How will Spotify’s new “Streaming 2.0” deal with Universal Music Group reshape the music industry? How have music streaming platforms impacted culture and its artists?
In this “Let’s Talk” episode of AMT Lab’s Tech in the Arts podcast, Podcast Producer Jinghong Gong and Lead Researcher Ian Hawthorne discuss the latest headlines and newly released books that are shaping the music landscape.
Show Notes
Streaming 2.0
“Spotify to launch ‘Music Pro’ service with superfan perks like early-access tickets and AI remix tool for up to $5.99 more per month,” Music Business Worldwide.
Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly
Available at Simon & Schuster
Transcript
Ian Hawthorne
Welcome to Tech in the Arts, the podcast series hosted by the Arts Management and Technology Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. We keep you updated on news and current developments in all things arts, tech, and media. My name is Ian Hawthorne and I'm the lead researcher here at AMT Lab. I'm joined today by Jinghong Gong, our podcast producer.
In this episode, we'll chat about what we've been following in the news this month with a special focus on the music industry and Streaming 2. 0.
Jinghong Gong
Hi Ian, how are you doing?
Ian Hawthorne
I'm doing good. How are you doing?
Jinghong Gong
I'm great. Well, I'm excited to jump into the recent topics about streaming.
Ian Hawthorne
Yeah, I'm absolutely excited for this episode. I think that being in a more of the arts field, I don't get to talk a lot about the contemporary music industry, but it's so interesting because I am addicted to music. I know everybody at this moment seems to be addicted to music.
So, it's awesome to kind of lift the hood and see what's happening underneath, with the whole music economy and how artists get paid. That seems to be changing nowadays pretty dramatically, as well as some scandals happening with the way Spotify is maybe promoting artists nowadays.
Jinghong Gong
I mean, Spotify has been in the spotlight for a lot of criticism.
Ian Hawthorne
So, do you want to talk a little bit about what Spotify has been up to?
Jinghong Gong
Yeah, this is something that came up on Spotify with Universal Music Group that they struck the deal on this idea of streaming 2. 0, which is a strategy less on scale, which Spotify has done amazingly capturing so much of the market share. But it's to trying to segment their subscription markets and trying to capitalize more on this idea of “superfans” who are willing to pay more than just that basic form of subscription fee.
Like, for example, right now, Spotify has two tiers. One is the ad supported version, which you don't pay anything, but you just have to suffer through a lot of advertisements between songs.
Ian Hawthorne
I know the feeling, I was there for about six months when I first downloaded it and I could not stand it
Jinghong Gong
Six months, that's awesome.
Ian Hawthorne
I had some self control, but I was like, I have to give in at some point, I need my playlists, I need my freedom.
Jinghong Gong
Yeah, so that accounts for a decent amount of revenue indeed. From the ad supported version, but, most subscribers, most people are subscriber, which pays, I believe the price, it's, um… I'm a student,
Ian Hawthorne
I've also been a student for the most part.
Jinghong Gong
So, I only know the 5. 99, so, there's the student tier and the normal tier, and also there's the family tier, but those are more basic tiers, and it doesn't really differentiate between, if there's a higher quality version or not. Everyone kind of pays the same price for basically unlimited amount of music, like everything on Spotify you get access to, and even podcasts, so,
Ian Hawthorne
Yeah. So, they're all basically getting the same product just at slightly different prices based on if you're a student. If you're a family, if you're an individual. Yep. But are you saying now that with the sort of strategy they're trying to give you an elevated product at a different price point?
Jinghong Gong
Indeed, and this is something, interesting I don't know if that most streaming platforms nowadays offer lossless audio. I don't know if you're a big audiophile or not.
Ian Hawthorne
I wish I was. Could you tell me a little bit about that?
Jinghong Gong
Yeah, so, lossless audio is this concept of basically higher fidelity audio because through streaming platforms, these audio files are being streamed through your laptop or your phone, and then it goes into your listening device. There's a good chunk of information is lost depending on the file format. Spotify is known to not provide lossless audio. It hasn't added lossless audio yet, which offers them a chance to like, bump up a tier, or offer another tier.
Ian Hawthorne
Just like better audio quality.
Jinghong Gong
Better audio quality. But for example, other platforms like Apple Music or Tidal, they've been incorporating lossless audio, hi-fi audio that a lot of the music fans are loving that feature, but Spotify have yet to add that.
So, this is an opportunity for them to say, “Hey, we have a superior tier of, quality of music, and now you gotta pay more.” Yeah.
Ian Hawthorne
Yeah, it's like you get to listen to the same music, but better.
Jinghong Gong
Exactly.
Ian Hawthorne
Interesting. Now I was reading about the whole superfan strategy too, and it seemed like there were some other tactics that are being floated around out there for trying to engage fans in person in a variety of places or having merch tie ins, various, like, things like that. Could you talk a little more about that?
Jinghong Gong
Actually, I don't know which platform you use.
Ian Hawthorne
I'm all on Spotify.
Jinghong Gong
That's awesome.
Ian Hawthorne
Which is very annoying because my partner is all on Apple Music, so like, I can't send her playlists or anything.
Jinghong Gong
Right.
Ian Hawthorne
I am addicted to Spotify.
Jinghong Gong
So, indeed, Spotify is really convenient. The user interface and everything is. About the live events, I don't know if you saw, like, Spotify's been pushing like, “Hey, you've been listening to this artist, and they're coming, they're playing a show, near you.” And that's that connection to live events. I think, with this new proposed Streaming 2.0 model, there are suggestions about, if we have a more premium subscription model, can some of these fans have early access to tickets, or pre-sales, or even priority sittings. So kind of give them more incentive to pay a higher price.
Ian Hawthorne
Yeah, and I could see that working really well, too, with the whole trying to juice live events more? Because I know that, at least in other fields of the arts, that's always been a struggle post COVID, is getting people out of the house, quite simply.
Like, getting to live concerts, live events. Do you think that could help in the long run?
Jinghong Gong
It would definitely help. Like, honestly, a lot of the concert. I mean, we are very busy,
Ian Hawthorne
Yeah, for sure. The two of us aren't going
Jinghong Gong
For normal people. Like, if people are doing jobs and they're not keeping tabs of all these concerts and live events. There are limited channels, like, I mean, you have Instagram and what-not, but people are not… It really depends on the artists and their team and if their marketing can really push that concert to you directly. But it will be way more targeted if they already know you listen to these artists through that streaming platform you use and say, “Hey, here's an artist you listen to a lot and they're coming.”
Ian Hawthorne
Yeah. So it's kind of, they're taking more of a curatorial path now where it's not just, here's all the artists ever find yours and build your playlists and whatever. But now it's like, here's your taste. We can help curate these opportunities for you, even if you're not following their tour schedule or if you didn't know they dropped merch, here are their t-shirts or something.
Jinghong Gong
Exactly, and I think, like, there’s so much music out there, and there's, not everyone is listening to Beyoncé. I mean, everyone is listening to Beyoncé.
Ian Hawthorne
At this point.
Jinghong Gong
But there are also so many other talents that are emerging, and people are following those, but the big marketing channels are going to be occupied by Beyonce, Kendrick, for example, and all those big artists.
And the smaller artists, they will probably have a better chance promoting or reaching their audience through some sort of platform like this, more targeted, more niche.
Ian Hawthorne
Would you say part of the issue is not that everybody isn't listening to Beyonce, but that everybody's listening to Beyonce and Kendrick and all the independent artists, like everybody's listening to everyone
Jinghong Gong
Yeah. Yeah. And exactly. I think that's Spotify's goal to begin with. They're trying to let you stay on the platform as long as possible and discover more music. And I think, honestly, the algorithm has pushed a lot of exciting new artists and new sounds to me. And I've been enjoying that too, but there are also criticisms. Yeah.
Ian Hawthorne
Glad you brought that up, because there was a book that was published recently called Mood Machine by Liz Pelly, and it was just published this January. And she actually criticizes Spotify as a streaming platform for a variety of reasons. She mentions this term, the flattening of music culture, which I definitely want to get into because I have a sense of what that means, but I'm not an aficionado in that.
So, I'd love your take on what flattening music culture looks like, or I guess sounds like in this instance, and also some of the abuses that have been brought up about Spotify's use of the algorithm, how it pushes artists. I believe there's a program called Discovery Mode, and that's drawn a lot of criticism behind the scenes, some callbacks to the 1950s radio scandals.
Why don't you start there? Just explain what's happening with that.
Jinghong Gong
I think I'll start with flattening music culture. Recently, there was another book, I can't recall the name exactly, but it's also talks about how, in this digital world, so many things are dictated by algorithms. And the way algorithm flattens the culture is that, in a sense, you keep seeing the same stuff over and over again because the algorithm determines that you like this thing. And it just keeps feeding you the same thing. It's beneficial when it's making you happy. But then you can feel the drought of like, hey, I've already listened to these things., or like it's not really pushing new content to me.
I don't know how is your experience using Spotify? I think, actually, two months ago, I really had this feeling of, I was trying to go to like, radio. And I clicked radio, and everything is just already saved. And like there's mood playlist, and I clicked them open, it's just all songs that I already heard before, and I was kind of disappointed in a sense that, hey, Spotify used to used to give me a lot of surprises, and I was really excited about those, but the algorithm is not doing its thing at that time.
Ian Hawthorne
Would you say would you say when it is kind of like content for content’s sake is when it starts to feel a little dry, in comparison. Or just, you are not seeing anything new anymore?
Jinghong Gong
I think it's the idea of, I'm not seeing anything new anymore. I am a huge music fan, like that's the premise. I listen to music every single day, it's too many hours of the day, and so big artists when there's new stuff that's dropped, we already heard, I already heard it a thousand times off like Instagram, all these shorts and all these marketing campaigns, and so I'm kind of less excited about them per se. Or I just want to be that cool niche guy. I listen to the niche artists.
Ian Hawthorne
Like when you have so many artists and songs you're running through, it's like you're interacting with so many subcultures that are becoming increasingly sort of peripheral to the mainstream. And so, it's always, I would imagine this question of like, what's new, what's exciting, and that becomes harder and harder to get, or to find, right?
Jinghong Gong
That was kind of my experience, like my understanding of how flattening the music culture is. But in the book actually, I think a point that Pelly brought up is that these playlists, a lot of this mood-based playlist are flattening out culture because it's encouraging this action of passive listening. You're not actively engaging with the music content. Like I'm a big fan of Bjork, and her songs have, like, these arrangements and vocal and ideas and all that. You're not actively engaging with that.
It's encouraging people to just have it on. And so, there's lo-fi, like study playlists. A lot of people use this as a background for them to do other daily activities. And in that sense, it's, it's not anything new, it's just a background thing. It's just like a mood enhancer, or even, there's playlists for sleep, you just play something for you to sleep, which is, it has its functions. But that is being pushed to the forefront of Spotify. There are a lot of, like, lo-fi playlists and all this stuff. Pelly, she's feeling like this is flattening in a culture too. Like it's prioritizing these playlists that people are more willing to just leave it on than have an active listening session. Maybe you would just listen through it once.
Ian Hawthorne
That's really interesting. I must profess I'm guilty of passive listening. I think it seems to be a lot of people are becoming guilty of passive listening just because it's so easy to access music nowadays. I definitely resonate with the idea of putting on a playlist and then, interacting with an artist very briefly because one or two of their songs might be on the playlist, right?
But then you don't dive into that artist as a whole. I think there's been studies out there that show, like passive listening — yeah, their songs get played, but it doesn't lead to anyone becoming a fan at a higher rate, right? And so I can see that just kind of getting lost in the background.
And then also, do you think there's a problem with people aiming to get onto these playlists and so tailoring their music to that like they know what the lo-fi mood music is looking for so they know how to produce it. Kind of like — I've I've heard that people have done a lot of TikTok songs. They'll make music where like the song is kind of average, but they tailor it around the like 10 second hook that they know will blow up for like a month on TikTok.
Jinghong Gong
Exactly. So that, that is a very good point. So, people will try to align their music style to whatever the algorithm's trying to push. And I think the important thing about, like, oh, why are these things pushed? Because when you passively listen to them, there's more royalties being generated. So that's the whole goal. That, the more time you spend on it, the more play counts or streams that you get, the more royalties splits that you get.
Ian Hawthorne
And I was going to ask about that because I know we talked about, passive listening doesn't necessarily lead to fans, but if it does lead to your songs getting played, isn't that ultimately still good for the artist? Or do you think it flattens the culture because they're just making their music to get that one play or to get noticed at all?
Jinghong Gong
The idea of music culture to progress. I don't know. If everything got more mediocre and lo-fi and not really bringing new ideas. I don't want to generalize because I know and I believe there's so many aspiring and inspiring artists out there that are making exciting art. But there's also a lot of people who come into this and want to just, “Hey, let's play with the algorithm and let's…
Ian Hawthorne
…play the game.”
Jinghong Gong
“Let's play the game.”
Ian Hawthorne
So, we're not going to generalize and say that Spotify has ruined music. No, but we will say that Spotify has introduced a system that more and more people are discovering ways to exploit or maybe just survive in like, let's talk about this discovery mode for a bit because. I was reading about what Spotify did with Discovery Mode, and I thought it was fascinating.
On the one hand, it's like, utilizing their algorithmic system as a black box to say like, “Hey, if you give up some royalties, we'll adjust various A's and B's in your algorithm to maybe give you a better chance of being noticed.”
But like, and so they're using it as a sort of like obfuscation technique so that it can't be seen as like a direct bribe. But at the same time, it's like, oh, they're getting more notice. There's like a direct correlation, right? So, can you shed some more light on that?
Jinghong Gong
It is, yeah. So in the book, Liz Pelly did amazing investigations around this and just find out that there's a lot of artists that were offered this deal from, like, Discovery Mode that if you were willing to give up a higher cut of your royalty paycheck, you would be pushed more by the algorithm. And of course, a lot of these independent artists, especially the independent artists who have less marketing channels outside of just, maybe their personal Instagram or like paid promotion on other platforms, they kind of have to rely on algorithm push. So, a lot of them will say, “I need to opt in on this. I can take a pay cut and if that means I have a better chance of getting discovered.” But this is a chance thing/
Ian Hawthorne
Yeah.
Jinghong Gong
And some artists took it and I believe — I read this report that internally in Spotify, they thought the goal would be 30 percent of the indie artists independent artists that would take this pay cut, but it was actually 50 percent.
Ian Hawthorne
Oh my god.
Jinghong Gong
And so, they actually, made so much money because many of these aspiring, artists and independent artists especially the middle-class ones who are not getting millions of streams, but they're still getting a decent chunk of the royalty check. They all opt in.
Ian Hawthorne
See, and I wanna say that's surprising, but it's also sadly not surprising. Right. Because I read in this article by the Guardian sort of criticizing the this pay to play system, right? That Spotify defends this as democratizing. They've been compared to the Payola scandal in the fifties, which we can get into a little more with the radio industry, but that was more of the studios just paying radio stations to play their music.
It was kind of a direct, under the table boost our popularity thing. But what Spotify says is, we're not asking them for money that they don't have. We're just withholding what you would be making, which is ironic because it's from the artists who are trying to still get started in the first place. Like you said, half of these smaller sort of independent artists are taking these deals, sacrificing their initial pay to get noticed more, which I'd imagine, raises their popularity, or at least they hope it raises their popularity, but then all the royalties are getting sacrificed, right? So, there's this kind of cycle of, I don't want to use the word exploitation, but exploitation.
Jinghong Gong
Yeah, exactly. Well, the worst part is now 50 percent of the people did it. Yeah. And the rest of 50 percent will feel like others are getting pushed more by the Discovery Mode, and everyone has to do that pay cut.
Ian Hawthorne
And it's like, even if I'm not on Discovery, how do you compete with the other 50 percent who are taking the pay cut, but getting noticed more than you now, and so now you're not, even though you're not taking that discount on the royalties, you're still not getting noticed.
So, you're kind of still paying that cost, right?
Jinghong Gong
Yeah, and now you're more inclined. And now, what if maybe 100%, or we’ll not say a hundred percent. 80% of the people are taking that cut. And now then that royalty split is already, the balance is getting tipped over slowly and slowly. Who knows? Yeah. And then there will be a new tier of Discovery Mode if you take even more cut. Yeah. We have a new playlist or some sort of thing.
Ian Hawthorne
Having an economics background I saw the kind of “superfan” strategies as a form of what we call in economics “price discrimination,” right? This happens all over the place with like store coupons or discounts for things. You know, if someone's willing to pay a higher price to do something, how do you get them to pay that higher price? Or if someone is willing to do something or buy something, but at a lower price, how do you get them in right?
I see that at play a lot in the “superfan” strategy in terms of Spotify getting people onto the platform, but I also I'm starting to see it here with the way they're selling their product to their artists — where it's like, how do we extract the most money from them just so that they have the right to be played on our platform? Because we are one of the few mega platforms for finding fans, right?
So, it's interesting how sophisticated they can get in terms of keeping revenue that they otherwise might give out to these artists. And then, like you said, I wouldn't be surprised if in a year or two they have different tiers of like, very well established, royalty withholdings for different discovery ladders. Unless they get sued which, which is what happened with the radio stations, right.?
Jinghong Gong
I think it's difficult. I think it's difficult to enforce. Even with the radio station. I like, we know you can pay the radio now. You can, there's a lot of practices in the industry that you still do. Like, you still pay radios to boost your songs or play your stuff. It's, well, it's like connection based, but most of the time it's still monetary incentive.
Ian Hawthorne
Okay.
Jinghong Gong
But for the Spotify part, I think the main issue is that more and more independent artists are getting taking advantage of. Because when you see the bigger label artists, they have their other negotiations, these big labels Universal, Sony, and Warner. They get to negotiate with streaming platforms because these artists that they have are more established and there's a more predictable kind of a payout for these artists. So, they might be able to negotiate a way better deal than all of these independent artists. So, it's really about serving the music industry. I think in this book, too, it really says Spotify came out as this thing of, helping discovery, it was, it was appealing to the niche, market of people trying to discover more music, more independent scenes, but in the end, it's serving the big music corporations, the industry.
Ian Hawthorne
Interesting. I didn't even think about it from that angle, but you're right, where they, the big labels have so much power, have so much leverage. I think about when Kendrick dropped GNX, right? He did like barely any promotion for that.
Jinghong Gong
No. Yeah.
Ian Hawthorne
If you're a big artist like that, you can drop something like that. And I was eating it up all that morning. I was like, “oh my god.” But, if you're an independent artist and you drop your version of GNX, nobody's going to notice, right? And so, you have to put it on Discovery Mode. And then it's like, “well, I'm getting noticed, but I'm not getting paid.” And so, it's interesting cause I see the, the like benevolence in the system where it's like, “Oh, we're a flooded platform. You're a small artist. How can we help you get noticed.” right? Because, without this, you might be treading water.
And I see it. I'm going to kind of play devil's advocate here. And I'm interested in your opinion on this, but let's say someone is sort of trying to justify this Discovery Mode strategy. They're like, well how is it any different from if you're starting a band, you know, going around to local bars or local joints and saying “let us play live for free, we'll give you a cut of our tips or whatever we just because we're just want to get noticed.”
You know a lot of people withhold revenue in the beginning because they need to build a following, for instance. So is this similar to that sort of mindset, or is it, is there something a little more problematic here because of the concentration of power?
Jinghong Gong
I think about this, like two ways. From perspective of an artist, of course, you will want to be able to do this, like pursue art and, trying to build, you're making a product on these platforms and there's that pressure of, hey, I need to make this a sustainable career or keep making music. And so, you would want to play the game. Like, if I'm an up-and-coming band, yeah, I would play for free if it shows that I can get more people to listen to my music. I mean, even Kendrick's halftime show was free. But, well, that's a little…
Ian Hawthorne
That's for part two.
Jinghong Gong
That's for part two. But from the artist's point of view, you're kinda screwed.
Ian Hawthorne
And is that any different from how it has always been?
Jinghong Gong
No, sadly, but I think a good thing is we have a lot of these educational resources that artists are now learn to better understand deals. Like I want to own my own copy of music. I want to own the masters. Like, these labels can give me a huge advance of, a big deal, but I want my, like, I want to own that stuff. So, it's not once I'm out of this deal, I don't own that piece of music, that is my means of survival.
Ian Hawthorne
Yes, you think that a lot of like increases in legal literacy among artists is really important for navigating this landscape.
Jinghong Gong
Exactly.
Ian Hawthorne:
And I totally 100% agree with that. I think that people have clearly learned from examples like Taylor Swift, or like any of the other big artists run into these kind of master issues, these licensing do you see examples of smaller artists being more proactive on that front at all?
Jinghong Gong
I think one of my friends in in the MEIM program, Entertainment Industry Management — shout out — he's worked in the segment, like, Latin American music a lot. And he was telling me a lot of these big reggaeton artists are actually independent.
Ian Hawthorne
Oh really.
Jinghong Gong
Which is a trend nowadays. Like, these labels have great marketing channels. They hold the power at those gates, but these artists are saying, Hey, we only want to sign a publishing deal with you. We still want to own every piece of our music. And so that's becoming a trend.
Ian Hawthorne
And they're succeeding at that.
Jinghong Gong
They're succeeding in that. And which is great. and I think that's becoming the trend too, because these labels are not really Building an artist. They're just picking,
Ian Hawthorne
They're just marketing the artist.
Jinghong Gong
Yeah. They're just marketing the artist. “Oh, I saw this person blew up on TikTok, or, or their song blew up and let's give them a publishing deal. We just get a slice of the cake, and we push you.”
Ian Hawthorne
Yeah. No, I can definitely see them, sort of, hovering over to that role. Because, when you think about it, isn't that sort of the utopian vision of something like a Spotify or a SoundCloud or YouTube? I remember it's like everybody wanted to be Justin Bieber when it's like back in the golden age of YouTube, you can just post some music videos of you singing covers and then you'll get noticed and blow up. Cause that's like. The democratizing wonder of the internet and the same thing with Spotify, you know, doesn't everybody want to just be able to drop a GNX and then find a following find a market build a community on these platforms?
But so much of it from our discussion, you know It makes you realize how the governance of these platforms matters and not just that they're there to use but then once you're on it, how do you succeed in it?
How how do you connect with fans? How is that mediated by whatever algorithm you they're using, you know? But then also in music the labels and the this whole industrial side of that too.
Jinghong Gong
So, I think yeah exactly that is the concern and like we need to think about that. and I was we're talking about an artist side and for the industry side. There's so much music out. There's so much.
Ian Hawthorne
Oh, yeah. I couldn’t imagine managing any of that.
Jinghong Gong
There's so much music, and so I think it is indeed, like, with the coming of Streaming 2. 0, I think it's valid. Because I do think that this is, like, I'm getting way too good of a deal. Like, I'm not paying anything for music right now, like, six-ish dollars, and I get unlimited amount of streaming music. I think that's kind of an amazing deal.
Ian Hawthorne
It's awesome. I definitely don't think any consumer is complaining about this.
Jinghong Gong
Yeah.
Ian Hawthorne
But I think you, you raise a good point where, like we've been saying, doesn't that contribute to this sort of cycle of flattening, of ease of access? More people get on the platform, which means more artists want on the platform, which means there's more competition for being noticed. You need to get on that lo-fi playlist to get your lo-fi tracks listened to. And this is something, we're dealing with in my world, too, which is more of like the traditional arts and museum space where, everybody's assuming that art should be free and even from the provider end of things. As an arts manager, we all want our museums to be free. I'm sure there's not a museum director out there who wouldn't love to have their art museum be free to the people. It's just a matter of affording it. And I think the music industry is a really interesting case study where it's like we're approaching that — where it's at least, if not free, it’s affordable to the masses. But, at what cost? Who's sacrificing their buck to make that happen? And I think it's important to notice and to pay attention to that.
Jinghong Gong
Exactly, and from our live music class, our professor, Liz Berlin, she, she was part of this, legendary band, Rusted Root.
Ian Hawthorne
Oh really? Yes! What? She's part of Rusted Root! You there?
Jinghong Gong
Yes, exactly! Oh my god! I'm taking class from her, it's exciting. We went to Mrs. Smalls, which, she owns a venue. Yes, it's amazing. It was super fun. We should go there for a show.
Ian Hawthorne
Yeah. I need to meet her.
Jinghong Gong
Yes, it's amazing. We'll have her on the podcast.
Ian Hawthorne
Definitely. Yes. I knew Rusted Root was from Pittsburgh. I didn't know the connection this deep though.
Jinghong Gong
Yes, yes, exactly. But something she said, this, this new streaming thing, because she came from that. Like, she's been touring for 30 years. And she saw all those changes in the industry and said, she told us that the streaming thing is neat.
Like, she gets a royalty check, you know, every now and then. It's nice, but it's probably not gonna pay rent. Even though she has a huge song that everyone knows. Massive song.
Ian Hawthorne
Ice Age deals.
Jinghong Gong
Ice Age deal. And so, and she's saying that streaming world, now having your music on streaming platform is just publicity.
Ian Hawthorne
Publicity? Yeah.
Jinghong Gong
To sell merch. So, you will have your music, and the real sustainable income comes from selling your vinyls, selling your CDs, your t shirts, your posters, your your zines, and all that.
Ian Hawthorne
That's interesting. It's like, I think I'm immediately thinking of Instagram where it's like, if you're a content creator, yeah, you can create a following on your platform. But then so much of what influencers are right now is not just creating content for content. It's like you've created content, you have an audience, now what do you sell through that content? Or how do you connect them to, your line of merchandise or your personal brand that has other offerings.
So, it's interesting to think of Spotify becoming less of an end goal, and more of a curatorial platform of just here's where we listen to the music to try and find our new favorite band to then buy their t-shirts and go to their concerts.
Jinghong Gong
So that is I think that's also kind of what Streaming 2.0 is trying to solve. I think this model is less about getting the audience to listen to a new piece of music but getting the fan to connect with an artist first and become that continuous support for these artists.
Ian Hawthorne
Clearly getting people to listen to music is not a problem. People can listen to any and all music all the time.
It's, how do you drill in? How do you actually become a fan? I think it'd be super interesting to actually just like, take a survey of people out there where it's like, how many bands would you consider yourself actually a fan?
Jinghong Gong
Right.
Ian Hawthorne
How many artists do you follow versus could you name the artists you listen to today? Is an interesting question that I think we could only ask in the 21st century. I know for sure that there's some artists on my playlist, even just my liked songs that I could not name the band name or the song title. I just know I've heard it on loop every now and then. If you played me the song, I would be able to sing along. Which is kind of wild, hearing that come out of my mouth now.
Jinghong Gong
Well, no, that's just a product of this era, you know.
Ian Hawthorne
Exactly. No shame.
Jinghong Gong
I think, yeah, these discussions on streaming platforms, how these new changes are coming, and, you know. I think these are some exciting changes. I do want to see artists getting paid more. Even though, maybe, at the same time, of course, the industry will be richer. But if that means more artists may be able to have a better chance of survival - hey, I'm all for it. I’m down to see what Streaming 2.0 looks like. And of course, I think it's also a great timing of Liz Pelly's book, with these new changes, let's keep in mind how some of these practices might be problematic, and, how artists can educate themselves. I think something you talked about, the literacy and, what are these, legalities - it will help, it will help to build a healthier, music industry.
Ian Hawthorne
Healthier market. Because if the pie gets bigger, it's really no problem as long as you get more slices out of it, right? The only problem is if the pie gets bigger and Spotify's slice gets proportionally bigger and bigger as it goes. So absolutely, I think this is really exciting, really interesting stuff happening in the music world. As always, I feel like it's never not interesting in the land of music. And super important to keep in mind just the ethics, the labor relations of artists, getting them their buck.
But also, if you come across an artist today in your playlist. And you haven't listened to anything beyond their one song. I dare you go to their page on Spotify, listen to an album. That's my challenge for you today. Let's see how many more super fans we can build
Jinghong Gong
If they have an album.
Ian Hawthorne
That is a good point. There have been too many artists I've found that just have like four EPs.
Jinghong Gong
Or songs.
Ian Hawthorne
It’s like, fine I'll listen to them.
Jinghong Gong
But yeah, go support artists.
Ian Hawthorne
Support your artists. AMT Lab wants you to support your artists.
Jinghong Gong
Yeah, exactly.
Ian Hawthorne
All right. Well, Jinghong, it's been wonderful having you on today. This has been a really insightful conversation.
Jinghong Gong
Thank you, Ian. Thank you so much. Well, I'll talk to you soon.
Ian Hawthorne
Will do.