What's the future of the music industry?

Heh. Almost forgot about them.

As I remember back then there wasn't really an AOR classic format, but more of a mixture of 60s/70s rock with current AOR stuff. Classic rock stations in the late 80s played 50s and 60s rock & roll and 70s AM Gold. I see that WRKI had a New Wave and Modern Rock format in 1982, so I figure they played a mix of new and old.

As I remember back then there wasn't really an AOR classic format, but more of a mixture of 60s/70s rock with current AOR stuff. Classic rock stations in the late 80s played 50s and 60s rock & roll and 70s AM Gold.

Wait, we had a station like this latter thing in the late 80s but I'm p sure they called themselves oldies and I thought of them that way. The station I thought of as classic rock was more like the former. (They were actually far more adventurous than they are now, also playing new REM and Midnight Oil songs, having jazz and blues programs, and playing some weird stuff like Focus or Babe Ruth on psychedelic Sundays.)

This blog post says radio royalties are actually worse for songwriters than streaming royalties (but I can't verify the analysis)

IIRC this was always the case but the sheer volume of radio play (for the lucky few who got on radio) made up for it.

I am having more trouble imagining that everyone who is now listening to Zep and Nirvana will be enthusiastic about 5FDP joining the mix.

Equally troubling to imagine long time Nirvana/Soundgarden fans getting pumped for Glass Animals or Milky Chance.

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/its-official-new-music-is-shrinking-in-popularity-in-the-united-states/

We shouldn’t, however, jump to any obvious conclusions about golden oldie ‘catalog’ music gobbling up the listenership of today’s teenagers (Yes, even if Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill is still the No.1 global song on Spotify right now, nearly two months after it premiered in that episode of Stranger Things.)

According to Luminate’s H1 2022 report, over a third of all ‘Catalog’ streams that took place in the US in the first half of this year were actually plays of music released between 2017 and 2019 (see below).

(‘Catalog’, remember, simply means music that was released 18 months or more before someone played/purchased it.)

Music originally released in 2019 alone took a 14% share of all ‘Catalog’ streams in H1 2022; music originally released in 2018 took an 11% share.

And music originally released in either of these years was more popular on US streaming services in the first half of 2022 than all music released in the 1990s combined.

Same goes for all music released in the 1980s, and all music released in the 1970s.

wow that is wild

was looking at some numbers since this (tiktok phenomenon?) Alec Benjamin was playing a small but crowded venue nearby recently (criminally, just criminally bad music) and so I looked him up on spotify and wtf guy has a BILLION streams on one of his songs, 15 million monthly listeners (compare with Bob Dylan, 8 million, or Miles Davis, 2 million)

weird times

Probably got carried away creating a botnet to auto play his tunes on Spotify

it's maybe not that weird if you see spotify as a halfway house between radio and itunes. people will just hit play on a playlist, or let the auoplay keep going after they've listened to the one song they came for. those "passive" listens will massively boost some songs. (glenn can tell me i'm wrong here, but i think i'm right)

also, young people like listening to songs over and over and over and they also just like listening to music period, seeking it out, playing it for themselves and their friends. adults aren't as voracious. bob dylan was part of the zeitgeist 60 years ago. add up all his radio plays and the number of times people "listened" to his albums and singles since then and we'd have something to compare.

"Hit" radio has been like this for awhile--it's no longer just the current top 40, but a mix of hits from the past decade or so (with even older stuff thrown often thrown in).

also, young people like listening to songs over and over and over and they also just like listening to music period, seeking it out, playing it for themselves and their friends.

lol yes there's an implicit (and ilx0rs) there obv

Yeah, can't discount the algorithm. I think intentional plays are a tiny minority, once a song hits escape velocity and starts getting on tons of playlists (Spotify-curated, algorithmic, etc) the numbers just go. I think it's increasingly common for a song to have millions of plays, yet for most listeners to have no idea who it's by. Just that one song that comes up once in awhile (so more like radio I guess).

"Hit" radio has been like this for awhile--it's no longer just the current top 40, but a mix of hits from the past decade or so (with even older stuff thrown often thrown in).

― F'kin Magnetometers, how do they work? (President Keyes), Wednesday, July 20, 2022 7:03 AM

recently had to venture into an office where they just had the old school method of having a boombox in the corner on low and it was one of these stations: "today's hits with yesterday's favorites" kinda thing. while i was waiting, they played some current pop song that i didn't know and then "don't dream it's over." it made me a lot more receptive to what else they might play. i'm obviously all for this.

that would be an adult contemporary station -- they've been like that for a long time now. that even regular top 40 stations are very clearly veering in that direction is the thing that's new, tho they won't go as far back as "don't dream it's over" ("running up that hill" excepted, lol), they tend to go back to 00s at the earliest, but mostly the late-00s/early-10s period that was basically the last time that top 40 was doing rly well

This is why the 30-year-olds I hang with all love Sublime and RHCP, I gather

yeah alternative stations have been upping the 90s-heyday-to-current-hits ratio for years also

is this the thread for the fracas around that bandcamp piece about the band dummy on tour? some real bad takes all over the place

https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/dummy-tour-diary-part-one

the spicy stuff is in part 2

This is really long... what's the upshot?

That indie rock is full of posers and careerist hacks, both musicians and journalists.

He is talking about the band’s motto of sorts, which appears in their Bandcamp bio and is, much like this story, kind of a joke, but not really.

Mysteries within mysteries: no-one can figure out what's being said about a Bandcamp article about a Stereogum article about responses to someone's tweet.

All this about a Portishead record?

I read Part 1 over lunch... it just kind of felt like a lightweight tour diary / promotional piece for this band (which didn't get me interested in hearing them). Maybe I'll tackle Part 2 (and the "spicy stuff") later.

I skimmed it--seemed like some shit talking about Wet Leg and industry plant indie acts

I like how this band is all serious about not posting pics of themselves on Insta, keeping it "all about the music," etc. - and yet they participated in this puff piece (is that part of what ppl are making fun of?)

Curious if the author is related to Mary Timony? I kinda liked it, it reminded me of tour diaries and blogging from a more innocent time of the internet.

It’s not a puff piece though…

I mean there are many paragraphs about how great she thinks the band is, and why

(she says upfront she's a fan, so it fits - but it's clearly not in the trad rock-mag band profile, either)

(*I missed "style of the," or something)

they're a good band tbh

I don’t think the piece is excessively complimentary which is what a puff piece is, of course she likes the band also who cares if she likes the band

Honestly if you think that’s a puff piece I can’t help you

It is totally a trad rock band profile

I'm not gonna argue about it (cuz who cares), but trad rock band profiles do not have sections like this (about another band they encounter):

“Maybe they’re just excited,” I think, feeling uncharacteristically generous towards a group I’ve always found to be the band equivalent of every dweeb who ever tried to talk to me about this really obscure label called Flying Nun Records. Yet as I start scrolling through their posts, my annoyance level starts to rise.

To me, the band’s DIY-as-promotional-shtick brims with unearned condescension toward the underground music community whose hard work and willingness to take risks has made it possible for them to have a show tonight in the first place. It’s doubly insulting coming from a group on their first full U.S. tour ever and already playing big rooms as the support act for a much larger band, as if the “DIY show” is a cute novelty that’s useful only when the “real show” falls through.

Dummy sounds like if Stereolab had more drone, less hooks, and less fun. Tbh I think ILX people would be into it.

xpost that band deserves to be taken down though

Seriously dumb shit

Also I’m sure there are plenty of Lester bangs articles with stuff like that

Don’t even like dummy that much and that’s one of the most refreshing articles I’ve read in a long time

I’m sure there are plenty of Lester bangs articles with stuff like that

Exactly. And it was well done. The whole piece is good, both parts, even though it didn't make me want to listen to Dummy at all (or hang out with the writer, for that matter).

Ftr - Lester Bangs didn't write trad rock profiles!

He fucking toured with the clash and wrote about it just like this writer did with dummy

My point is that his style is not what I meant by trad, if this writer is emulating him that's cool, but Bangs probably would've named that other band (i.e., done an actual takedown) and not just used them as an unnamed counterexample of a less cool band

(and for something so minor, I mean yeah their social posts sound annoying, but this is small-bore inside scene stuff)

(and for something so minor, I mean yeah their social posts sound annoying, but this is small-bore inside scene stuff)

I hate to break it to you, but there are no "big" bands anymore except for Metallica and Coldplay and maybe U2.

The bands are big. It's the pictures that got small!

morrisp in "not getting it" shocka

good piece overall, also the Powers/Rolin duo rule

Do I normally "not get it"(?) Guess I'll have to work on that...

Btw, I skipped ahead to the Wet Leg takedown – very trenchant!

(I guess the author was not afraid to name names there, for whatever reason)

i remember a time when the mere mention of the name "wet leg" made all who might raise their ire quiver in fear. truly, what degradation has befallen music?