Hooked on music: the economics of summer hits and its shortcomings

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Content consumerism: the digital age economy. We are all consumers of content. Even if we don’t want it, it’s just all over the place to be ignored. Call it entertainment, advertisement, or what you want. That’s all it really is, content. Most of it it’s quite annoying and dull. None of us was ever delighted to see for the umpteenth time the Audi ad on a Youtube video. But that’s the way to get it for free. The idea is this: … Read More

That time that Michael Jackson played the ‘nasty publisher’ card on the Beatles.

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Let’s talk about music publishers. They are the unknown, driving forces behind the music industry. One of the most famous music publishers is Sony / ATV Music. Their history  illustrates exactly why it is time for a direct connection between artist and fan. Here’s a behind the scenes story of how a Michael Jackson became the publisher of the Beatles and ruined a friendship between pop legends.  Music publishers for dummies Fundamentally, music publishers connect musicians to the outside world. … Read More

Drowning in the ocean of the music business: what to learn from the 1%

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There’s quite a heated discussions over income inequality. The statistics are starting to become dazzling in terms of numbers, There’s big revenues and profits to be made, in almost every industry. The enabler of all this is technology. What is called “the second machine age” has permitted every industry to move money towards very few (the infamous 1%) and left the remaining 99% battling for a slice of the cake. The music landscape acts in the same exact way. Not … Read More

What to learn from this year’s Coachella: a look into the post-internet music industry.

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This week-end Coachella has started. As always, those who didn’t make it are following the happenings on live stream and crying over ice cream on how miserable it is not to be there. For us, it has quite a different feeling. For us, Coachella is almost a big social experiment the music industry is playing with the public. What are the insights to take from the single most cool event worldwide (maybe second only to the Burning Man), and what does … Read More

I’m sorry musicians, this is not gonna work out. Unless…

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Are you a musician? Act like you own a start-up. It’s the ultimate dilemma. You’re creative and have infinite ideas on how to push the music landscape to new horizons. However, faster drums, better melodies and vocal bravado don’t seem to get you very far, right? Well, maybe you should start thinking that you’re basically a start-up. Much like any start-up, your album is your product, your music is your vision and your fans are your customers. The best thing to … Read More

Spotify on Wall Street: are they the villains?

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Streaming systems and record labels: let’s get the facts straight Do you remember that time when Taylor Swift was not on Spotify? Everybody was mad about it. The motivation behind it was that she figured that a lot of the agreements on streaming platforms undermined musicians over their royalties. The streaming platform gets some, the record label gets the other chunk (UMG made 4,5 million $ a day in 2017), and musicians are left with crumbles.  In fact, musician’s income … Read More

The 3 biggest music industry trends of 2018 identifiable after SXSW

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Over the past two decades, the music industry has been rapidly developing. New music industry trends have been spawning everywhere. It is only 18 years ago (I know, time flies…)  since the launch of the first iPod and since then the way people listen to their music has changed immensely. Most of us now have more music at their disposal then they would ever be able to carry. Most Spotify users are now complaining that they can ‘only’ store 3333 … Read More

How many musicians became a line of text in a playlist

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Where the musician once was the center piece of attention. Many have now reverted to being a simple line of text in a Spotify playlist. Today you often hear: “I don’t now the name of the artists. I have just heard this song before in a playlist.”. Surely an the work of an artist deserves more attention than that. Musicians in the past 30 Years ago the musicians had it all. Many artists where known for their work because it … Read More

The Top 1% of Artists Earn 77% of Recorded Music Revenue

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That is what Digital Music Wrote back in 2014. Since then this revenue shared has only increased leaving unsigned smaller artist with dust to chew on. This share is even larger than the share of the total worlds wealth that the 1% richest humans have (which for reference is 50%). This horrible distribution is caused by thousands of middlemen taking large revenue cuts form smaller artist feeding the ones that don’t need it. Blockchain is here to change this. Blockchain … Read More

Branding and Presence on Blockchain for Musicians

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As a musician today, it is important to have a clear branding image. With all the blockchain networks that are up at this point, it is difficult to keep a consistent image. Furthermore, the amount of platforms currently claiming to be the next blockchain revelation is enormous. So which ones do you indulge in? Generally, it is recommended to be active on as many platforms as possible. The main issue with this is the promotion of your activity on all … Read More