The way we consume music has changed drastically in such a short period of time, looking to the present and future where is it leading us? And what does it mean for rising independent music artists? The majority of us no longer buy CDs or tapes or even listen to LP records where physical sales would determine how much an artist was heard. To add there was a certain beauty in the outdated ways of consuming music, a memorability tied to a specific album or artist, I wonder if that been lost today?
Presently, the most common way we consume music is through streaming, which has given us a wider selection music, thus making it easier to find new artists or has it? With the volume of music being uploaded by the second consumers are overwhelmed with the vast choice of songs, and this isn’t necessarily a good thing. Streaming sites like Spotify and Apple rely on monitoring our habits and use them to personalise our listening experience to then feed it back to us. This can often emphahsise the artists we hear too often and narrow the gap of hearing new artists that may take us out of our comfort zone. It is easy to get lost down the streaming river and on top of that song streams yield a much lower profit for artists than physical sales. What then is the recipe to stand out in this age of oversaturation?
Well, in this cutthroat climate consistency is key. It seems like to standout on platforms such as Spotify the artist must frequently release music to stay in the loop of discovery. We are in a throwaway society that forgets quickly and always looks to the next best sound almost in an instant, therefore the artist needs to stay relevant and stay producing thanks to our good friend Capitalism. But creatives, namely independent artists don’t have a habit of producing an amazing body of work according to external timelines but instead follow their own internal clock when producing. Are streaming services respectful to this does, or is consumer engagement more valuable than the actual music? Anyhow, to always maintain relevancy is is important to have a growing a strong fanbase, fans are like glue, unforgetting and loyal, and they remember melodies and rhythms in the midst of the noise we call oversaturation.
The relationship we have with music has been shaped by streaming but how can we make this partnership more balanced, what does the future of consumusing music look like? More analysis of our psychology, a chip in the brain who knows… Streaming might just be a thing of the past in the future.
Follow Consumusic on socials for more:)