Throughout tradition, there may be an eerie sense of issues coming full circle. After spending the previous decade constructing an trade round ad-free streaming TV, Netflix has adverts and feels more and more like cable. Now that Spindrift and Merely have launched spiked seltzer, White Claw is making — you guessed it — regular seltzer. Massive, high-waisted pants are on their method out, low-rise denims are on their method in. In each trade, the cultural pendulum has swung from one excessive to a different and again once more. No marvel we really feel so dizzy.
However this yo-yo-ing is definitely a well-studied — and anticipated — phenomenon. From media to political science, a pendulum analogy is commonly used to explain the tendency for cultural shifts to swing to extremes earlier than ultimately falling again in the direction of a extra logical center floor. Put this manner, streaming video’s present state — a hybrid of streaming and cable — makes a number of sense. So does the state of the web itself, which has developed from decentralisation (Net 1.0) to centralisation (Net 2.0) and is now starting to fragment again.
In music, the intense pendulum swings from the pre-streaming to streaming period are well-documented:
Shortage to on-demand every thing: Vinyl data, CDs, and even mp3 downloads had various levels of shortage. Information and CDs had been produced in finite quantities. Positive, everybody with an web connection might obtain an mp3, however not everybody might afford to construct a library. Now, the on-demand streaming period has obliterated the idea of shortage, possession has been changed by (very low cost) entry, and it’s getting more durable for releases to stay out amid the estimated 120,000 tracks launched each day.
IRL to digital: Music was one thing we skilled collectively, whether or not that meant going to a live performance or huddling round a buddy’s boombox to take heed to a brand new CD. Not solely that, however music possession itself was bodily. Gen Z is the primary era to develop up with none semblance of what it means to personal bodily music (or personal it in any respect). In the meantime, the music trade has latched onto one digital hype cycle after one other, from NFTs to the metaverse.
Fan-focused to audience-focused: Whereas the pre-streaming period divided consumption between radio (for informal listeners) and retail (for followers), the streaming period buckets each listener into the identical expertise on the similar worth. Not solely has this left fandom under-monetised, however streaming economics have all however destroyed the power for artists to earn significant revenue and not using a mass viewers, forcing everybody to focus relentlessly on scale.
Artists to songs: The music trade has at all times relied on hit songs. Previously, nevertheless, the hits nonetheless centred round artist “eras” and albums, which got here with album artwork, lyric booklets, and different touchpoints that helped construct an artist’s fandom. By decoupling tracks from albums and orienting the listening expertise round playlists, music streaming inherently focuses on songs over artists, and the social video period has solely deepened this shift.
Human curation to algorithmic curation: As just lately because the late 2010s, human-curated playlists nonetheless served a tastemaking function. However within the 2020s, all platforms — and in flip, consumption — are on the mercy of the almighty algorithms.
A decade into these swings, nevertheless, we’re seeing the pendulum start its journey again in the direction of a extra logical center floor. Having grown up with out bodily music possession, it’s no marvel that Gen Z at the moment are in search of out what they’re lacking — spurring an surprising vinyl growth. Dwell, the one scarce music expertise left, is greater than ever. NFTs could have fizzled, however their core lesson of bringing shortage to the digital area has led to a rising curiosity in new platforms and options that gate early or exclusive access to music. Labels and artists alike are shifting their priorities in the direction of cultivating and monetising fandom.
The takeaway is to not hedge your bets on vinyl, IRL experiences, or — as a lot as labels want to — superfans. When the pendulum swings to extremes, there may be at all times one thing misplaced. Actually, the music trade is at present at risk of over-emphasizing superfans, a bunch that — whereas long-neglected — is only one a part of the a lot bigger image. Nearly all of listeners will at all times be informal, and they’re essential to the trade, as are a wider spectrum of sorts of followers than the phrase “superfan” can encapsulate.
Spotify has allowed many extra bands who by no means would have gotten previous the native bar circuit pre-streaming to seek out their audiences, however that doesn’t imply it can not coexist with new methods to scarce-ify music, as UK band SAULT’s experiments attest. We will break the cycle of yo-yo-ing between extremes by recognising that once we discover ourselves lacking one thing about “the best way it was”, no matter meaning, it’s not a motive to dash to the wrong way. It does imply that we have now gone too far a method, however not that we must always go all the best way again. Maybe probably the most groundbreaking, disruptive factor a music firm can do is to discover a path proper down the center.