Let me peer into my crystal ball, and predict the next decade in the music world. I’m brave (or foolhardy) enough to tell you what I see—but you may want to sit down first, especially if you earn your living from songs.
I think the future holds two parallel realities. One is the pessimistic one you described in your 12 predictions. Another is a more beautiful one where musicians reimagine their role in society, go beyond the music-as-entertainment paradigm, and reclaim a modern version of the ancient role musicians played. I'm trying to do this, and I'm learning a lot from your book "Music: A Subversive History."
I think both futures will co-exist for a while, but slowly the more beautiful one will win.
We have become accustomed to perfection. I remember a 70's Steve Miller album being reviewed as over produced. Admittedly many bands in the 70's operated without the aid of click tracks and in ear monitors. Not an exact rendition of album tracks but sometimes magic happened. Now the backing band is full of studio musicians. Steely Dan certainly opened a Pandora's box with their production methods.
Have you noticed there is a radio station for each sub genre of music. It's the same in a record shop if you can find one. Can't find an album, ask at the counter you're probably looking in the wrong sub genre. So you're streaming, maybe you are only being presented with music based on your previous listening history.
Unfortunately within the listening population and maybe the the musical fraternity there is little cross pollination between musical styles. There are many examples of cross pollination in the 60s, 70s Classical to pop/rock, Poetry to Folk, Jazz to rock and back again. It all enriched the broad spectrum of music and sometimes inspired people not usually musically inclined to pick up an instrument to make a statement
The current landscape could be described as in breeding
Something I don't see talked about much is the way that dead musicians are much more competitive than they used to be. Once, if you wanted music, you had to make it yourself, and the available tunes were what you had other people sing or play, either just for fun or maybe busking on market day. Later, there was printed music and a few professional musicians, but if you wanted music outside of a concert hall, mostly you had to make it yourself. I've never seen any figures on how many people owned instruments back then, or on choir membership, but when recorded music came out, and especially when radio broadcasting got going, it mostly vanished. Gramophones etc. were and remain cheaper than most instruments and are vastly easier to play, and their song selection is likely better than that kept in memory by all but a few professionals. Radios have a playlist vastly larger even than that. Add in the fact that professional musicians in studios sound better than amateurs, even through static and wax-cylinder pops, and we have a transition from a world where "popular music" refers to what the common people know and play and sing themselves, to one where it refers to music made by pros and distributed by companies, that the common people like listening to. Not all bad - there's a lot more new music under such a system - but it marries commercial interest to artistic production indissolubly.
And recording tech has just gotten better and better since. Tech has made it possible to reproduce, remaster, or simply re-record more music of all kinds than any one person can listen to in a lifetime, to keep that music pristine, and to sell it cheaply and easily to almost anyone. Early on in the last century, new makers of new music had little competition - no longer so. And history tells us that people can get along pretty well with just the tunes they're familiar with. Things may get better for new music, but the masses don't seem to be much interested in making it happen. The era in which popular music and new music are mostly the same thing seems to be ending.
It's all about shifting risks and the evaporation of risk capital due to digital formats. Content now can only be capitalized by creating peer networks (fan bases) that can be monetized in many other ways. The music becomes generic content and is virtually free. This is true of all creative industries that are monetized through digital production and/or distribution.
I fail to see where most of these "predictions," in the aggregate, are new. The signposts were emerging by the early aughts and hard to miss fifteen years ago. Cloud and voice-first ensured fulfillment of those basest sales desires. Necrotic marketing of hologrammed nostalgia is among the more baleful examples, not because of hucksters but for the drooling hordes who clamor for it.
One thing you've omitted is the death of radio, particularly commercial FM, in the first-world arena anyway.
I think (once the pandemic is over of course) that we will see more musicians make their money in live performance as opposed to recording. I see festivals making a big comeback for instance. Artists will also be able to sell product directly to their customers (if they aren't prevented from doing so by their label). I think the return to vinyl is here to stay. I agree with a previous comment that these changes have been forecast for a few years. The streaming concept was so detrimental to artists' ability to earn a living that a sea change in the music business was inevitable.
Re: Africa, this is already happening, it's called Afrobeat. Artists like Wizkid, Davido and Burna Boy are already selling out venues in the US and doing collabs with artists like Drake.
How about micropayments? Cut out the middleman, pay directly to the artist everytime you listen to their music. This is already happening with podcasting 2.0 on Breez and other platforms. Much better model for the creator for multiple reasons. On Spotify you basically get paid once per user that listens to the song, even though they might listen to it every day the entire year. You need a lot of different people to listen to your song to make money. That doesn't make sense. With micropayments the artist is paid a little bit every time someone listens. For sure the amount will be small, but it will add up. If you have 1,000 true fans that listen to you a lot, and maybe each of them pay 1-2 $ per month, thats' 10-20,000$ per month in revenue. For 1000 monthly listeners. On Spotify that will not do much for your income. There are benefits foor the consumer as well. As a consumer you only support the arrtists you like, no part of what you pay goes to Kygo, Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber, as it most probably does now. If you listen to music less than normal for a month, you pay less. You pay only for what you consume. This could be a bright future for musicians if it comes around, and all that is missing is a great platform to do it on. The technology of micropayments exists and is ready to use with the Lightning network on Bitcoin.
I think there is much more money to be made in music today (and in the future) than in the past. I know that I am generalizing here, but people used to buy music (records, tapes, CDs, MP3s) for a very small period during their lives -- during their teens and early 20's. How many albums did the average "grown-up" buy per year? One? None? They listed to whatever they had already or they listened to the radio, meaning they spent $0. Now nobody buys or owns albums. Everyone subscribes to a streaming service. They are paying $120+ per year FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. I agree that distribution will change, new-artist discovery and promotion will change, etc., but there is a TON of $ to be made. Content counts, and $ eventually will flow to the talented content creators.
I think the future holds two parallel realities. One is the pessimistic one you described in your 12 predictions. Another is a more beautiful one where musicians reimagine their role in society, go beyond the music-as-entertainment paradigm, and reclaim a modern version of the ancient role musicians played. I'm trying to do this, and I'm learning a lot from your book "Music: A Subversive History."
I think both futures will co-exist for a while, but slowly the more beautiful one will win.
I love number 6! When will that take effect?
We have become accustomed to perfection. I remember a 70's Steve Miller album being reviewed as over produced. Admittedly many bands in the 70's operated without the aid of click tracks and in ear monitors. Not an exact rendition of album tracks but sometimes magic happened. Now the backing band is full of studio musicians. Steely Dan certainly opened a Pandora's box with their production methods.
Have you noticed there is a radio station for each sub genre of music. It's the same in a record shop if you can find one. Can't find an album, ask at the counter you're probably looking in the wrong sub genre. So you're streaming, maybe you are only being presented with music based on your previous listening history.
Unfortunately within the listening population and maybe the the musical fraternity there is little cross pollination between musical styles. There are many examples of cross pollination in the 60s, 70s Classical to pop/rock, Poetry to Folk, Jazz to rock and back again. It all enriched the broad spectrum of music and sometimes inspired people not usually musically inclined to pick up an instrument to make a statement
The current landscape could be described as in breeding
Something I don't see talked about much is the way that dead musicians are much more competitive than they used to be. Once, if you wanted music, you had to make it yourself, and the available tunes were what you had other people sing or play, either just for fun or maybe busking on market day. Later, there was printed music and a few professional musicians, but if you wanted music outside of a concert hall, mostly you had to make it yourself. I've never seen any figures on how many people owned instruments back then, or on choir membership, but when recorded music came out, and especially when radio broadcasting got going, it mostly vanished. Gramophones etc. were and remain cheaper than most instruments and are vastly easier to play, and their song selection is likely better than that kept in memory by all but a few professionals. Radios have a playlist vastly larger even than that. Add in the fact that professional musicians in studios sound better than amateurs, even through static and wax-cylinder pops, and we have a transition from a world where "popular music" refers to what the common people know and play and sing themselves, to one where it refers to music made by pros and distributed by companies, that the common people like listening to. Not all bad - there's a lot more new music under such a system - but it marries commercial interest to artistic production indissolubly.
And recording tech has just gotten better and better since. Tech has made it possible to reproduce, remaster, or simply re-record more music of all kinds than any one person can listen to in a lifetime, to keep that music pristine, and to sell it cheaply and easily to almost anyone. Early on in the last century, new makers of new music had little competition - no longer so. And history tells us that people can get along pretty well with just the tunes they're familiar with. Things may get better for new music, but the masses don't seem to be much interested in making it happen. The era in which popular music and new music are mostly the same thing seems to be ending.
It's all about shifting risks and the evaporation of risk capital due to digital formats. Content now can only be capitalized by creating peer networks (fan bases) that can be monetized in many other ways. The music becomes generic content and is virtually free. This is true of all creative industries that are monetized through digital production and/or distribution.
We need a technological revolution: www.tukaglobal.com
These are, sadly, all very safe predictions.
I fail to see where most of these "predictions," in the aggregate, are new. The signposts were emerging by the early aughts and hard to miss fifteen years ago. Cloud and voice-first ensured fulfillment of those basest sales desires. Necrotic marketing of hologrammed nostalgia is among the more baleful examples, not because of hucksters but for the drooling hordes who clamor for it.
One thing you've omitted is the death of radio, particularly commercial FM, in the first-world arena anyway.
I think (once the pandemic is over of course) that we will see more musicians make their money in live performance as opposed to recording. I see festivals making a big comeback for instance. Artists will also be able to sell product directly to their customers (if they aren't prevented from doing so by their label). I think the return to vinyl is here to stay. I agree with a previous comment that these changes have been forecast for a few years. The streaming concept was so detrimental to artists' ability to earn a living that a sea change in the music business was inevitable.
Re: Africa, this is already happening, it's called Afrobeat. Artists like Wizkid, Davido and Burna Boy are already selling out venues in the US and doing collabs with artists like Drake.
I mean no disrespect but these would have been predictions 5/6 years ago. This is now just 12 observations of the current music world in 2021.
A lot of these seem solid, but some of them only if you believe web3 won't take off and grow. is that part of the prediction too?
How about micropayments? Cut out the middleman, pay directly to the artist everytime you listen to their music. This is already happening with podcasting 2.0 on Breez and other platforms. Much better model for the creator for multiple reasons. On Spotify you basically get paid once per user that listens to the song, even though they might listen to it every day the entire year. You need a lot of different people to listen to your song to make money. That doesn't make sense. With micropayments the artist is paid a little bit every time someone listens. For sure the amount will be small, but it will add up. If you have 1,000 true fans that listen to you a lot, and maybe each of them pay 1-2 $ per month, thats' 10-20,000$ per month in revenue. For 1000 monthly listeners. On Spotify that will not do much for your income. There are benefits foor the consumer as well. As a consumer you only support the arrtists you like, no part of what you pay goes to Kygo, Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber, as it most probably does now. If you listen to music less than normal for a month, you pay less. You pay only for what you consume. This could be a bright future for musicians if it comes around, and all that is missing is a great platform to do it on. The technology of micropayments exists and is ready to use with the Lightning network on Bitcoin.
A 13th prediction: as awful as the future of music will be, a few young people with enormous talent will still emerge and make good new music.
I think there is much more money to be made in music today (and in the future) than in the past. I know that I am generalizing here, but people used to buy music (records, tapes, CDs, MP3s) for a very small period during their lives -- during their teens and early 20's. How many albums did the average "grown-up" buy per year? One? None? They listed to whatever they had already or they listened to the radio, meaning they spent $0. Now nobody buys or owns albums. Everyone subscribes to a streaming service. They are paying $120+ per year FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. I agree that distribution will change, new-artist discovery and promotion will change, etc., but there is a TON of $ to be made. Content counts, and $ eventually will flow to the talented content creators.
It’s already here www.hologramconcertslive.com
Maybe models like Lüm will take off and listeners will help bankroll independent artist careers! (remaining optimistic over here)