Don't Fear the Streamer

UPDATE TO THIS POST:- On June 22nd 2019 Rebecca received top honours in the Folk/Singer-Songwriter Song category for her original song ‘Waves’ at The 17th annual global Independent Music Awards (The IMAs) in New York City USA, the influential program for independent artists and releases across the world. Small changes - Bigger outcomes.

You can read all about it here https://bit.ly/2Y6O9lD 

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Streaming content whether its film, gaming, podcasts, video or music is rapidly gaining momentum as the consumer choice for ease of accessibility.

For me in the ‘music business’ of which I knew nothing about in 2015 (but know a tiny little bit more about now) has been a complicated, at times frustrating, intriguing and ultimately one of the most consuming and rewarding parts of my life.

So what do ‘I know’ 100% about music. I know 100% about me as a consumer of music.

Musically I know what I like, I know what I need and I know where and how to get it.

I have, as an outsider looking in, begun to understand what I believe are the four main elements of driving your ‘music career’ or musical ambition forward.

They are not in any particular order but all relevant :-

1. Artist / Product Accessibility

2. Consumer Need

3. Consumer Cost

4. Artist Reputation

At some point all four elements will have to come together and once that is done some elements will work exclusively on their own for you as an independent artist without a record deal, publishing deal or support from the big distributors.

Accessibility.

I well remember as a teenager giving my younger brother my hard earned 5 shillings to go into Woolworths in town to buy ‘Killer Queen’ by Queen before it had sold out. I’d heard it the night before drifting in and out on Radio Luxembourg ‘208 Your Station of the Stars’ and was transfixed by the searing harmonies and Brian Mays unique guitar sound.

Obviously ‘Killer Queen’ had sold out, but my brother, a kind soul and not wishing to disappoint me, came home with what he thought was an even better 45rpm single ‘Tiger Feet’ by Mud. We laugh about it now but at the time…………. Really ? (I played it at 33rpm or 78 rpm to annoy him.)

So back then Artist Product accessibility was limited due to supply and demand and not instantly available. Today so long as I have Wi-Fi or a decent broadband connection I have instant access to almost everything ever recorded.

Bearing in mind Moore’s law and the silicon valley industries being able to double the speed capacity of transistors and storage in computers, smart phones, tablets etc. every two years and halve the speed at which content is downloaded. (let’s not forget Cloud here regarding storage either) Change is constantly happening.

Here in the United Kingdom we are,as of January 2018 somewhat languishing in a worldwide position of 45th for mobile speed of 26.77 Mbps with Norway topping the tree at 62.75Mbps. For fixed broadband Singapore is the place to be with speeds of 166.44 Mbps we can manage 55.59Mbps here in the UK.

https://www.speedtest.net/global-index

Global connectivity

This accessibility for music and its storage will only get faster and larger. Horizon scanning and forward thinking investors and companies understand this need for global accessibility.

You only have to look at companies like Iridium and SpaceX and their collective vision for cross linked Low Earth Orbit architecture to get a sense of everything being under one sky.

Whilst innovations like this are aimed initially at defence and maritime applications and is a speciality broadband service - it is not going to take a huge leap for this technology to spore out commercially. This is not futuristic - it’s happening now.

There are literally dozens of streaming services worldwide so who do we / you go to as an unsigned independent artist ? Go to as many as you can until your artist reputation is secured – initially it really is all about accessibility.

I represent the artist Rebecca Hurn she will be releasing her new music ‘Waves’ on Friday 13th April 2018, here are some of the digital platforms who her new music has been delivered to thanks to AWAL (powered by Kobalt ) in readiness Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, Apple Music, Phononet, Gracenote, BPI, Shazam, KKBOX, Napster, YouTube, Deezer, Pandora, Google Play, Tidal, Amazon, Soundscan.

We at RHMusic require that artist / product accessibility for consumers who need to hear Rebecca’s music with no or little consumer cost to themselves. If her new music is enjoyed and shared on playlists her artist reputation is enhanced.

Would you honestly pay for something that you hadn’t sampled, test driven, tasted, heard or looked at. Artist reputation increases the 'need' element, the 'need' element increases the monetisation aspect.

So now you will be scratching your head and asking ‘if its free then how does the monetisation aspect come into any of it?’

Almost all the digital service providers rely on advertising and artist content, they go hand in hand as a business model. If Spotify was truly free they would not have 70 million paying subscribers worldwide as of January 2018. That, by the way, is a 20 million increase from March 2017.

So whilst streaming is free at the most basic point you are limited in certain areas, for example you can only skip a certain number of tracks, podcasts or videos then you may be stuck listening to a song or have the advertising folks promoting their product in between songs.

This is exactly where the 'need' element kicks in. If I want a playlist free from adverts or the ability to skip tracks when I want - for example if my brother is streaming ‘Tiger Feet’ (No offence intended to Mud) Then I will have to pay a subscription.

Music industry people and especially artists are becoming savvy to all this, they (we) understand that without great content the streaming services are not going to get the advertising revenue. Artist, publishers and songwriters are paid ludicrously low amounts but that is starting to change.

You may well remember Taylor Swifts open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook in 2015, Apple were offering a three months free trial to Apple Music but were not going to pay writers, producers or artists anything for plays during that period. Her bottom line on the letter was :-

‘We don't ask you for free iPhones. Please don't ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.’

That was a quick game changer for everyone involved, within hours the thought of not having her ‘1989’ album available on Apple Music caused Apple Music to change that stance.

Incidentally Taylor Swift Big Machine Label Group pulled her entire catalogue from Spotify in November 2014. At that time Taylor Swift was on 19 million Spotify playlists, the marketing people paying for advertising would not have been happy.

This is where Artist reputation can win on its own. Artist reputation can also be the causation of need.

Who remembers the Adele album 25 not being streamed.?

It was the blockbuster album of 2015. It was also Adele’s commercial power through her well-earned reputation that created the need for consumers to actually buy the album in physical format. 25 was released to streaming platforms seven months later after its physical distribution when it had already become one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Sometimes the understanding of need is genuinely mistaken by the bigger companies and artists. I remember the brouhaha caused by U2 and Apple thinking it would be a great idea to directly install the U2 album ‘Songs of Innocence’ directly into the music libraries of devices used by 500 million iTunes subscribers.

There was a huge negative social media reaction to this venture, though well intentioned as it might have been by U2 and Apple they simply found out that they could not be the arbiters of individual musical tastes and needs. That is your decision and yours alone.

There is a lot going on at the moment for independent artists, the music industry see the trends and understands this, the industry has to alter their strategies accordingly. They are doing so. It is a constantly evolving process the industry has to keep up with technical innovations, it has to work out what consumers needs are, it has to work out what we like and want, plus how to deliver cost effectively. Spotify are keen to do this because their success relies almost totally on their content – your music. So many unsigned artists and independents are out there now creating some of the best sounds available.

My role in supporting Rebecca is the same albeit on a smaller scale. Rebecca and myself have to work out how we can get all four elements working together.

1. Artist / Product Accessibility

‘Word of mouth’ is always something to consider to be the top of your list as an independent artist. Word of mouth is amplified now to global status by social media platforms but it’s still ‘word of mouth’ in a sense that you as the individual seeing hearing or reading about the artist is going to either engage or disengage at that point of contact.

Waves EP isn’t released until 13th April 2018 so how is it accessible, well you can put samples out there to get listeners intrigued. SoundCloud is a great way to do this

Waves samples

2. Consumer Need

So maybe some of you have already become disengaged but we’re hopeful that a lot more won’t have and you may want that instant accessibility now today.

But because the physical CD’s are not yet available you’ll have to wait to pre order digitally on iTunes on 30th March 2018 or wait for the general release on 13th April.

Or will you? - maybe there’s another way.

We’d thought about this for some time and realised that there was a gap in engagement between Rebecca playing her songs live and waiting months for the actual release.

So not knowing much about the music industry and remembering that if only I’d pre ordered ‘Killer Queen’ from Woolworths we thought it would be a great idea to be able to presave Waves digitally via Spotify at any time prior to release.

We emailed AWAL in January 2018 and they confirmed they didn’t have that capability right then but wanted to know more about why we thought this would be a good idea, so we explained to AWAL what we had in mind. They agreed it would be a good thing to do and specifically created a presave feature for Waves to Spotify.

So if like me you’re a music streamer and interested in discovering great new music or a fan of Rebecca Hurn music you can presave it to your Spotify Library today at no cost to yourself. You’ll also know that it will be in your Spotify Library on the release date because you and you alone have chosen for it to be there, sorry U2.

Presave to Spotify Today

3. Consumer Cost

There is no consumer cost to you initially and you can keep it that way if you wish. When the time comes when you don’t want to hear the adverts, or need to be able to have more premium features connected with your digital libraries and playlists then you can make that affordability decision yourself. There are over two billion playlists on Spotify alone.

4. Artist Reputation

So what can I tell you about artist reputation - in respect of Rebecca I will tell you that in my view she is one of the most gifted artists I have ever encountered lyrically and musically.

But then I’m bound to say that as I represent her - also I have to expect and respect that not everyone will feel the same way.

Even though that is my honestly held belief I can tell you that as a matter of fact she has reached over half a million people on Facebook through her ‘Project 22’ covers videos.

Whilst you may never have heard of her she did eclipse Ed Sheeran James Bay and George Ezra when she released her ‘Lions’ EP in September 2015 in the iTunes UK singer songwriter charts. She is an award winning singer songwriter who has played in front of thousands of people at the Principality Stadium, Cardiff (Saturday 18th November 2017), she has played in front of hundreds of people at The Millennium Theatre (21st June 2017), played sold out shows at The Tramshed Cardiff (3rd June 2017) she has also played in front of one man and two dogs + bar staff, Farmers Arms, Nottage Porthcawl 8th October 2015. That’s life.

Spotify Artist Link Rebecca Hurn

So for all independent musicians out there you still all have to go through the various stages of progression, you still have to go through all the hideous rejections and the reward of acclamation and if you are good enough people will 100% know what they want, know what they need and know where and how to get it.

Brilliant, creative genius by all artists in any genre won’t alter how their art is produced but the way we access, store, promote, sell or distribute it does, we have to keep up. 

As for me I’m off to listen to Tiger Feet It has grown on me.

The author Richard Hurn acknowledges the copyright and intellectual property rights of the authors of articles used in this post (which is not for profit) and complies with current 'FairUse' legislation.