What's the future of the music industry?

anyway this article is bad and gioia should feel bad for writing it

Radio stations are contributing to the stagnation, putting fewer new songs into their rotation, or—judging by the offerings on my satellite radio lineup—completely ignoring new music in favor of old hits.

my stars! why isn’t “50s on 5” playing the latest cardi b???

does it spell doom for new music if people are still listening to something like "blinding lights," which came out in november 2019?
― roflrofl fight (voodoo chili), Wednesday, January 19, 2022 11:11 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yes, this song is atrocious

Otherwise I don't think it's news that people listen to classics and it's actually cool to know the numbers. I was on the Rumours page yesterday on Spotify and the three main songs have between 600 and 900M listens, which I normally associate with pop and reggaeton. That those numbers are growing may just be a sign that Spotify is getting more and more democratic with our venerable parents.

i think it's just as likely that very little about ppl's listening habits has changed, and instead what has changed is that we went from knowing when someone purchased an album once to having the knowledge of what everyone on earth is listening to all the time

This was a thought I had yesterday but wasn't sure how to put it.
Physical sales figures are likely to have a bias towards newer releases since people only need to buy the White Album one time. If we looked at what people listened to on the radio in 1992, I've no trouble imagining you'd see a load of classic artists.

a lot of my listening is new-to-me old music

I mean, there would have been nothing shocking about a young cashier singing along to "Light My Fire", say. (Admittedly, a song from 1949 would be less likely.)xp

in other news, i've heard that orchestras primarily play music that is older than 18 months. news at 11.

My son heard Bowie's "Starman" in the trailer for the Buzz Lightyear movie and has been playing it over and over on Spotify. Those plays get counted. If, instead, he were listening to it on my 20 some year old Ziggy Stardust CD they wouldn't be.

I feel like Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" has made inroads among The Kids; I hear the asshole teenagers who live downstairs listening to it a lot the last couple of weeks. Is it used in a notable TikTok video or something?

it’s in an episode of rick & morty

the churn of hits at radio absolutely is slowing down, and had been substantially even before the pandemic set in

yeah, i've been noticing this as well

probably a result of streaming though, right? soundscan revealed that hits had longer shelf lives than people realized, streaming made clear that soundscan was still selling short how often people keep listening to big hits

It makes sense that if pop charts were based on reported sales + airplay in the old days, neither metric was accounting for continued listening from those who actually bought the record. And in both cases if the metric was being estimated by record store owners and music directors, sudden changes would probably be more noticeable and be exaggerated.

There was always that glimpse of continued listening in the charts when they'd rerelease some monster hit of the past, like Yesterday, and it would find its way back onto the charts.

It was always very apparent with live shows, where lots of artists who haven't had a hit in years still pull in the punters.

probably a result of streaming though, right? soundscan revealed that hits had longer shelf lives than people realized, streaming made clear that soundscan was still selling short how often people keep listening to big hits

this is only part of the story imo. overall, the churn of current hits in the streaming ecosystem is and has been substantially faster than at radio during the years that they've coexisted. it's absolutely true that sustained streaming strength is requisite for a hit song to persist into the "blinding lights" tier of seemingly permanent omnipresence. consequently it's been common for casual chartwatchers to marvel at the extreme, absurd levels of longevity attained by such hits and say things like "wow, streaming really did ruin the charts." but if you actually look at the underlying numbers, the fact is that virtually always it is overwhelmingly airplay, not streaming, that is keeping these songs this high for this long. program directors are choosing to keep these songs around, and the reason they stick around so long is because they are also choosing to barely acknowledge, at best, the majority of current streaming hit titles.

top 40 radio, supposedly the center of what's new and fresh in american contemporary culture, lost track of the pulse in the middle of the last decade at the same time that they lost their grip on what had traditionally been the younger end of their audience. these listeners used to be key to breaking "edgier" and more novel-sounding hits before they would ultimately gain mass acceptance among the more passive, adult end of the top 40 listenership. it is these listeners that have been ceded to the streaming ecosystem, and top 40 is consequently left to play to an audience that is barely interested in the music it's supposed to be playing. stations that play the few songs that these listeners are familiar with 120 times a week tend to see more favorable ratings outcomes compared to what's achieved by the more adventurous ones. songs by established superstar artists can break in quick order, but everyone else needs to slowly climb playlists at smaller-market stations for 4-8 months before the machine decides whether it's ultimately going to work in power rotation nationwide.

there is a very narrow bridge indeed between this stagnant set of evergreens and the comparatively bustling and dynamic world of the streaming charts other than the social media apps, which have been helpful to the labels but also not as predictable and controllable as they'd like. songs blow up on there seemingly without explanation or effort, and plenty of songs with considerable, sometimes obvious, effort behind them go nowhere. songs that had already been pushed at radio for months, then retired, unexpectedly start blowing up again on the socials and then get revived to new heights at radio -- "levitating" was the first, and now the same is happening for that putrid "heat waves" song, and i strongly doubt it'll be the last one. new artists with aspirations for mass acceptance now routinely spend an entire year promoting their first breakthrough hit, even if it broke first on streaming.

when i speak of 'more favorable' ratings for the more limited top 40 stations, i do mean that in a relative sense, as in an absolute sense top 40 has been in continual decline for the past 10 years, with apparently no end in sight. this is not the first time that interest in 'top 40' has declined dramatically, but in the past this would be accompanied by gains at other currents-based formats, as in the '90s. today, top 40 is cratering, and all other currents-based music formats are either steady or also declining, just not as badly. there are actually tons of recent blog posts by media and market research professionals bemoaning the current state of current hits... but really the opening and closing sentences of the one i linked above pretty much say it all:

If one were to put the ‘bundle’ of radio formats that depend on new, hit music together, in the fashion of a mutual fund, it would have performed disastrously over the last decade. It is not an exaggeration to say that ‘contemporary music’ is in a crisis at American radio, and if this trend cannot be reversed, or at least halted, there may be vast implications.

...

American music radio is rapidly becoming a Kingdom of Gold, where one mostly hears the hits of yesteryear, the songs that radio made into hits back when radio made the hits.

tl;dr: top 40 saw too many black/trap artists on the streaming charts in the mid '10s and decided that oh that can't be right, then lost all their younger listeners and are now left trying, and failing, to hold the attention of people who are slow to warm to current music and barely like much of it anyway. american musical pop culture has essentially bifurcated, and the narrow sliver of the overall universe of hits that really works in both spheres as they exist today can persist seemingly forever. the sort of oppressive longevity that "blinding lights" attained recently, to much fanfare from billboard, will be replicated many times in the coming years, and oops don't look now but laroi/bieber "stay" may be on track to be the next one

always appreciate yr insights, great post

my only question is "when will the classic rock format die" cuz it can't come too soon for me

top 40 is consequently left to play to an audience that is barely interested in the music it's supposed to be playing

this was always the case though, yes? I mean at least for the last 30 years or so?

Yeah I agree - top 40 radio would've lost all their younger listeners whatever they did. Even if they played exactly what the kids want they're not listening. From what I can see it's all streaming - either the hits are made by blunt force marketing/payola (labels pay Spotify, Spotify pushes the song to passive listeners through "algorithmic suggestions", voila: high streaming numbers, which feeds into even more algorithmic streams), or hits emerge through viral social media driven trends (tiktok memes, gaming parody covers, curated playlists by influencers, instagram models with music careers on the side, etc). Either way, radio has no power over younger listeners.

good points dyl

now imagine if the gioia article that inspired this revive bothered to reckon with this for more than half a second

tl;dr: top 40 saw too many black/trap artists on the streaming charts in the mid '10s and decided that oh that can't be right, then lost all their younger listeners

The blog post you linked to also shows listening down at rhythmic contemporary (as well as way down at active rock etc.). What’s their excuse?

joint pain

(to put it another way – listeners who want to hear hip-hop etc. have always had other formats & sources than CHR, I don’t get why the availability of streaming would cause an existential crisis for the format?)

my only question is "when will the classic rock format die" cuz it can't come too soon for me

Classic Rock is basically the new Oldies format, and presumably isn't going anywhere soon, instead just adapting in a way that's dropping '60s stuff off playlists in favor of Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots etc.

at least on my local classic rock station that's been around since the 70s when it was an old school stoner dr. johnny fever type place, the 60s stuff is barely there anymore, there are some exceptions, like Hendrix, a few others but not many...Beatles don't get played at all (except "Come Together" which I think is because it scans more 70s to than 60s, but for example MUCH more likely to hear "Jane" by Jefferson Airplane than "White Rabbit" now

now it's more mid/late-70s to mid-80s as the center of gravity, as opposed to late 60s/early 70s, lot of the 80s stuff like Ozzy, GnR, Def Leppard are now part of the canon. And, as Grisso said, starting to hear stuff like Pearl Jam a lot now

dyl's link seems to show big increase for Classic Rock in past decade

in a way i suppose at least for classic rock/oldies radio, there's always a path forward, there's always always new stuff that becomes old stuff

The blog post you linked to also shows listening down at rhythmic contemporary (as well as way down at active rock etc.). What’s their excuse?

(to put it another way – listeners who want to hear hip-hop etc. have always had other formats & sources than CHR, I don’t get why the availability of streaming would cause an existential crisis for the format?)

― Rockin’, and rollin’, and whatnot (morrisp), Monday, January 24, 2022 8:08 AM

this is an interesting question and i don't know that i have a good response to it. the rhythmic contemporary format has long pointed in the direction that pop music is headed in musically, as its programming tends to split the difference between the black and white mainstreams. this tends to be true even when the format itself is marginal the way it is now -- unlike in the '90s, when it was a huge success and was far more impactful in many markets than 'mainstream' chr.

today the rhythmic format, despite being programmed by few outlets, is ironically considered to be in a good place musically for the past several years, with a healthy turnover of many hits that work well for its audience (unsurprising, as it is well positioned to react to streaming stories). my city lost its rhythmic station in 2016, which was at the time splitting the difference between late-stage edm hits and mustard-wave r&b (w/ a corny 'party hits' branding). the rhythmic contemporary charts these days skew much closer to what's being played at hip-hop stations, and center-lane 'pop' product doesn't seem to make its way over as much.

i only hear these stations when i'm on vacation in much larger cities, often those with large latinx populations (some stations in the format do play quite a bit of urbano and other latin pop), so i suspect that these are the only markets where the format is thought to work nowadays. instead, in markets like mine you'll have your hip-hop stations and your pop stations (often owned by the same firm), but nothing on the air occupying the middle ground. i guess this reflects the extremely consolidated nature of the airwaves nowadays, + the sentiment that we've seen mentioned in other threads from some in the industry who feel that black music not crossing over is beneficial to black music (years later i would say it's evidently not helping black music radio very much!!)

classic rock unfortunately will never go away until all its listeners do

american radio is dead and the american industry is losing its ability to actually bring new hits to mass acceptance. at least this probably means its stranglehold over the industry in other regions of the world will loosen substantially + these places will be able to better develop and promote their own talent

the other part of the equation i haven't mentioned yet is the technological aspect, i.e. that younger folks have been quicker to adopt novel products that make listening to music through streaming as convenient as tuning into radio if not more

maybe this is a dumb question but do classic rock tracks qualify for airplay ratings, and how do they compare with pop songs? i.e. as a whole, across the country, are core Top 40 songs played more than core classic rock songs?

per track? probably top 40, since there are only 40 of them

Generous of you to imply that classic rock stations play more than 40 different songs

they play 40 different Eagles songs

Yeah idg that one. For their many faults, it seems fairly obvious that they have a wider repertoire than a top 40 station would at any given moment.

here's my local's recently played

https://www.92kqrs.com/recently-played/

you can see how it's evolving as i said to be more late 70s/early 80s focused - The Police who used to be new wave, and also hair metal in Poison and alt rock in Soul Asylum

Agree 100% about the shift, although I've been hearing the Police (and Cars and Cheap Trick) on classic rock radio my whole life.

xp - makes sense, it might "seem" like classic rock plays the same 50 songs over and over again but in reality it's an order of magnitude greater than the new pop stations.

Agree 100% about the shift, although I've been hearing the Police (and Cars and Cheap Trick) on classic rock radio my whole life.

― The sensual shock (Sund4r), Tuesday, January 25, 2022 11:04 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

see it's weird because i agree on Cars - Cheap Trick is pretty classic rock canon imo, some crossover w/new wave but not new wave - but the Police for some reason is new at least here

I wonder how far it will creep forward? Like I can see the White Stripes and Coldplay and the Killers and Kings of Leon ending up on Classic Rock playlists, but does it just end at some point?

I mean I guess Greta Van Fleet would be an appropriate end point

Does KQRS still use the term "classic rock" btw? I have noticed that our CHEZ106 seems to have largely dropped the term in favour of "world class rock", I imagine because it's harder to apply it to Warrant and Stone Temple Pilots.

Stuff like Muse, Coheed & Cambria, Paramore etc will end up as Classic Rock for sure.

xpost - yep they are still "Minnesota's Classic Rock Station"

Stuff like Muse, Coheed & Cambria, Paramore etc will end up as Classic Rock for sure.

The base criterion generally seems to be that the artist was played on album-oriented rock/hard rock/mainstream rock/active rock radio at the time. (So ime e.g. they play Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains but not Smashing Pumpkins or Radiohead, who are still played on 'alternative'/'modern rock' stations.) I'm not sure that applies to any of those three. And, as discussed here, that format seems to be heavily in decline, so it seems a little hard to say what will last: ITT We Figure Out the Mainstream Rock Format . Seems like it will be harder to make a case that Shinedown and Five Finger Death Punch are classics in the same way as Aerosmith or Nirvana.

They are to people who didn't grow up with Aerosmith and Nirvana...

The classic rock rule is usually that the song had to have charted in the top 40, which is why they rarely play even the non-charting singles of classic rock artists. Most of these modern rock bands don't even make the Hot 100.

But as been mentioned in this thread, the top 40 aren't really a very good guideline anymore in the monoculture streaming age.

(isn't)