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What’s the future of music distribution?


Entre_Perpetuo
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Spotify has stopped being the up and coming way people get their music and is now the status quo, like Napster and iTunes before it, like CD and record shops before them. Music distribution has always evolved over time, and I don’t see a good reason for it to stop evolving. I imagine Spotify and their streaming competitors will try and latch on to whatever the future of music distribution looks like, but likely fail to be a part of it in face of some new upstart systems and companies, as the old will be slow to change or admit it’s time to move on. So here’s the question. What comes next? Where will people flock to instead of Spotify in the future? What will be the new format?

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I think that's hard to predict. Did anyone really know that cassettes would take over vinyl then CDs would take over cassettes until those formats were made widely available? Everything moving to digital streaming was easy to call as the internet got bigger but I honestly have no clue where it goes after this. I think we're in a music streaming world for a long time to come.

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11 hours ago, J2112YYZ said:

I think that's hard to predict. Did anyone really know that cassettes would take over vinyl then CDs would take over cassettes until those formats were made widely available? Everything moving to digital streaming was easy to call as the internet got bigger but I honestly have no clue where it goes after this. I think we're in a music streaming world for a long time to come.

Right. It's basically customized radio. Central point of distribution through preference filters.

 

Where CAN it go from there? Outside of repackaging/creative marketing ? 

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44 minutes ago, grep said:

Right. It's basically customized radio. Central point of distribution through preference filters.

 

Where CAN it go from there? Outside of repackaging/creative marketing ? 

 

Chips in the head.  and it'll be ANNOYING.  loud ads will just play in your head at random moments all day

 

lol......i really see it happening.

 

Mick

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"The history of the earth is like the life of a soldier -- long periods of boredom with brief bursts of terror."

 

We may just be in one of those plateaus between bursts. Streaming quality may improve, but streaming itself seems so easy. Hard to see, the future is.

 

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10 minutes ago, bluefox4000 said:

 

Chips in the head.  and it'll be ANNOYING.  loud ads will just play in your head at random moments all day

 

lol......i really see it happening.

 

Mick

 

I have a theory that if you were born after The Beatles broke up they put a chip in your head after that makes you know everything from them. I can't explain how else I would know so many songs by heart from a band that I was never much of a fan of 😄

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6 minutes ago, J2112YYZ said:

 

I have a theory that if you were born after The Beatles broke up they put a chip in your head after that makes you know everything from them. I can't explain how else I would know so many songs by heart from a band that I was never much of a fan of 😄

 

then there's the thing if your from NY you just love Billy Joel or NJ you LOVE springsteen.  Seriously i've seen People from NY get rapid over joel.  They would have Buried Segue under a baseball Stadium as he's meh on Billy  lol.

 

They're must be chips involved there too.

 

Mick

 

Edited by bluefox4000
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Digital only i fear. I yearn for the days that vinyl was the only choice. 

I so remember buying the albums with the elaborate sleeves... Alice Cooper was a good example... I spent hours pouring over the Billion Dollar Babies cover + extras. 

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46 minutes ago, zepphead said:

Digital only i fear. I yearn for the days that vinyl was the only choice. 

I so remember buying the albums with the elaborate sleeves... Alice Cooper was a good example... I spent hours pouring over the Billion Dollar Babies cover + extras. 

You'd have fun with the works of Salvador Dali.

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4 hours ago, zepphead said:

Digital only i fear. I yearn for the days that vinyl was the only choice. 

I so remember buying the albums with the elaborate sleeves... Alice Cooper was a good example... I spent hours pouring over the Billion Dollar Babies cover + extras. 

 

Song streaming numbers are more important to record executives than album sales today. I see no signs of digitally streaming music slowing down any time soon. I wouldn't be surprised if it was all digital within the next ten years. Where that leaves record labels I'm not sure. But bands will still need something to help promote their music, tours and help fund music videos. So that will probably the record companies job when that happens.

Edited by J2112YYZ
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12 minutes ago, J2112YYZ said:

 

Song streaming numbers are more important to record executives than album sales today. I see no signs of digitally streaming music slowing down any time soon. I wouldn't be surprised if it was all digital within the next ten years. Where that leaves record labels I'm not sure. But bands will still need something to help promote their music, tours and help fund music videos. So that will probably the record companies job when that happens.

Promotion is already the record labels’ jobs. Can’t blame anyone for not noticing though since most are not interested in doing it, so artists have to take matters into their own hands

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48 minutes ago, Entre_Perpetuo said:

Promotion is already the record labels’ jobs. Can’t blame anyone for not noticing though since most are not interested in doing it, so artists have to take matters into their own hands

 

Ticketmaster and Live Nation will probably buy up all the record labels and end up owning everything in the music business anyway.

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On 12/4/2022 at 5:50 PM, pjbear05 said:

You'd have fun with the works of Salvador Dali.

That was an interesting dude. Had a mind like a bad neighborhood..... wouldn't want to go in there alone.

Edited by ozzy85
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4 minutes ago, ozzy85 said:

That was an interesting dude. Had a mind like a bad neighborhood..... wouldnt want to go in their alone.

 One of his quotes was "I do not take drugs.  I am the drug".

After going through the museum of his works in St. Petersburg, I was convinced otherwise.  Particularly by a piece called "The Hallucinogenic Toreador". 

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On 12/4/2022 at 10:08 PM, J2112YYZ said:

 

Ticketmaster and Live Nation will probably buy up all the record labels and end up owning everything in the music business anyway.

Yep.  Music in its physical form is dead as a commodity.

 

Where concerts used to operate at a loss I order to sell records, music is mostly free now and the live experience brings in the cash.  The other source of income from music is advertising.  In this sense,  Songs have been reduced to clickbait

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On 12/4/2022 at 12:14 PM, bluefox4000 said:

 

Chips in the head.  and it'll be ANNOYING.  loud ads will just play in your head at random moments all day

 

lol......i really see it happening.

 

Mick

 

This kinda happened in a way - a few years ago when Apple forced the new U2 album upon Itunes users.  I don't follow their news, but I use(d) my iPhone for "mixes" which I would synch to Itunes.  One morning out for a walk, listening to my carefully curated prog rock collection on my phone and all the sudden there's this other song....  WTF is that doing on there?!!?  Yeah, they actually snuck it on there and it showed as a "purchase" (even though it was free) and contaminated my collection....  (not that I don't like U2, but it's not what I chose to be listening to....)  Really pissed me off; felt like I couldn't even control what was on my phone.

 

In regards to the OP, I am a dinosaur in every way.  I still buy physical copies of my most favorite bands.  I don't have a turntable - so it usually ends up being CDs & Bluray 5,1 mixes.  (I know I'm even more a dinosaur for just having 5.1 and not Atmos....)  I think I purchase about ~20 CD/BR per year lately; a large percentage of those are reissue. Rarely a new band crosses my radar that inspires a purchase - it does happen a few times a year.  I digitize them and have them on Itunes and my phone for travel and convenience.  Not a fan of spotify on multiple levels (for quality, I'd probably go for Tidal; but still I prefer curating my own collection and playlists and controlling the quality, etc.)   What is the future?  Most certainly not what I listen to or how I listen to it (I have 3 sons that love to tease me "wasn't Jim Morrison the drummer in Pink Zeppelin?"  All spotify users.  Almost couldn't name a single artist.  The eldest is starting to come around though...  I think I planted enough seeds for decent music; lol)

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12 hours ago, thesweetscience said:

I don't know why at this point, especially if you were a somewhat established act, you wouldn't just self-promote on you tube or similar apps and just offer your lossless audio files for download on your own web site.  f**k the record companies.

 

You are aware how much that would probably costs bands to do that, right? There's a reason why most bands aren't independent. The costs of doing it themselves without some kind of record label help would financially sink the majority of them. Even massively successful bands have help. Plus, if nobody in the band is knowledgeable about budgets and finances, they have to add someone to the payroll to do that which adds to their costs. Good idea in theory but there's a lot more that goes into self promoting than most of us think.

Edited by J2112YYZ
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