From old-school radio play and physical distribution, to blue-light screens scattered all over artists’ stages; the music industry has very much changed over these past few decades. The internet is a substantial contribution to this, making the music industry go through many decades and eras of constant change. What has the internet specifically done to the music industry, and how did it happen?
Changes in music promotion have been an immense effect of the internet on the music industry. Different apps are being used to promote music, merch and concert tickets. For example, with its 15-30 second videos, TikTok is an app that has contributed to recent changes in the music industry as a whole. It started off as a smaller app called Musical.ly, yet turned into this huge app that changed millions of people’s daily routine and provided change to many industries. TikTok has changed the music industry in many different ways, like music promotion. Record labels are starting to push their artists to promote their music on TikTok. Artists have been blowing up from the app like Lil Nas X, Doja Cat and PinkPantheress.
“I believe TikTok has been a net positive for music promotion. I understand a lot of it is gimmicky or silly, but it gives artists a platform to reach a wide audience without having to tour or be promoted by a record company,” History and Social Studies Teacher Taber Watson said.
Another effect of the internet on the music industry are streaming services. For instance, Spotify is a huge app that many have been using over this decade. Spotify claims over 30.5% of music streaming services. Most have recently preferred Spotify over other streaming services. The second most popular streaming service is Apple Music, claiming 13.7%.
“I like using Spotify, it’s my main music app. I like it because of the yearly Spotify Wrapped,” Sereen Guirguis (10) said.
Spotify is an app that has largely contributed to this new era of streaming services. One is able to play any kind of song in just a few taps on their phone. Meanwhile, if one wanted to play any song a few decades ago, they would have to buy vinyl records, CDs, or cassettes.
Though streaming is easier than ever, artists are not relying on Spotify and other streaming services to pay their bills; they rely on other income like merch and concerts. Streaming services have been underpaying artists, another effect of the internet on the music industry. Not to say that record labels haven’t been underpaying artists in past decades, but if the maximum artists can earn in Spotify royalties is $0.005 a stream, streaming can never add up to a living wage for most artists.
ng services are for-profit organizations that take advantage of the fact that smaller bands need them to get their music out but do not have the public clout to effect change within companies like Spotify or Apple Music. Not to give Taylor Swift too much credit, but her strike against Spotify did get some small changes out of the company. The only issue is you need more artists they can’t live without to make the same kind of noise,” Watson said.
The music industry has changed a lot over the years, with the internet being one of the biggest contributors to this.
“Apart from access to recorded music, the internet has changed the way artists can build brand and their fan base through social media. The next major way that the internet will change the music industry is through artificial intelligence. Right now AI can write decent-sounding songs, but they still have the “fingerprint” of AI quality. Like everything in the AI world, the quality has increased at an incredible rate over the last few years. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming years, when millions of hit songs are released every day by AI,” Music Teacher Jacob Walker said.
