NEWS AND
UPDATES
Two Disparate Updates On Spotify
4 April 2018
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1. Spotify + 8tracks
Spotify has continued to implement new changes and announce upcoming deals since filing their IPO in February. Most recent is their partnership with 8tracks, with a plan to bring a new feature to 8tracks’ mobile iOS app. 8tracks (which is like a SoundCloud equivalent) will now be able to deliver music in a more organized way to their users, by offering the ability to automatically save favorited songs and transfer them to Spotify on a special playlist called “8tracks Discoveries.” Now Spotify users will be able to access those cool remixes without any hassle. Platforms like SoundCloud and 8tracks are geared towards the less commercial tracks, like the small DJs and emerging rappers that have only 100 streams. However, with this partnership, these younger artists may benefit by getting more views. This is an interesting new move for Spotify as it continues to make waves in the music industry and Wall Street.
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2. Spotify on Wall Street
A few days ago, Digital Music News reported that Microsoft was acquiring Spotify in a $41.8 billion equity deal, despite their public listing. This was an April Fool's day post and I almost fell pray to it. However, despite it simply being an awful joke, it did highlight Spotify's (SPOT) exciting New York Stock Exchange debut, which occurred on Tuesday, April 3rd.
Wall Street’s banks made money on Spotify’s offering, just not as much as they would have if the company had filed a traditional IPO. Spotify did a direct listing deal, which is a little unorthodox, but it was cheap and fast. It saved the company millions of dollars, "while still giving its employees and early investors the chance to cash out."
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Before Spotify was officially on the market, various observers and investors feared their stock would be rocky. Their stock was surely not perfect yesterday and traded in a wider range than other big tech companies. However, Spotify's move to go public looks promising. Currently, SPOT stock is down 5.7% at $140.48, although they opened yesterday at $165.90, trading as high as $169.00. It then closed at $149.01. But all in all, Spotify's stock traded well considering the numerous doubts surrounding their direct listing. At this scale, it was an untested experiment, but "it worked and worked well" (Colin Stewart).
Augmented Reality Meets Your Ears
13 March 2018
Bose has recently gotten involved in audial augmented reality, introducing their AR glasses at the 2018 SXSW in Austin, Texas. These glasses merge sound and vision, a technology that is coming at just the right time in the midst of this VR frenzy. It has been a race to create the most precise VR goggles, even China is experimenting with sex robots and virtual reality. The world is simply going crazy for this technology and now Bose has entered the scene with glasses that instead have integrated headphones, allowing you to enjoy the real world around you.
They have gone a step further than Google Glass. The Bose prototype already works with Bluetooth and will integrate with iOS, Apple’s Siri, and Android. They say that their AR platform can "be built into headphones, eyewear, helmets and more." Bose exec John Gordon stated:
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“It places audio in your surroundings, not digital images, so you can focus on the amazing world around you — rather than a tiny display.”
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The Bose AR glasses will also know which way you are facing and can connect that place or time with other functions for fun travel. The gadgets have small sensors that track head motions for gesture controls and work with GPS (via your paired smartphone) to track location. The glasses will ultimately add an intense layer of information and experiences to the users' realities. If you're interested to learn more, make sure to check out Bose AR SDK. The site will tell you about their partnerships with additional companies. Their goal is to become a platform for developers who want to make other things with Bose.
MARCH'S ALBUM UPDATE:
Two exciting album releases are here! The Weeknd just confirmed that his new project, "My Dear Melancholy," will drop Thursday March 29th. Cardi B also announced that her full length debut LP will be released April 6th. It's called "Invasion of Privacy."
Can You Say Time's Up?
13 March 2018
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Smirnoff announced a new partnership with Spotify as a way of extending their “Equalizing Music” global campaign. This new partnership aims at promoting equality for female musicians around the world. Spotify’s top 10 most-streamed tracks list of 2017 did not include a single woman or female group. In response to that, and through this partnership, Spotify will launch the Smirnoff Equalizer, an API that will actively promote female musicians. The program also tells you the percentage of male and female artists you have listened to in the past six months, rendering you an equalized playlist that is tailored based off of those songs. So, you will be receiving a recommended list of new songs that are similar to your interests, but the breakdown will now be fifty-fifty in terms of gender. This protocol will actually give female musicians an equal chance in the spotlight on the streaming platform. Can you say “Time’s Up”?
Going Public and Peacin' Out
4 March 2018
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Spotify finally filed their IPO with the SEC earlier this week. Coincidentally (or not), some of the company’s top execs have turned in their resignations, including:
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Kevin Brown (Head of UK/International Artist & Label Services)
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Stefan Blom (Chief Content Officer)
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Rob Harvey (Head Of US Label Relations)
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Tom Calderone (Head Of Video)
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Pat Shah (Head of Original Content Licensing)
We now have to add Tuma Basa, Spotify’s head hip-hop curator, to that list. The gatekeeper to and genius behind the Rap Caviar playlist left the company one day after Spotify filed for public offering. Will Spotify be a completely different company now that those who built it up are departing, or will the company be left unaffected?
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One prediction is that the music service will lean towards original content. They experimented back in 2017 with the release of a Migos song called "Dab of Ranch." Spotify usually has sessions, but this time they decided to record the Migos track for an exclusive Spotify-only release in hopes of grabbing viewers who desired a special experience. This may have been in response to the recent projects that Apple Music snagged for exclusive deals themselves (i.e. Frank Ocean's Blonde. and Kanye West's The Life of Pablo). Whatever the new strategy is going to be for Spotify, the company truly is in the midst of a massive change and I am excited to see what comes next.
FEBRUARY'S CULTURE UPDATE:
Donald Glover is retiring the Childish Gambino stage name, claiming that it is time to move onto something new. Before that happens, he will be be touring with Rae Sremmurd and enjoying a second season of his show Atlanta on FX.
Stay Streaming: America's Increased Use of Streaming Services
19 February 2018
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BuzzAngle (note: no relation to BuzzFeed) is a website reporting on music consumption. They published a 2017 year-end report, which announced that the number of subscription streams increased from 76% in 2016 to 80% in total audio streams this past year.
It's no surprise that music streaming platforms have become more popular in the last decade since Spotify hit the scene in 2008. However, the use of these platforms has truly grown in its largest numbers in the past three years, which is the exact amount of time that Apple Music has made their streaming service available. In 2017 alone, researchers at BuzzAngle reported that Americans consumed 377 billion streams. Impressive, right?
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However, we're primarily consuming tracks that the streaming platforms are promoting for us. Of the 377 billion total streams in 2017, 99% were from the top 10% of the year’s most-streamed tracks. That means the remaining 1% of that total consisted of all the other music out there—indie tracks, small EDM artists, and so on.
No matter the media–film, television, or music–streaming is here to stay and coders who work for these services need to figure out how to let the smaller guys shine through.
Spotify’s Sweet Valentine's Day Offer Before Hitting Wall Street
13 February 2018
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Back in January, Spotify was signing confidential papers with the SEC in order to go public. On February 2nd, the SEC approved a New York Stock Exchange request to modify certain direct listing rules. This could mean good things for Spotify, considering the past few months have been hard for the Swedish music streaming company (with a $1.6 billion lawsuit and Apple Music’s steady rise). However, they have also timed this news with another sweet offer: free 60 days of Premium service for new users. This seems to be coming at almost too perfect of a time, considering they are reported to land on Wall Street this month. Interesting move, Daniel Ek. Very interesting.
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But competition is tough. Spotify and Apple Music are the battling titans of music streaming. They gotta do what they gotta do, right? Apple confirmed their plan to acquire Shazam for $400 million on December 11, 2017. This came just a month after Spotify acquired Soundtrap, an online recording studio startup. They are also testing a new Android-only playlist app called Stations. This ongoing duel between the two companies all hinges on how well Spotify does on Wall Street. If they fail, Apple Music will be the reigning champ.
Mo' Money and Hopefully Less Problems
5 February 2018
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When Taylor Swift pulled her music from Spotify in 2014, she made the public vehemently aware of how little musicians were getting paid per stream. An artist can expect to earn between $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream on Spotify, depending on what country the app is being used in. Even for a big artist like Swift, that price-point is appalling. A little over a decade ago, CDs used to go for fifteen dollars and now musicians are fighting for every dime.
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Swift has since returned to the music service, but her act of defiance may have sparked a huge change in copyright legislation. Just two weeks ago, a federal copyright board raised music streaming royalties for songwriters and music publishers
from 10.5 percent to 15.1 percent. This most certainly was in response to the growing disputes between artists and their streaming services. It seems simple: artists deserve the rate increases and they are finally receiving them. Unfortunately, recording labels are still seeing way more of that cash than their artists are. While the Copyright Royalty Board’s new decision will be benefiting the songwriters and publishers, it is estimated that record labels will still be receiving $3.82 for every $1.00 paid to the artist or publisher. Sadly, it has been an issue for some time now, where artists see far less money than they should while their labels reap the benefits. All we can do right now is cross our fingers that this five-year deal will mean more improvements for the singer-songwriters of today's musical world.
New Finnish Startup Claims It Can Predict Hit Song Potential: Revolutionary or Danger to Authenticity?
5 February 2018
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One word: Hyperlive. And no, I am not talking about the line of Nike basketball shoes. Hyperlive is a new startup that claims it can predict a song’s future hit potential. Geoff Luck, the CEO of Hyperlive, is also an associate professor at the Finnish Centre for Interdisciplinary Music Research and is an expert on human cognition and musical perception. Luck’s project captures the experience of music listening by modeling a range of neurological, physiological, and behavioral responses. That informs the algorithm for Hyperlive, which quantifies, models, and predicts our engagement with certain songs. According to Digital Music News, the algorithm has already correctly
“predicted how 200 tracks from 10 major artists, including Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift” would do.
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However, this is just the beginning. Luck believes there are plenty of other applications for Hyperlive and that songwriters will be able to write better music because of it. Industry professionals will also reportedly be able to increase audience engagement. As one record executive said in an interview with The Journal of Musical Things, “the problem with our industry is that we’re always working blind. We’re totally at the mercy of a fickle public. We think we might know what they want, but when we release a single, we have no idea whether it will catch on. You can throw all the money in the world at a song, but if the public doesn’t bite, it all goes down the toilet.” This app may be an answer to that problem. However, Hyperlive is still in its beginning stages and so far all we know is this: it analyzes each track’s audio signature and can predict actual performance with 84 percent overall accuracy. Aside from that, we do not know much more about how the app will alter the music business.
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But that was my major concern. Will it recommend how an artist can change their song to ensure a higher popularity rating? If we can quantify these songs with a formula, will every track start sounding far too similar? Will tracks consist entirely of hooks? That got me thinking about how boring the music landscape would be if every music exec began quantifying sound. Music often is a “hit business,” but there are still plenty of professionals who value original, grassroot musical efforts.
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At first this app seems revolutionary, but, as most people do, I began to consider the negative effects Hyperlive could have on music. Aside from music homogeny, the app could change the very motivating factors that drive most artists to write music. But for fear of sounding too pessimistic, I will leave you all with this: Hyperlive is certainly a music app to watch and I am interested to see how successful it will be in predicting this summer’s new hit jams. To stay updated about Hyperlive and related topics, take a look at Geoff Luck’s LinkedIn for more information.
JANUARY'S WOMEN IN ENTERTAINMENT UPDATE:
Laura Swanson has joined Warner Bros. Records as Executive Vice President, Media & Strategic Development. Swanson was most recently EVP, Media & Strategic Development at Epic Records.