Jay-Z’s Radical Idea Is Out To Upend The Streaming Music Business

Rapper and business mogul Jay-Z has an old idea that he’d like to try out on the new music business.

Prior to the official announcement of his acquisition of the Swedish streaming music service Aspiro, the magnate held a giant pow-wow with some of the movers and shakers of the music business during Grammy week in February.

According to a post on Showbiz 411, guests at the meeting were literally a who’s who of music creators, including Madonna, Kanye West, Daft Punk, Nikki Minaj, Chris Martin of Coldplay, Jack White, Beyonce, two unnamed country music stars and about 20 other non-musicians ranging from attorneys to music execs. 

The reported reason behind the meeting was to gather information about how Jay-Z could turn his upcoming streaming network into something along the lines of the old United Artists film studio, where the artists themselves had control of the business and reaped more of the rewards than in the current mostly-corporately owned system.

Jay-Z (real name Shawn Carter)‘s company Project Panther Bidco Ltd complete its purchase of Aspire on March 13th. The company owns the WiMP and TIDAL streaming networks, one of the few services to currently provide CD quality streaming. The network is small with only 512,000 paying subscribers with only about 20,000 of those subscribed to the high-def tier. Upon relaunch the network will be renamed TIDALHiFi. 

The purchase seems like a good one from Jay-Z’s perspective. Paying only about $56 million for a service that already has infrastructure and subscribers seems like a steal compared with the estimated $300 million that Apple paid for the Beats Music service as part of last year’s $3 billion Beats acquisition. Still there’s plenty of challenges, with services like Pandora and Spotify already with a huge head start and deep pocket competitors like Apple (with its new service built around the Beats Music infrastructure) and Google (with its YouTube Music Key) set to relaunch later in the year. Read more on Forbes.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

The Generation Gap In Music Streaming

It's been said that statistics can be presented to reach any conclusion that you want and that's true to some degree. While a chart or graph might show one thing, it may overlook or ignore the real reason the result is happening.

Take for instance this infographic from Statista that shows the generation gap of the users of streaming music. The information comes from Edison Research's annual survey called The Infinite Dial and shows that Baby Boomers are way behind the curve when it comes to streaming adoption, as opposed to 12 to 24 year olds.

What the chart doesn't take into account is that 12 to 24 is the prime age for music consumption. 25 to 54 is when people are starting families and working and therefore have less time for music in general, while people ages 55+ typically consume far less music in general because of other interests.

The point is if you look at any area of music consumption, you'll find the same general breakdown.

A couple of things about this chart that are interesting though:

1. All age groups use Pandora much more than than the on-demand Spotify service.

2. More people use iTunes Radio than generally believed.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Facebook's 5 New Community Policies That Could Affect An Artist's Post

Facebook just outlined 5 new community posting policies that could have at least some affect on what artists and bands post. In a new very detailed Community Standards document, the network fully explains what it means when it says things like "no nudity" and "no hate speech."

So what are the 5 new policies? Take a look:

• Nudity: Facebook will now remove posts that show fully exposed buttocks and photos of female breasts if the nipple is included, among other things. With music videos and promotional campaigns being ever more sexually suggestive, this could put a damper on posts that worked before.

• Violence or Graphic Content: Images that celebrate or glorify violence will now be removed. This could affect several genres of music with images that revolve around violence.

• Hate Speech: Posts that attack someone's race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or disability or disease will be removed. No more using any of this for shock value on FB.

• Bullying and harassment: What's interesting here is that FB makes a distinction between those that have gained news attention or public interest and those that haven't. If you're a public figure, it's not bullying. If you're a private individual it is.

• Self-harm: This includes anything that depicts suicide or self-injury.

Some of this is about old-fashioned good taste, but that never stopped an artist or band from trying to use the shock value of an image for promotional value. The only problem is that on Facebook, it will no longer work.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

The Oscar Effect On Music

Television appearances for music artists don't have an affect on music sales like they once did with one exception - the Oscar telecast.

Nielsen Research has found that the "Oscar effect" is real when it comes to music nominated or featured on the broadcast, and can still provide significant impact on sales, streaming and social media immediately following the telecast. That momentum can even sustain for as much as a full week afterwards.

Here's what the company found a full week after the most recent broadcast (in % of increased activity):

“I’m Not Gonna Miss You” - Glen Campbell

Digital Tracks + Stream Equivalents Sales - +50.36%

On-demand Streaming - +71.36%

Facebook Likes - +8.70%

Wiki page views - +420.21%

“Lost Stars” - Adam Levine

Digital Tracks + Stream Equivalents Sales - +3.08%

Streaming - +48.09%

FB Likes - +4.98%

Wiki page views - +74.97%

“Grateful” - Rita Ora

Streaming - +85.76%

Wiki page views - +92.86%

“Glory” - Common/John Legend

Digital Tracks + Stream Equivalents Sales - +141.77%

Streaming - +209.09%

“Everything Is Awesome!”- Tegan & Sara

Digital Tracks + Stream Equivalents Sales - +34.72%

Streaming - +21.79%

Lady Gaga (Overall) 
Digital Track Sales - +31.4%

Wiki page views - +167.7%
Facebook Likes - 3300%!!
Twitter Followers - 28%

What's more, there was a huge uptick in consumption of nominees for Best Original Song:

   *  I’m Not Gonna Miss You/Glen Campbell - +2177.8%

   *  Grateful/Rita Ora - +909.99%

   *  Glory/John Legend & Common - +564.14%

   *  Everything Is Awesome/Tegan & Sara - +135.15%

   *  Lost Stars/Maroon 5 - +90.22%

So it looks like the new way to increase your sales is to be tied to a hit movie. Wait, that's something that's never really changed, it's just more important now than ever.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Samsung Milk Music Streaming Service Now On The Web

Samsung's Milk Music service has been a distant also-ran in the streaming market, so the company took a step to alter that perception recently by letting users access it via the web. Until now, it was only available via Samsung smart phones, tablets and TVs.

It's now available to anyone who creates an account at samsung.com.

Milk Music features 200 curated stations, and lets you customize them by favoriting artists and fine tuning the songs you want to hear by their popularity or timeliness.

You can also create your own station, as an interactive radio function allows you to select and customize what you want to hear.

Samsung didn't create Milk Music from the ground up, as it wisely partnered with Slacker for its content. As a result, the catalog is pretty wide at 13 million songs, and includes music from artists including The Beatles, AC/DC and Led Zeppelin.

Still, it's doubtful that just making the service available online will boost its attractiveness much, although it is free. A premium version at $3.99 allows you to listen to music ad-free, skip as many songs as you want, and play music on your mobile device without being online.

Somehow I don't think that Spotify or Pandora are shaking in their boots over this though. Let's see how long the service keeps going before they shut it down.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Pandora Tries To Add Value For Artists

Stung with ongoing complaints of low royalties from artists across the success spectrum, Pandora has instituted a new feature to presumably add value to their being on the service. 

The feature is called “Artist Audio Messaging” and it will allow artists to submit short recordings regarding tour schedules or new music, then have them added to playlists based on their music.

Pandora has signed 10 artists for the pilot program utilizing the feature that will soon include Lenny Kravitz and Fall Out Boy.

While artists, labels and managers may like the feature, fans don’t seem all that thrilled with the prospect, as the comments so far are more in the camp of "wanting to listen to music with the least amount of interruptions possible," even if it is from a favorite artist.

Pandora knows its fighting a battle that it will eventually lose to on-demand services like Spotify, so its strategy is to get artists on its side. By giving them some added value besides having their music on the service, it could keep the it viable long enough to be bought by a larger entity, or so the idea goes. Unfortunately, this first effort hasn't gotten off the start it anticipated.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Instagram Now More Effective Than Facebook Reaching Fans

It doesn't matter how large a social network is, it's all about how many of your fans you can reach. That's the message from a study by the research company L2 when evaluating Facebook and Instagram.

It turns out that brands, bands and artists are posting much more content on Instagram these days, mostly because the fan reach is so much greater on that platform. On Facebook, the only way to reach all your fans is to promote your posts, and even then it's debatable if you can reach all of them. On Instagram, their fans will see everything they post.

Although Instagram has only 300 million users as compared to Facebook's 1.3 billion, it doesn't matter much if it costs you too much to grow your fan base. That said, Instagram's audience is growing much faster than Facebook ever did even during it's peak periods of growth.

If you choose to post more on Instagram, there are a few things to remember though:

1. Photos on Instagram perform much better than video, which is the same on all social platforms, even though Facebook is pushing video sharing at the moment.

2. Instagram's Hyperlapse fast-motion feature has fallen out of favor after a big start last year. While it's a cool effect, it's definitely a special effect and using it sometimes makes it difficult to incorporate calls to action.

Social media is a constantly moving target. What works today may not work tomorrow, so you have to be prepared to roll with the trends. That doesn't mean you have to abandon your existing marketing strategy altogether, but it sure helps if you're willing to adapt as needed.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Will The $7.3 Million “Blurred Lines” Verdict Kill Songwriting As We Know It?

The jury awarded the estate of Marvin Gaye more than $7 million today in a copyright infringement decision against artist Robin Thicke and songwriters Pharrell Williams and T.I. over their huge 2013 hit “Blurred Lines.” The jury decided that the song was just too similar to Gaye’s 1977 hit “Got To Give It Up” to be a coincidence, even thought that’s probably exactly what it was.

This is just another example of the blurred line (pun intended) between a copy and an influence that permeates not only modern music, but just about any creative endeavor. 

We’re all influenced by the art and/or craft that we love, and that influence seeps into our every creation whether we like it or not. Sometimes in music it’s totally obvious (the famous George Harrison “My Sweet Lord” vs. “He’s So Fine” by The Chiffons lawsuit), and other times its less so (Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” vs. Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down”), but with only 12 notes and a limited number of chord progressions that are pleasing to the Western ear, one might think that it’s surprising that there aren’t more lawsuits for copyright infringement than there already are.

Take the blues, for instance. Pick just about any blues album and you’ll find that not only does each song liberally borrow from countless blues songs by countless blues artists before, but even from songs on the same album. 12 bar blues is that for a reason, and although it’s nice when there’s a variation, you won’t find too many artists messing with a formula that’s worked for 75 years. Do we see any copyright infringement suits there? Read more on Forbes.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

What The Apple Watch Can Do For The Music Business

The tech world is abuzz today with the official release of the Apple Watch, but the music business can look upon it as a possible boon as well. The Watch, which can be considered as either a utilitarian or luxury item, appears to do many things well and by the looks of it, music is one of them.

The music business has always produced plenty of music that it’s customers want, but it’s been each new delivery method that has lead to increased sales. If you look back through history, the music industry turns on a dime with new technology, and there’s one thing that each delivery technology offers - convenience.

For example, the original music business in the late 1800s was built around sheet music and piano rolls, but when the Victrola was introduced in 1901 music lovers discovered a new portability along with the ability to hear their favorite artist any time they wanted. That’s when the music industry as we know it today was born.

Those original records were made of shellac, which were very brittle and prone to breakage, but the industry once again experienced a bump in revenue when the vinyl record was introduced. Vinyl was thinner, lighter and didn’t break as easily. Convenience won again. Read more on Forbes.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Why Twitter Users Unfollow

Twitter is a major tool for any artist or band, providing major engagement and promotion capabilities. That said, sometimes it's a lot more difficult to keep your followers than it is to add them.

The social media distribution service Buffer did a study to determine why users unfollow someone and they found out that the biggest reason by far is because of too many tweets within a short period of time, or bursts.

Followers don't mind a lot of tweets, but they hate when you seem to be monopolizing their Twitter feed.
Solution - Make sure that you space your tweets by using a tool like Buffer, Tweetdeck or Hootsuite.

Other reasons that are fall far behind on the annoyance scale are uninteresting topics, mundane details, and politics.
Solution - Don't post unless you have something to say, and make sure that any details are relevant to the conversation. And unless your music or brand has a political edge, stay away from politics completely as you'll likely lose at least half your audience.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Your Facebook Like Count Could Drop Soon

One thing that you can always count on from social networks and search engines is that they'll tweak their algorithm frequently, and when that happens it can wreak havoc on your follower count or ranking.

Facebook just announced that it recalibrated its algorithm and starting this week, expect your Like count to drop.

The network is calling this a "scrubbing" as it attempts to weed out any deactivated accounts as well as "memorialized" accounts that belong to deceased users that are maintained by friends or family after the user's death.

Not only is it possible that your Like count will decrease, but the comments related to these accounts may get scrubbed too.

For many artists, bands and record labels, Likes are a measure of online success and a growing Like count means a growing audience. The problem is that the count can be deceiving if  you can't reach those fans because they're no longer on the service.

Facebook's scrubbing might make your Like and comment count look different, but it's a better measure of the audience that you have that still exists on the network.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

The Most Popular Social Networks For Young Americans

While we continue to hear about Americans ages 12 to 24 fleeing Facebook for other apps like Snapchat, Vine or WhatsApp, the evidence just doesn't square up with the facts.

While it's true that Facebook usage in that age group is lower than before, the social network still has a commanding lead over any of its competitors.

Here's a chart by Statista based on data published by Edison Research and Triton Digital that shows just how much 12 to 24 year olds actually use each of the most popular social platforms now available.

This is vitally important if your audience is in this age group because your promotion has to go where your fans are.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.