Streaming music makes big waves
This winter, hip-hop frontiersman Chance the Rapper made music history when he earned seven Grammy nominations for a release that is not available for purchase.
The Chicago artist issued his “Coloring Book” as a stream. That’s it. You couldn’t buy it if you wanted to.
His feat was the most recent indication of yet another seismic shift in online music retail. From instant downloads to all-you-canstream plans, the state of digital music consumption has been in flux. Whether it receives trophies or not next Sunday, “Coloring Book,” with its nominations, portends a new norm.
Streaming music on audio and video platforms now represents 38 percent of total audio consumption, according to Nielsen Music. That’s a jump from 23 percent in 2014.
Eventually the big players — Spotify, Apple and Tidal — would like to do for music what the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime did for TV, only there’s a catch: They offer virtually identical catalogs. “Coloring Book,” for instance, is on Apple Music, Tidal, Google Music, Spotify, iHeartRadio and Deezer.
Constant rumors of consolidation are coming to pass. Recently, phone carrier Sprint announced the purchase of a 33 percent stake in the Jay Z-owned Tidal, and Web radio innovator Pandora has unveiled its much-delayed intention to enter the market with an on-demand plan of its own.
Each service in the increasingly crowded field is working frantically to overcome the perception that the main distinction among the uniformly priced $9.99-a-month offerings is little more than font style, quirky playlist title and color scheme.
In contrast to the vast programming differences among Hulu, Netflix, HBO Go and other video streaming services, music platforms have long fought against the perception that they’re selling a nearly interchangeable product, said Mark Mulligan of Midia Research. “You’re getting sold the same car. It’s just got a different lick of paint on it.”
In turn, some are banking on exclusive releases. Subscribe to Spotify? Forget, then, about hearing the latest Frank Ocean “video album.” Others are betting fans want innovative content that merges playlist, podcast and radio station.
In 2017, personalization engines claim to deliver sounds with the adeptness of an expert record store clerk. Playlists don’t just recommend music, they attempt to “tell stories,” in the words of Apple’s Zane Lowe, who oversees the company’s Beats 1 radio initiative.
It’s perhaps one reason why, in announcing the return of hip-hop duo Run the Jewels’ “WRTJ” radio show, Beats 1 is tagging it a “season premiere.”
Yet as services attempt to diversify, there’s also the risk of alienating fans. Online exclusives, for instance, can lock an artist into a particular outlet — and lock nonsubscribing fans out of hearing new music. (If only until their friend AirDrops them a copy.)
Apple Music stormed into the market in 2014 with a seemingly bottomless budget, not to mention famous executives, and has shown itself willing to invest in exclusives, most notably in its relationships with Taylor Swift, Ocean, U2 and Travis Scott.
For its part, Amazon jumped in with its own marketing coup: exclusive access to country superstar Garth Brooks’ music.
Such deals have proved controversial. According to a 2016 report in Bloomberg News, Apple-only artists have been threatened with being excluded from key Spotify playlists.
“We think exclusives are bad for artists and bad for fans,” said Jonathan Prince, Spotify’s head of communications and public policy, in a statement. “Artists want as many fans as possible to hear their music, and fans want to be able to hear whatever they’re excited about or interested in — exclusives get in the way of that for everyone.”