere in this business.
