Tag: Music Streams

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Could Spotify and Clubhouse be a Perfect Match? [VIDEO]

Spotify Clubhouse

Combining two of the biggest audio-focused apps on the planet seems like a no-brainer, but will it actually happen?

The competition for listener attention and money in the crowded audio space is fierce. With virtually all streaming platforms offering the same songs, the only thing that can separate each brand is in the features they offer. Podcasts alone are not enough. High-fidelity recordings are not enough. The companies that rise above in 2021 and beyond need to be thinking outside the box, and it looks like Spotify may be doing just that with its latest activity. 

Recently, Spotify Daniel Ek participated in a Clubhouse event with Mark Zuckerberg that seemed to reveal his interest in audio-driven social technology. He then confirmed this belief in an interview with The Verge where he stated:

“I think that there’s a number of different elements of what social audio or Clubhouse even is. So I think on the one end, you’re seeing the interaction between two or more people talking, and obviously, if you think about podcasts today, that’s typically the format that’s working pretty well there, too. So I’m not surprised that that’s working.

I’m also not surprised that social features, users to users interacting with each other, are working. So it is an interesting space, and it’s definitely something that we’re keeping an eye on. Long-term, though, I think the broader shift that has been true with the internet has been most of the hours of consumption, we believe, will be moving from linear to on-demand. Meaning consumers should be able to consume whatever content that they want on their terms and not necessarily be beholden to someone else’s schedule. So I think it’s a really interesting format from a creation perspective, but I suspect that from the consumption perspective, most of the time consumed will still be on-demand which is what Spotify is known for today.“

The interest Ek — and by extension, Spotify — has in Clubhouse doesn’t stop there. In the last week, the streaming service has asked users with ad-supported streaming subscriptions to offer their thoughts on Clubhouse. The survey ends with a notice that the company will likely have more questions about Clubhouse soon.

But what does this mean? Two ideas that come to mind:

  • Spotify is considering acquiring Clubhouse.
  • Spotify is preparing to launch a native version of Clubhouse.

In the latest Music Biz update, host James Shotwell explains the latest rumors and argues that combining these two wildly popular apps could mark the dawn of a new age in music consumption and conversation. Check it out:

Spotify — or any streaming service — offering a native version of Clubhouse could be a pivotal moment in digital music evolution. For the first time, artists would host interactive fan events in the same place where their music is available for consumption. Rather than pointing fans from IG live, Zoom, or Twitch to yet another platform, everything an artist needs to engage with fans would be in one place.

Only time will tell what happens between these apps, but given Ek’s interest it seems likely something will develop in the months and years ahead. Stay tuned.

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Bandcamp users spent over $4.3 Million to support artists in one day

Bandcamp waived its share of the revenue earned from song and album sales last Friday.

In these uncertain times, it is good to know there are people in the world who are passionate about helping musicians get ahead. Touring right now is impossible, and streams are declining, but last Friday, album sales for indie artists were up in a big way thanks to Bandcamp.

As previously reported, Bandcamp waived its share of any revenue generated through its platform last Friday, March 20. The one-day promotion was part of a global effort to support independent musicians struggling to pay bills in light of Covid-19. Artists and labels alike promoted the initiative, as did several high-profile publications, and fans, thankfully, came out to show their support.

The numbers tell a remarkable story: on a typical Friday, fans buy about 47,000 items on Bandcamp, but this past Friday, fans bought nearly 800,000, or $4.3 million worth of music and merch. That’s more than 15 times the service’s Friday, and at the peak, fans were buying 11 items per second.

A post announcing the sales figure on the Bandcamp blog made it clear the platform is far from over supporting its artists. It reads:

“We don’t yet know the long-term impact of Covid-19, but we know that we all need music—to uplift and inspire us, to heal us, and to give us hope. We’ll continue working to make Bandcamp the best place for fans and artists to come together and sustain each other in the challenging times ahead. Thank you again, and we wish you all good health!”

It’s hard to emphasize the importance of buying music and merch from artists during this difficult time enough. As we mentioned in our Music Biz video series, streaming numbers are down across the industry, which means artists are seeing less revenue from consumption that unusual. Supporting musicians through the purchase of music and merchandise is the best way to help artists pay their bills and continue creating music.

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The Top Priority For All New Artists

Every artist has a unique journey to success in the music industry, but they should all start with the same goal.

Now is the best time ever to start a music career. The opportunities for exposure and success are at an all-time high, and virtually everyone can begin making money for their creative output as soon as it’s uploaded to the internet. Artists have never been as empowered to express themselves as they are right now, and that has made music as a whole far more interesting.

But regardless of who you are and the kind of music you seek to create, the goal of every musician starting today should be the same: Growth.

Jesse Cannon, music producer and author of numerous books geared at helping musicians succeed, says all new artists should prioritize growth until they have at least 20,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

Why Spotify? If you asked a few years back, Cannon would have said the goal growth on Facebook or Twitter. Online metrics matter significantly in the industry, and having a sizable audience on any platform is a clear sign to the industry at large that people care about what you’re doing.

These days, however, Spotify is the most sought-after platform for strong performance stats. After all, the streaming giant is where digital engagement transforms into money. Every stream on Spotify counts towards an artist’s income. When labels, management, and the like are looking for new talent, Spotify is the place most turn to gauge an artist’s value.

When asked for more information, Cannon said 20,000 was indicative of an artist having “buzz beyond those of us who talk about [music] all day.” Meaning, an artist with a large Spotify following confirms the general public has discovered and taken an interest in their music. There are many artists that critics and industry professionals love who may never reach a following that large, so it’s important — from a business standpoint — to know music consumers are embracing someone.

Cannon further suggested that artists should avoid releasing or working on albums until they hit the 20,000 listener goal. Until that time, Cannon recommends releasing singles regularly. Consistently giving people a new reason to care or give you a chance is a proven tactic for developing an audience. Until people are willing to wait for something that could take a long time to complete, stick with singles as a means of showcasing your talent.

Careers are built on fans. In the age of the internet, engaging with listeners is incredibly easy. You can tweet at people, post to Facebook, share stories on Instagram, create videos for YouTube, and maintain a mailing list, among other things, without spending a dime. Growth on any platform is excellent, but growth on Spotify makes a difference that other digital communities cannot. Focus your efforts, build a community, and in time you will have the audience needed to support a full-time career.

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Bridging the Entertainment Gap Between China and the US

Music streaming is a global business, but artists are unknowingly missing out on revenue due to cultural and geographic differences. Fortunately, East Goes Global has a solution.

The Chinese music market is booming, and it’s still growing. For the first time in history, the Chinese market is among the world’s largest–in 2017, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry confirmed China had finally entered the top ten music markets. This is all great news for American artists who want to break into the Chinese market but doing so remains a challenge. Many of the most popular streaming services and social media platforms in North America and Europe—Spotify, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Apple Music, etc.—are banned in China. Plenty of streaming services exist, but it’s a new development in a country with a history of piracy where the laws are constantly evolving. That’s where East Goes Global comes in. Founder Andrew Spalter is an expert in the Chinese market, stemming from his tenure as the day to day and tour manager for internationally-charting pop star Jessie J, who became the first foreign competitor to win Chinese competition and television show Singer 2018. Following Jessie J’s win [on the show], Spalter’s name began to gain notoriety in the Chinese mainstream music scene.

Spalter was soon approached by numerous superstars to aid in breaking the artists in the American market. What Spalter immediately discovered is that there is an enormous disconnect between both American and Chinese listeners and both sides were missing out on significant revenue because of it.

“You hear it all the time when speaking to entrepreneurs…my ‘aha!’ moment was…well, in my case, there were a few ‘aha’s!’, and they beat me over the head with a sledgehammer. Things like Directors of International Marketing at major US labels claiming that Spotify was available in China, another label offering a dairy branded deal to a Vegan, Chinese artists who were signed to US labels never seeing a dime of their streaming royalties, and so much more…it became clear that both sides were missing something that no one saw an opportunity in. 

Operating using his knowledge of working with Jessie J in the Chinese market, Spalter launched East Goes Global to build a bridge between eastern and western music markets, targeting streaming services like NetEase and QQ Music that have four times the number of users that Spotify and Apple Music do.

In just a year, East Goes Global has begun to reveal new paths into a previously uncharted market, guiding the likes of Carly Rae Jepsen, DJ Snake, Yungblud and Clairo to millions of new listeners. Because Spalter has experience in both markets, East Goes Global’s approach is natural, comprehensive and focused on breaking down cultural barriers using social media, playlist pitching, working directly with influencers and consulting, in addition to other methods. East Goes Global is well-equipped to operate in the Chinese market in part because they are aware of copyright laws and the state of the Chinese music industry as a result.

According to IFPL, music streaming services in China are slow to take off because “overall subscriber numbers remain low due largely to a combination of free licensed offerings and online piracy.” Despite this, IFPL insists that there is a strong case for optimism about the industry. In 2018, IFPL regional director for Asia Ang Kwee Tiang said that the value of the music industry grew in 2017 by 35.3% to $292.3m, with streaming revenue growing 26.5% to $204.5m. Though these numbers are still low compared to United States services like Spotify, it’s a significant increase when, less than a decade ago, piracy dominated people’s listening habits. According to Music Ally, “This is why piracy is no longer the main debate in the Chinese music industry. Ang showed a slide claiming that in 2010, 97.5% of online-music traffic in China was going to unlicensed and pirate sites, but that by 2017, 70% of traffic was to licensed audio and video sites.”

Entering the Chinese market as an American artist isn’t the only thing that East Goes Global can help with—Spalter and his team are experts in the American music industry as well and are more than capable of introducing Chinese artists to the American market. In 2017, the United States music industry made over seven billion dollars, according to an RIAA report. The report cites an 11.4 percent growth from the previous year, due in large part to the increase in on-demand streaming services. In the second quarter of 2019, Spotify had over 100 million paid users. With so many paid users and an industry worth more than 20 times what its Chinese counterpart is worth, the American music market contains untold potential for Chinese artists. East Goes Global is designed with artists on both sides of the globe in mind. With anti-piracy laws finally succeeding and legal, paid streaming services exploding, it’s only a matter of time before the demand for American artists grows in China and vice versa.

“There has never been a better time than now to begin focusing on the Chinese entertainment market. In music, China has moved up to the #10 largest music market in the entire world. Today, with the recent success of anti-piracy laws, the growth of revenue from streaming services, and the increased focus and role that social media plays in artists’ global success, the stage is perfectly set for global opportunity. With years of experience within both the Eastern and Western entertainment markets, East Goes Global has positioned itself to be the leader in the field of global development. From managing both Chinese and US social media platforms to assurance and collection of streaming royalties to sourcing branding and marketing opportunities for now more than 40 clients all working the Eastern market, East Goes Global is the premier team in developing your business on a truly global scale.“

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New Nielsen report predicts one-trillion streams in the US, Canada this year

The Nielsen mid-year music report is here, and it shows the reign of streaming services over the industry is far from over.

Nielsen is widely considered to be the authority on the business of entertainment, and their latest mid-year report reveals the music industry is in good standing. The recently published data found the first half of 2019 shattered previous 6-month records with more than 507 billion on-demand combined music and video streams and milestones led by singles and albums from Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Halsey, Khalid, BTS, and Bad Bunny.

The fall is widely considered the busiest time of the year for music, so it is likely the total on-demand combined streaming numbers will be equal to, if not greater than the statistics above. If true, that would mean 2019 is on pace to be the first year where streams of recorded music surpass one-trillion plays in the United States and Canada.

To date, many of this year’s most significant music moments were aided by exposure in popular films. The success of A Star Is Born, for example, gave Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s smash hit duet “Shallow” a major boost following the Acadamy Awards. The song has earned more than 684,000 track downloads, 316 million on-demand song streams, and over one-billion audience impression on the radio to date.

Nielsen sites other areas of entertainment as playing a very influential role in the rise of the year’s most popular songs. The music featured in film and television continued its upward trend from 2018 when soundtracks accounted for two of the year’s top 10 biggest sellers (The Greatest Showman and Black Panther: The Album).  The impact good placement has on songs can be understood by looking at the success of Post Malone and Swae Lee’s “Sunflower” ( 47.6 million U.S. streams), which appeared in the equally popular animated film Into The Spiderverse, or through the continuing success of rock biopics such Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman.

There is a wide range of Global pop genres that made a sizeable impact in the U.S as well, including K-Pop and Latin.  K-Pop’s global domination, which reached record peaks in 2018, continued to reach new audiences. 

  • 230,000 equivalent album units earned for BTS’ Map of the Soul: Persona, a career-best for the K-Pop group, during the week ending April 12.
  • BTS and Halsey’s “Boy With Luv” reached 125 million on-demand streams so far this year, including spikes after their performance at the Billboard Music Awards on May 1.  
  • 18.6 million first week on-demand streams for BLACKPINK’s “Kill This Love,” which broke the band’s own record for highest-charting single by a K-Pop girl group on the Billboard Hot 100. 

Nielsen Music’s Mid-Year 2019 Charts:

2019’s Mid-Year Top 10 Albums (Based on Overall Equivalent Album Units)

1. Ariana Grande, Thank U, Next (1,552,800)
2. Billie Eilish, When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (1,304,000)
3. Khalid, Free Spirit (929,000)
4. Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born (Soundtrack) (889,000)
5. A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, Hoodie SZN (810,000)
6. Post Malone, beerbongs & bentleys (756,000)
7. Drake, Scorpion (718,000)
8. Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody (Soundtrack) (705,000)
9. Juice WRLD, Death Race for Love (675,000)
10. Jonas Brothers, Happiness Begins (663,000)

2019’s Mid-Year Top 10 Selling Albums

1. Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born (Soundtrack) (404,000)
2. Jonas Brothers, Happiness Begins (374,000)
3. Billie Eilish, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (343,000)
4. BTS, Map of the Soul: Persona (343,000)
5. Backstreet Boys, DNA (299,000)
6. Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody (Soundtrack) (253,000)
7. Ariana Grande, Thank U, Next (228,000)
8. Soundtrack, The Greatest Showman (181,000)
9. P!nk, Hurts 2B Human (158,000)
10. Lauren Daigle, Look Up Child (154,000)

2019’s Mid-Year Top 10 Selling Vinyl Albums

1. Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody (Soundtrack) (61,000)
2. Queen, Greatest Hits (49,000)
3. Billie Eilish, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (47,000)
4. Soundtrack, Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 (33,000)
5. The Beatles, Abbey Road (33,000)
6. Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon (32,000)
7. Bob Marley & The Wailers, Legend (30,000)
8. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours (29,000)
9. Michael Jackson, Thriller (29,000)
10. Billie Eilish, Don’t Smile at Me (28,000)

2019’s Mid-Year Top 10 Selling Digital Songs

1. Lil Nas X, “Old Town Road” (958,000)
2. Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper, “Shallow” (684,000)
3. Post Malone & Swae Lee, “Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)” (488,000)
4. Ariana Grande, “7 Rings” (420,000)
5. Halsey, “Without Me” (388,000)
6. Post Malone, “Wow.” (381,000)
7. Jonas Brothers, “Sucker” (357,000)
8. Lauren Daigle, “You Say” (322,000)
9. Taylor Swift featuring Brendon Urie, “Me!” (322,000)
10. Ava Max, “Sweet But Psycho” (321,000)

2019’s Mid-Year Top 10 On-Demand Song Streams (Audio and Video Combined)

1. Lil Nas X, “Old Town Road” (1,337,995,000)
2. Post Malone & Swae Lee, “Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)” (850,194,000)
3. Ariana Grande, “7 Rings” (776,696,000)
4. Travis Scott, “Sicko Mode” (623,498,000)
5. Halsey, “Without Me” (599,335,000)
6. J. Cole, “Middle Child” (582,748,000)
7. Post Malone, “Wow.” (582,633,000)
8. Blueface, “Thotiana” (588,277,000)
9. Marshmello & Bastille, “Happier” (528,640,000)
10. YNW Melly, “Murder On My Mind” (498,806,000)

2019’s Mid-Year Top 10 On-Demand Audio Streams

1. Lil Nas X, “Old Town Road” (596,113,000)
2. Post Malone & Swae Lee, “Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)” (458,470,000)
3. Ariana Grande, “7 Rings” (433,904,000)
4. Post Malone, “Wow.” (416,231,000)
5. J. Cole, “Middle Child” (395,872,000)
6. Meek Mill featuring Drake, “Going Bad” (337,025,000)
7. Halsey, “Without Me” (319,879,000)
8. YNW Melly, “Murder On My Mind” (287,219,000)
9. Lil Baby & Gunna, “Drip Too Hard” (284,613,000)
10. Travis Scott, “Sicko Mode” (276,802,000)

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With Convert2MP3 shut down, what’s next for the war on stream-ripping?

After years of legal battles, the global music industry found success in the war against piracy after forcing stream-ripping site Convert2MP3 to shutter operations.

The war against music piracy rages on in 2019. Despite significant growth for the streaming marketplace, millions of people continue to pirate music as a means of accessing materials for free. Torrents and file-sharing sites such as Mediafire have lost their appeal to pirates in recent years, but they have been replaced by stream-ripping services that allow consumers to steal audio from video clips and convert them into MP3 files. These sites, which often cost nothing to use, are a scourge on the entertainment business.

In 2016, the RIAA, IFPI, and BPI filed legal action against YouTube-MP3, the largest stream ripping site at the time. This case eventually resulted in a settlement in which the site agreed to shut down voluntarily.

Since that time, the music industry and the many groups around the world working to ensure its continued growth, have set their sights on a number of additional websites promoting free stream-ripping services. That included Convert2MP3, which was sued in Germany with backing from the music groups IFPI and BVMI.

Convert2MP3 has been considered one of the most popular stream-ripping destinations online. The site has previously seen tens of millions of people use its service monthly, and that popularity made it a prime target in the music industry’s war against piracy.

The court proceeding surrounding Convert2MP3 has rarely been in the headlines, but that changed earlier this week when Music group IFPI announced that in a combined effort with the German industry group BVMI, it has reached a settlement with the stream-ripping site. The settlement requires the site to shut down immediately and hand over its domain name to IFPI. 

The settlement also requires the unnamed person or persons behind Convert2MP3 to pay financial compensation. The amount owed has not been made public.

IFPI’s Chief Executive Frances Moore is pleased with the outcome and hopes that it will motivate other stream-rippers to follow suit.

“Stream ripping is a threat to the entire music ecosystem. Sites such as Convert2MP3 show complete disregard for the rights of artists and record companies and take money away from those creating and investing in music.

“The successful outcome of this case sends a clear signal to other stream ripping sites that they should stop their copyright infringing activities or face legal action,” Moore adds.

Not everyone agrees that these type of sites are by definition copyright-infringing. In a letter to the US Trade Representative, digital rights group EFF previously stressed that there are plenty of legal use cases as well.

“[M]any audio extractions qualify as non-infringing fair uses under copyright. Providing a service that is capable of extracting audio tracks for these lawful purposes is itself lawful, even if some users infringe,” EFF wrote.

EFF has a point. There are instances where stream-ripping does not infringe on a copyright, but those cases are few and far between. The vast majority of stream-ripping use does infringe on others’ intellectual property. Is the risk of losing millions to illegal piracy worth making services like that previously offered by Convert2MP3 free to the public?

Perhaps a better solution would be a third-party service that reviews stream-ripping requests. If not that, maybe consumers wishing to rip audio from videos should pay a fee to do so, thus ensuring any parties owed money have the means to collect.

Stream-ripping is far from being extinguished, and the war on piracy is not likely to end anytime soon. The battle for artists to be compensated for their work has raged for decades, but hopefully, the end of Convert2MP3 pushes a few more pirates toward a legitimate music consumption.
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490,000 songs ‘lost’ by MySpace are now back online thanks to digital hoarders

MySpace may not have maintained good backups of the media hosted on their servers, but a community of digital saviors have banded together to share nearly half a million songs previously thought lost forever.

Less than a month after MySpace confirmed the loss of over 50 million songs uploaded to the social media platform between 2003 and 2015, a group of dedicated music fans have delivered the internet a gift. 490,000 songs once hosted by MySpace are now available once more thanks to a community of so-called ‘digital hoarders’ who maintain deep and meticulously curated music libraries.

The ‘Myspace Dragon Hoard (2008-2010)‘ was published on Monday, April 1. The songs included were originally gathered by an anonymous academic study conducted between 2008 and 2010. You can stream the material using this link.

The music collection is arranged by the filenames assigned by MySpace’s Content Delivery Network, the key of which is in the metadata. file in this collection. MD5 and SHA hashes are also provided from the original and included in the main directory. There is no other information about the origin of this collection at this time.

If you’re afraid the material included may disappear again, downloads of the entire collection are available. At over 1.3 terabytes of mp3 files named by the Content Delivery Network of Myspace, this collection can best be described as unwieldy. Therefore, it has been left as a set of ZIP files (created by the Info-ZIP program) that can be browsed and viewed by using the “view content” links in the general item directory.

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Streaming now accounts for 37% of global recorded music revenue

Paid streaming subscriptions have taken the world by storm, and their increasing domination in the recorded music marketplace is likely to continue.

It’s no surprise that paid streaming subscriptions are on the rise worldwide. Here in the US, a report from the RIAA discovered that paid subscription streaming in the US remained the largest driver of revenue for the American music industry. Their data was backed up by a similar report from the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), which published its own findings showing that paid streaming revenue has also overtaken physical and download revenue in the UK.  The ERA found that 62.1% of all British music revenue last year came from paid subscription streaming.  Just 37.9% came from physical sales and digital downloads.

And we cannot forget the British. A recent data dump from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) revealed paid subscription streams accounted for 54% of British labels’ income last year.  Revenue from these streams grew 34% over 2017 to £468 million ($614 million).  Overall streaming music revenue grew to £516 million ($687 million).  Ad-funded streams (Spotify, Deezer, etc.) 25.8% to £19 million ($25 million).

As if all those reports were not enough to confirm paid streaming subscriptions impending rule over the recorded music marketplace, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has released its own report for 2018.

The report, which is available online, reveals that the global recorded music market grew 9.7% year-over-year in 2018 to $19.1 billion, thanks in large part to paid streaming subscriptions (which accounted for 37% of total global revenue). That figure is but more impressive still is the fact that all streaming-related revenue grew 34% year-over-year to $9 billion, accounting for 47% – essentially half – of all global revenue.  

The continued growth of streaming revenue helped to offset a 10.1% decline in physical revenue and a 21.2% drop in download revenue. Figures that, if trends hold true, will continue to drop in 2019.

Speaking to the report, IFPI’s Chief Executive Francis Moore explained:

“Last year represented the fourth consecutive year of growth, driven by great music from incredible artists in partnership with talented, passionate people in record companies around the world.

“We continue to work for the respect and recognition of music copyright around the world, and for the resolution of the value gap by establishing a level playing field for negotiating a fair deal for those who create music.

“Above all, we’re working to ensure that music continues its exciting, global journey.”

Artists around the world are continuing to fight for higher royalty rates while asking fans to consider purchasing physical media, but the fact remains that streaming is here to stay. The question is whether or not the companies that provide the services will work with artists to raise their returns or continue to keep mechanical royalties as low as possible.

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Pre-Adds (Pre-Saves) are the new pre-orders, but is that a good thing?

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.

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50 million US consumers paid for streaming music last year, RIAA says

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.

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