Streaming Is Killing The Music Industry

[renegadefm]

I think it's fair to say we definetly have had the best years behind us in terms of how we buy and listen to music. In my opinion the music industry has never looked so bad. As a fan I used to get great pleasure from buying the physical product, and lots of artists, and I used to buy all the formats of their singles, even the cassette singles, remember them?

Streaming has taken all that away from us, but more importantly from the artist too.

Sadly it won't change back as it was, but I do think stricter rules need to be applied, as artists really are being short changed. I think streaming should be only used to check out new or unheard music to see if you like it enough to buy the physical album, it just seems a fairer way of doing things. I have a Spotify account but I only use it to check out music I have never heard before, and it helps me build my physical media collection. And used sensibly and fairly it helps you purchase and build a quality collection, rather than taking a punt on an album, only to find it's filled with duffers, which is a waste of money. I never agreed with the Official chart company when they included streaming into how it influences chart positions. There are many reasons I am against it, for example, I forget the amount, but apparently a song has to be listened to on streaming platforms hundreds of times to count as one sale. That alone is short changing the artist and is extremely unfair. Plus if you monitor the top 100 singles some of the singles on there have been in the top 100 for years, which makes the charts stagnant, and not refreshing as it did before streaming was allowed to count as chart positions. So that in itself slows the whole industry down, because it prevents new material coming along. In the days when the physical format counted towards chart positions the charts were a much healthier place because a music fan would hear a song on the radio or TV and go out and buy it, because they are putting their money where their mouth is, and dedicating themselves to being a fan, and it meant a lot to have a hit in those days for the artist, as it highlighted how popular the song really is, compared to being number 1 now doesn't really mean anything anymore. The sad thing is it's now affecting the album charts too which has become very stagnant, some albums have been in the top 20 for years let alone the top 100. It makes you wonder how anyone would want to be a pop or rock star anymore, we really have had the best years, not just for the artist but the fans too. It's boring trying to be a fan these days. Growing up as a kid in the 70's early 80's was amazing, I used to wait all week for Top of the pops to come on, and if your favourite artist were on there it was awesome, and I would be chatting all about it with my mates at school the next day. I know things will never be that great again, but I do feel something needs to be done to make the whole music industry fair again, it's really no fun being a fan anymore, and extremely unfair for the artists. I think if streaming services were regulated in such a way they are only used as a toe dip in the water, for the listener to go on and buy the CD or whatever it would be a lot fairer for both fan and artist. There is no reason I can see why the two platforms streaming and physical media cou.ldn't work together, and I am baffled why more artists are not calling for this.

[FleshpotsOfDevon]

Shakin' Stevens was the UK's biggest selling singles artist of the entire 1980s. Irrelevant, but it's my favourite music fact. :) 
 

I think the problem with music today is that there's so damn much of it available due to streaming. Back in the day when the charts mattered it was all tidily contained and you knew what was popular and what wasn't. And I've always maintained that even though I too  recorded songs off the Top 40 (Bruno Brookes, where are you now?) it didn't stop 80s artists like Madonna becoming obscenely wealthy.
 

Yes streaming isn't lucrative for many but ask any artist and they'll tell you the real moolah comes from touring. 

[andy-hughes]

Fleshpots - I worked with Bruno in local radio, that's how I got into music journalism. 

He runs a radio training school for shop chains, and has a property business. 

The blessing, and curse for the business, like the rest of the world, is the Internet. 

It makes music far more available, which naturally dilutes it.

But quality is, and always was, available if you search.

You need to search more, but there is more to find.

[Canary42]

///You need to search more, but there is more to find.///

That sums up the WWW nicely. There is lots of useful and interesting material in cyberspace, but unfortunately there is a considerably larger amount of absolute BS which you have to navigate round.

[renegadefm]

FleshpotsOfDevon, 

I would say though in the past 70's and 80's the charts had more variety of artists in there.

In the top 40 there would be Motorhead, next to ABBA, or country stars like Glen Campbell next to Adam Ant, or Status Quo next to Culture Club, there really was so much different colours and styles of music. 

Now the whole charts sounds like it's all done by the same artist more or less. 

A music fan today has a music library in their hands, but that doesn't explain why the charts are so stagnant and stale. 

It beggers belief why so many people can keep some songs inside the top 100 for years on end!

Something doesn't add up, are they not discovering new or different music. 

[andy-hughes]

Renegade - Sadly, the evolution of pop has been at the expense of identity and individuality.

You could align fans to their music of choice by their appearance.

That 'tribalism' which began in the fifties, has gone.

Pop fans have no clear identity because pop music has no clear identity. 

Ironically, We are in the pre-Beatles days when writers wrote for pop stars who sang them with no personalty or identity required or allowed. 

Pop is for mass consumption, but it's bedrock of invention and development is gone.

[naomi24]

I think singers in the pre-Beatles days had distinct identities.  No one ever confused Elvis Presley for Bill Haley or Jerry Lee Lewis for Frankie Laine.

[ichkeria]

"The charts" are irrelevant 

[Canary42]

/// No one ever confused Elvis Presley for Bill Haley or Jerry Lee Lewis for Frankie Laine.///

Oooh, I love it. You're quite right of course. For more examples, who could confuse Connie Francis with Tennessee Ernie Ford, or Susan Maughan with Frankie Vaughan 😀  😀  😀  

[andy-hughes]

Naomi - My point is that the individuality of artists in the sixties was less defined than in the eighties.

The difference between Adam Faith and Mike Sarne was a lot less defined than the difference between Adam Ant and Francis Rossi 

But the thrust of my point is that any level of real difference in identity, in sound especially, in modern pop artists, is increasingly hard to detect.

[naomi24]

Andy Hughes, I don't think they were visually more difficult to distinguish at all - quite the opposite - but their performances were certainly more unique and individual  than current performers.  In most cases, musically I struggle to separate one from another now.

[jno]

Canary, please don't ask me to distinguish between Bobby Rydell, Bobby Darin, Bobby Vee and Bobby Vinton...

Bobby Dylan I could pick out.

[barry1010]

Back in the 50s and 60s it was common to have the same song in the top 10 two or three times, each sung by different singers and usually in a very similar way.

[andy-hughes]

Naomi  - the individual identities of pop stars only began with Elvis Presley. Before that, in the UK, pop stars were crooners in suits with gelled hair and smiles.

[naomi24]

I find very few songs memorable now.  Most of them seem to have melded into the indistinguishable.  

[naomi24]

Andy Hughes, this conversation isn't about the uk.  Singers wear suits even now as did Bill Haley and Buddy Holly - neither of them crooners but each unique in their own way.

[andy-hughes]

Naomi  - Exactly my point.

Individuality in pop has largely died out.

Listening to commercial radio, it is populated by a succession of utterly anonymous and indistinguishable voices grafted on to computer-created tunes compressed to death to eliminate any colour and texture. 

That makes them simultaneously anodyne and boring fir any fan of Vintage pop, but completely suited to the medium used to convey it to its target audience, which is teenagers on phones, who have nothing like the passion for, and devotion to music thar previous generations enjoyed.

Pop was the soundtrack to our lives, it's the incidental background noise to theirs.

[andy-hughes]

Naomi at 17.16 - Since the OP refers to the Official Charts, it clearly is about the UK.

 

[naomi24]

I wasn't aware that the official charts are restricted to music from the UK.  You sure about that?

[andy-hughes]

I gather from the gist of Renegade's OP that he is a UK resident, and the 'Official Chart' to which he refers is the one used to supply Radio One and Top Of The Pops.

If you have evidence from the OP to suggest otherwise, I'll be interested to read it.

[naomi24]

Doesn't that include music from outside the UK?  I always thought it did.