Musicians looking up to Periscope
Twitter’s streaming app allows creativity as they reach fans
Want to hang backstage with your favorite artist? There’s an app for that.
Twitter’s live-streaming tool Periscope has had Silicon Valley abuzz ever since its launch in March, giving users an outlet to broadcast video to followers using only a smartphone camera. It has been embraced by an A-list crowd of musicians including the Rolling Stones, Mariah Carey, Katy Perry and Steve Aoki, who have used it to host Q&As, stream tour bus and red carpet footage, and debut content.
Even more commonly, it gives fans a peek into the minutiae of artists’ day-to-day lives. Country star Lee Brice, for instance, will switch the camera on when he’s jumping on a plane, going fishing or people-watching while at an airport.
“It’s just nice to be on that personal level in real time,” the
Drinking Class singer says. “There’s no way for someone else to Periscope for you. This is who you are, and there’s no way to hide it.” And unlike other social media such as Facebook and Twitter, whose primary use for many artists is to plug shows and albums, Periscope “has to be when the mood strikes, whether that’s two or three times in a day, in a week, (or) I might go a couple of weeks and not do it.”
Like Snapchat, which deletes photos and videos soon after followers view them, Periscope broadcasts disappear after 24 hours. It’s part of the reason artists “are more expressive and off the hook” while using it, says Billboard charts manager William Gruger. “Live streaming is anoth- er step in that direction of taking video (away from) something that used to be so refined and polished, and regressing toward a mean that is much more like what people are used to seeing when they shoot their own videos. It’s using video as a means of communication.”
It’s not just artists taking the initiative, either. Bonnaroo promoters Superfly Presents broadcast videos of fans wandering the grounds and interacting with artists at last month’s music festival in Manchester, Tenn. (One stream of a staffer driving a golf cart around the campsite at sunset garnered more than 65,000 views.) Radio hosts Ryan Seacrest and Elvis Duran have used it to share in-studio content, while iHeartMedia incorporated Periscope into its coverage of this year’s iHeartRadio Music Awards.
“People want to have a more intimate experience with a livemusic event and it gets us one step closer to giving fans that access,” iHeartMedia’s chief product officer Chris Williams says. And with more than 14 billion social impressions for the awards show across platforms, “it clearly shows there’s an appetite for it.”
But like every streaming platform, Periscope faces its share of potential legal pitfalls. The app got into hot water with HBO in April when Twitter users streamed the fifth-season premiere of Game of Thrones. And though artists such as Neil Dia-
mond, David Guetta and Nick Jonas have used it to broadcast entire concerts for free, explicit consent from artists and labels is necessary to avoid possible copyright infringement, Williams adds.
“It’s a weird legal area,” Gruger says. “There definitely are issues, so the burden of responsibility falls on Twitter.”
It’s conceivable to pirate new material premiered by artists on Periscope, although that doesn’t concern Steve Aoki. The DJ has 2.6 million Twitter followers and recently used the app to debut his song Darker Than Blood with Mike Shinoda and Linkin Park. He also will tease unheard music on occasion. Given that his main revenue stream is live shows, “the most important thing to me is circulation of music, no matter how it’s being circulated,” Aoki says. “If they hear it on my Periscope, it’s such bad (sound) quality, you can’t really do anything with it. But I can hype them up about the new music to come, so I don’t mind ( broadcasting) some ideas.” As an EDM artist, “the issue I’d be more afraid of is other producers copying my sound or my melodies and then trying to release it before I do.”
Periscope already has influenced the directions that some artists are taking their music. Brice used the app at a recent songwriters’ retreat where he tried out new lyrics and tunes, gauging fan feedback from the comments. Similarly, electrohouse DJ Morgan Page will engage with users for a half-hour or more, demonstrating how he builds a song from the ground up.
“Beyond just (making) a connection, it’s something that could help shape the choice of singles and of the content creation itself,” Page says. “The canvas of Periscope may inspire short-form songs, just like with Vine, or shorter covers and performances.
“Who knows? As we experiment with it more, we may see something new come out of it.”
“There’s no way for someone else to Periscope for you. This is who you are, and there’s no way to hide it.” Country singer Lee Brice