Music Predictions 2020 and Beyond

#21

Official playlists suck. I don’t trust an algorithm to feed me, I use my skills and dig. Spotify is a tool, just like every platform. It’s not evil, it just is. It exists in a capitalist market like all of our music.

Pretty sure nobody here is posting from their homemade off grid black tor phone through a mesh net and hosting squat raves with free hari krisha meals, let’s be real. We exist in a world with competitive services to feed us a buffet of music. Use the tools. Find the tunes. Download them and keep them.

#22

Less money in what pot? Whose money? What pot?

#23

That’s fine, but you don’t represent the vast majority of Spotify users who use playlists just to have on in the background and/or curate their own. They’re a powerful bit of the platform and the more ‘fake’ artists that take up space the less genuine ones get a slice of the pie.

Less money in what pot? Whose money? What pot?

Streaming royalties are divided up in quite a complex way, and in Spotify’s instance it’s based on the share of listens. I’m not going to write it all out in here but there’s a bunch of interesting articles that go into it in depth which you can hunt down.

#24

Thanks for taking the time to clarify. Here’s how I see it. Spotify has never been a platform for organic growth of an artists audience. It’s designed for major labels and big industry players to push their featured artists. Nobody is going viral on Spotify, that’s what YouTube is for.

The pennies for streaming and industry pushed playlists for fake artists are all apart of the platform and its corporate design. @prince_edward and I talked about this in our thread on buying digital music before he disappeared.

Spotify is for aggregating all of the music ever produced on labels that want to open their doors to allow streaming. Spotify is the usustainable beast startup that won’t be here in 10 years. Enjoy it while you have it, or complain about it and don’t use it, but understand it as a tool is all I am saying. Hope this clarifies my position.

How do you see streaming evolving in a Post-Spotify world? How would one go about changing the policies you are describing here? What’s the future of streaming, for you all?

#25

Spotify is here to stay for the moment, but I think the more screwed over larger artists get by the platform and the more they feel they have to bend over backwards to please its algorithm, the more they’ll grumble in public about it and the tide could turn. Everyone’s playing happy families at the moment but I don’t think it’s going to last.

I think, particularly in ‘alternative’ communities that still use the likes of Bandcamp, there’s a huge market for a very transparent and very fair streaming service that rewards number of plays to royalties paid out (eg if you’re streaming Ryuichi Sakamoto or Forest Swords or whoever for an hour a day, they’ll get x percentage of your subscription – your money doesn’t go towards anywhere else). As I said before, Spotify isn’t set up like this and so even if you stream an artist all day it might not correlate to the royalties they get. It’s very confusing, and I don’t think consumers even understand that.

Unfortunately licensing seems really complex, but I think if there was an indie-focused that had all the larger and smaller ones on board (eg Warp/Ninja Tune/Sub Pop/Kobalt as well as bedroom labels) then it’d be an absolute gamechanger. I would sign up in a heartbeat.

#26

I think you just described https://resonate.is/stream2own/

Actually pretty sure there was a thread about this on this forum?

Audius is another one trying to be ‘fairer’ https://audius.org/

#27

i’m curious about the back end details of streaming on an independent level. Does anyone have insight into what it takes financially and server wise to run a streaming service? Seems like corporate entities are the only ones trying to float it with venture capital.

#28

Those look great and I’m glad there’s people out there trying to workshop good alternatives, but I think a successful one would genuinely have to come from a brand like Bandcamp for a worthwhile amount of people to get on board quickly. They’re in the correct position to launch something like that and not necessarily have it take away from their digital music purchase side. Either way it’s nice to see people trying to work towards something better for artists and consumers.

#29

if you’re into dwig and arent aware of it, all of the geigling stuff is pretty amazing,especially traumprinz/dj metatron/dj healer/PMOD/POD

this has been my soundtrack for the past year plus. if you havent heard it im very excited to hear what you think!

#30

yeah i agree, it has to be Bandcamp. Avalon Emerson’s Buy Music Club is an innovative addition to whats on there. I hope BC is working on something behind the scenes. IMHO it takes a brand platform or capital to unify the labels.

https://buymusic.club/

#31

Yoo thank you for sharing this I fucking love it!!

#32

Coronavirus may throw a lot of spanners in the works. Underground clubs seem to be struggling as it is, a few weeks of closures or low turnout would potentially push a lot under. I think the economic impact of the virus (esp on local and high street businesses) isn’t being explored enough at the moment except for the impacts on stock markets etc.

This could have interesting effects on how the new music being created sounds, but I’ve got no predictions as to how that could play out.

#33

Yeah its so difficult to predict but for sure lots of folks are going to lose money and some are going to be put out of business completely. Would not be surprised at a global recession, either. This RA piece gives some perspectives.

only thing i can think re:music being made now is more of a mindset towards home listening, or understanding that when/if this blows over people will feel celebratory but also potentially grieving.

#34

really good stuff, gonna give it a full listen as lockdown procedures dictate our lives for the foreseeable future.

As much as we talked in this thread about IRL spaces… the big c-virus just cancelled everything :confused:

#35

So glad lots of people are getting behind Bandcamp for today since they’re waiving all revenue fees in order to help out artists / labels.

#36

Thanks for the recommendation, fan of Giegling but hadn’t turned on to Dwig, really cool!

#37

hey, thanks for notifying me, i was a bit away for a while.

This days i only seek pitputs from artists i already knew, i don’t go to live or festival much exept for local artists/mate, i its been long time i don’t go to festival anymore. Haha shame. So fir now i don’t have anything to add to this topic, but I will keep on reading it, who knows maybe i’ll find my bread

#38

Hey gang, cool thread.

The trance renaissance I’ve been waiting for for the last 10 years is finally in full swing and it’s bearing interesting fruit. I hadn’t realized the full extent of expression that was restricted as a result of the good taste ban on trance. Melody, euphoria, and joy are seeping into just about every subgenre in ways I wouldn’t expect and while there is some hacky stuff coming out of the trend, there is a ton of incredible, moving, blissful stuff pouring out of just about every subgenre of dance music.

At the same time, I’m hearing the kind of bass that was formerly found only in genres like Dub, Jungle, and ‘Bass’ music show up in just about every genre as well, which is really exciting. I don’t know why interesting, dynamic basslines were absent for so long but I am loving the presence of lush, deep, dynamic bass in genres like house, techno, breaks, and even chill out.

The other renaissance I’ve been waiting for for a long time is breaks, and I must confess that it has been a mixed bag. I find breaks are easier to half ass than trance, so we are hearing a lot of tracks with breaks that don’t really get what breaks can do to a tracks rhythm and flow. At the same time, we are getting more incredible breaks tracks in a year than we have had in the last decade, so I’ll take it.

Finally, I feel like music across the board is better than it has been in a long time (since blogs peaked maybe? maybe since the early 90s?) From pop, to rap, hip hop, rock, ambient, experimental, jungle, chill out, house, techno, trance, hardcore, breaks, just about every sound is doing something worth listening to, and I find it really exciting. I think I’ll be digging for tracks released between 2018-2022 for a long time, like I do with tracks from 91-95.

#39

Yeah it’s really an incredible time for music these days, and I can’t help but be excited all the 2020 quarantine bangers that we’ll experience next year…I have the sense that lots of artists are in the studio leveling up, that all that has been happening is prefect fodder for emotional deep digging that brings musical gold.

#41

i gotta say, I’m really glad that breaks haven’t faded myself. Really enjoying all the new and inventive flips and use of breaks in music I’m hearing lately. It’s very refreshing, and fucking HYPES me up!!!