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Posted by: zenon 9th June 2018, 08:55 PM

From records to cassettes to CDs to downloads to streaming, is this how far music listening technology will go or is there another generation coming?

Posted by: ebae 9th June 2018, 08:57 PM

Hologram music videos or something like that

Posted by: Dobbo 9th June 2018, 08:58 PM

Thinking a song.

Posted by: 777666jason 9th June 2018, 09:58 PM

Chart manipulation where whatever is wanted to become a hit is psychologicaly projected/ implanted onto your brain

Or just think a song would count as a sale

Posted by: AcerBen 9th June 2018, 10:01 PM

I really don't see what can replace streaming. Even if in the distant future you could just think about the song you want to play, that'd still be streaming wouldn't it

Posted by: WhoOdyssey 9th June 2018, 10:10 PM

I think streaming will remain for a long time.

But what I do think will change are the artists being streamed. Younger people now will still be streaming when they are older, and they will likely be streaming older artists in the future.

If artists like Ed Sheeran stay relevant, I think he could quite easily have hits in 20 years time as his audience grow older with him.

Posted by: danG 9th June 2018, 10:56 PM

There'll probably be a divide between the 'Spotify generation' and whatever new service comes around in 10-20 years to appeal to the new kids.

I think whatever will be next will rely on some sort of future technology, it'd have to be really advanced like beaming a song directly into your brain or something. It won't come for at least another ten years.

Posted by: ¡ʎpp∀ 9th June 2018, 11:17 PM

Did we really predicted streaming will replace let's say in 2003/2004 when downloads started booming?

Posted by: Midge 10th June 2018, 12:22 AM

Well streaming really is just the next step on from downloading. To stream, you are effectively downloading it and playing it live. Internet connectivity has come a long way since 2003/2004.

Posted by: Dexton 10th June 2018, 03:03 AM

Beaming a song directly into your brain in ten years time? Fingers crossed for long distance teleportation and human regeneration while we’re at it

Streaming will stay for a long long time as an overarching music listening method. Spotify might get replaced as the “big bad in streaming” overtime by something else, maybe if Tidal changes up their price sheets or Apple Music. The only logical reason at this stage I can see people moving away from streaming music live is possible privacy issues with effectively having an open connection directly to your home/mobile. Alternatively the next World War (which will either be ridiculously tame or ridiculously brutal depending on how resistant nations are on releasing their weapons of mass destruction) will wipe out the general public’s access to internet and mean everyone has to go back to CDs, tapes, and records

Posted by: vidcapper 10th June 2018, 05:27 AM

How is that much different from simply remembering it?

Posted by: Bjork 10th June 2018, 06:07 AM

Bono said a few years back that he had this idea that was gonna be a revolution in music consumption and replace streaming
think it was something more interactive with fans, but don't think he followed it thru

Posted by: Grandwicky 10th June 2018, 08:51 AM

Maybe if the issues of artists not being paid enough and the fact no one has made a profit on streaming become a big issue then something like this could be a compromise?

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/25/resonate-spotify-music-streaming-service-co-op

Music subscription service Resonate gives artists both money and power over content with a stream-to-own model

Jon Davies: ‘I tend to just not make any money from streaming.’

Jon Davies has set out on a career creating experimental music about the exploitation of people and the environment. Like many independent artists, Davies doesn’t expect to earn much profit from digital downloads or streams of his music, so he relies on a handful of side hustles to make a living.

He works five days a week as an usher at a local music venue in Liverpool. He also seeks out freelance writing gigs and performs at Cafe OTO in order to scrape together the £500 needed to pay his monthly rent and bills. Making money off his music online just isn’t in the picture.

“From my own experience, I tend to just not make any money from streaming [services],” Davies says.

He has been making music under the alias Kepla for around three years. He was searching for an alternative to big streaming platforms like Spotify, which pay artists tiny amounts of royalties per stream, when he came across Resonate.

Resonate, based in Berlin and established by founder and CEO Peter Harris in 2015, aims to put the money and power in the hands of the artists. It does this through three main selling points: an alternative to a monthly subscription service, an innovative technology that allows for a more transparent and efficient way of paying artists, and its cooperative model.

“It’s a protest against capitalism, it’s a protest against the Silicon Valley model of startups and platforms and, in some sense, it’s a protest against the way music is now being distributed and consumed,” Harris says.

Harris is a musician and electronic artist. After trying out his music on various streaming platforms, he realized that none could offer him the experience he wanted – so he created his own.

According to the Trichordist, each time a song is streamed by a listener on Spotify, the artist earns an average of $0.00397 in royalties – less than four-tenths of a cent. And yet, Spotify is the second most popular music streaming service, behind Apple Music, with 70 million paid subscribers worldwide.

“Many independent record labels have refused to go on record because they’re afraid that if they criticize Spotify, they’re somehow going to get blacklisted,” Harris says. “That’s a really dangerous power dynamic, and it also reveals that there’s a strong desire for something different.”

He says comparisons to Jay-Z’s Tidal, which also claims to give more power and profit to the artists, are off the mark.

“If they had gotten up onstage at [Tidal’s] big announcement and next to every one of those stars was someone totally unknown, and they’d said: ‘We’re going to build a service for the big names and people you haven’t heard of,’ then maybe Resonate would have never needed to exist,” Harris says. “The reality is, the artists who own it are a very small handful of extremely rich stars. We contrast that against Resonate, where every single artist and member owns it.”

Models like Spotify and iTunes aren’t built to sustain a class of artists
According to a 2014 report from MIDiA Research, 77% of recorded music revenue goes to the top 1% of artists.

“I’ve experienced firsthand how hard it is for artists from these backgrounds to actually make money,” says Natalia Linares, a board member for Resonate.

Linares worked in the music industry for 12 years as a publicist and manager for independent artists, experiencing how unfair the business is, especially for artists from minority backgrounds.

“It’s very exploitative, and models like Spotify and iTunes aren’t built to sustain a class of artists,” she says. “If [Resonate] can work, and we can build this and show that it is possible to build a platform that artists and listeners actually share and benefit from, that would be a huge contribution. It’s something worth fighting for and being a part of.”

Resonate is a cooperative, and because of that artists, board members and listeners all have stake in the company and participate in decision-making. According to its website, 45% of Resonate’s annual profit is distributed to artists, 35% to listeners and 20% to paid staff.

Resonate’s alternative to a monthly subscription service is based on a stream-to-own model. Listeners pay a cheap price for streaming a song for the first time, which doubles with each play until it is comparable to the price of a regular iTunes download, $1.29. After nine plays, the song is completely paid for, and the listener can download it from the service.

“It takes somewhere between 150 to 200 plays on Spotify to reach the price of an [iTunes] download, and we do that in nine,” Harris says.

Resonate also uses blockchain, the online ledger technology behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, to create a more transparent way of tracking and distributing payments as well as more user privacy and power over personal data and interactions on the service.

Blockchain allows for the use of “smart contracts”, which could be a more efficient and seamless method for paying artists.

“You can have a smart contract that says send 30% to the singer, 25% to the guitar player, and split up the rest among the other four members of the band,” Harris says. “The smart contract will receive the money then distribute it out instantly.”

Davies says the blockchain aspect is one of the main factors that drew him to Resonate.

“As an underground artist, [I think] it’s not good politics to be dismissive of a technology like the blockchain, which looks like it’s going to be – sooner rather than later – a very important way we not only approach things like currency, but also the way we approach contracts and agreements and the documentation of digital goods,” Davies says.

He believes Resonate will be more beneficial for artists once it catches on and as more people start to use it for streaming. Harris says the service has almost 5,000 total members, 1,000 of whom are listeners.

In March, Resonate received a $1m investment from RChain, a Seattle-based blockchain system cooperative, to further develop its technology.

I would expect something similar to this anyway where something other than just an all you can eat subscription to be the next evolution rather than a new format.

Posted by: AcerBen 10th June 2018, 09:15 AM

No, thinking about the song and it plays through your earphones (if that's possible)

Beaming something directly to your brain feels a bit unlikely. Surely we'll always need our ears? Something would still have to stream the song to you though?

Posted by: Dexton 10th June 2018, 09:29 AM

It’d be like having a Bluetooth chip in your brain that your phone connects to and streams music to

On that note, our future is basically becoming Cybermen

Posted by: Evil Houdini 12th June 2018, 03:10 PM

Probably nothing. I can definitely see the Official Charts coming to a permanent end at some point though, it's not going to be timeless like other forms of entertainment such as Film.

Posted by: WhoOdyssey 12th June 2018, 03:14 PM

Honestly, I can't see anytime in the future where people don't listen to music.

I think people will stop watching films before they stop listening to music.

Posted by: Tawdry Hepburn 12th June 2018, 03:24 PM

Voting for 5 tracks per week on an app, by the middle of next decade. You heard it here first.

Posted by: Dobbo 12th June 2018, 03:24 PM

He's not saying the act of listening to music will stop, just the Charts! I myself think that would be quite extreme but not unthinkable in the distant future.

Posted by: Evil Houdini 12th June 2018, 03:28 PM

Of course people wont stop listening to music. What I mean is that the Official music chart will not be timeless like how the Box Office chart for films is. Nobody has ever f***ed about with the formula for the Box Office chart like they have done so many times with the Official music chart. People in general are losing lot of interest in the music charts but it's not the case for the Box Office chart.

Posted by: pippa 12th June 2018, 03:36 PM

When We Were Young is great but not top 2 great.

Posted by: WhoOdyssey 12th June 2018, 03:39 PM

Ah, I see.

I could see the Official Charts still being a thing, but it won't be broadcast on radio or featured in the media. Not for a long time though.

Posted by: AcerBen 12th June 2018, 03:50 PM

Surely the music industry will always need a chart, even if public interest wanes further. Maybe Radio 1 will drop it at some point but I don't see why it would stop existing.

Posted by: zenon 12th June 2018, 03:53 PM

I can see Radio 1 dropping it within a decade.

Posted by: danG 12th June 2018, 05:47 PM

It would be a shame but radio 1 are clearly losing interest in the chart and they'd probably like to drop it sometime. We'd still have the chart after that though. There are charts all around the world and most of those don't have their own radio chart show (I think?)

Posted by: Robbie 12th June 2018, 08:10 PM

The Sun recently stopped publishing the Top 40 Singles chart and have replaced it with a Spotify chart. That must have made a dent in the OCC's finances as well as reducing the visibility of the chart as the paper gets on average about 3 to 3.5 million readers a day which is a higher figure than the amount of listeners to the Radio 1 chart show.

The OCC will continue to exist as they are co-owned by record dealers and the BPI so don't actually exist to make a profit. However Radio 1 do seem to be losing some interest in the chart and they provide a large amount of money to help finance the chart. If Radio 1 ever did pull the plug the OCC would have to cut down on what they do. But as the chart becomes increasingly a streaming chart it wouldn't cost as much to produce a Singles chart though the Album chart has become increasingly complex to compile simply because of the amount of retailers who provide sales information. It now stands at over 15,000 which is considerably more than did so a decade ago. Ironically this is in a period where album sales are in seemingly terminal decline.

As for what will replace streaming, I don't have a clue. Whatever it is will probably require new technology that either hasn't been invented or is in its infancy. The question is how long will Spotify continue to exist as it has yet to make a profit and it now has shareholders who will be looking for a return on their investment. The service has had goodwill so far as investors have allowed the service to continue while making huge losses but this goodwill may now be sorely tested. Who knows, perhaps Apple Music will buy out Spotify at some point in the future. It certainly has the cash to do so and if that was to happen we may get a better Apple Music service and Spotify will perhaps get the makeover it sorely needs (I love Spotify but the user interface isn't that great with that black background and white text).

Incidentally, just to show how far streaming has come in the past decade, it's coming up to 10 years since the first mention I can find of Spotify appeared in Music Week (though I have a feeling it had been mentioned before, in passing). In the issue dated 18 October 2008 mention was made about Spotify signing a licensing deal with Merlin, the independent online rights agency who are the leading rights agency for worldwide independent labels. I believe that most of the major labels were less keen to sign up to licence material to Spotify at the time but by launch date had come on board.

Part of the article:

In the same issue there was a report that Woolworths was in serious financial trouble and that EUK, the Woolies owned record distributor was trying to put a distance between itself and the store. A month later the whole lot went under...

Posted by: Steve201 12th June 2018, 08:50 PM

I think as long as Radio 1 play hits they will continue to have a chart!

Posted by: Robbie 12th June 2018, 09:11 PM

I can remember years ago when Radio 1 would often quote the chart position of a record when they played it. I don't listen to Radio 1 that often but when I do that just never seems to happen anymore. It's an indication of just how unimportant the charts are to Radio 1. Plus the way the Top 40 is just pushed into a much shorter programme than it used to be from May 1978 onwards when the station extended the Top 20 to a Top 40. At just 1 hour 45 minutes it's not given any real prominence though of course that is largely fitting it in to the schedule due to the chart day moving to a Friday and the need to broadcast Newsbeat for 15 minutes before 6pm.

Posted by: Steve201 12th June 2018, 09:21 PM

Yeh agreed, but sometimes they have sound bytes like 'Radio 1 the biggest hits from your official top 40 station'

Posted by: Grandwicky 12th June 2018, 09:55 PM

See this is the problem I keep pointing out, if no one makes a profit, musicians can't make money and the increased blandification continues and it ends up killing the measure of what is popular music then who wins? They might have to think of something other than the Netflix style model if doesn't look sustainable for music and I question having all of entertainment controlled by monthly fees to the big tech companies like Apple and Amazon (it's not the same as iTunes as artists still made at least a small amount of money despite the big cut they took from it but it's unlikely people would go back to that model again)

I think the Chart Show will be fine for now, the fact it's becoming a three hour show again and they have Scott Mills presenting it who is actually really passionate about the charts (as much as I like Greg he didn't seem to care that much) a possible way to fix things is maybe after an individual has played a song so many times that counts as a 'sale' and no further streams count but I don't know if that's doable but the main problem the chart has is that because the streaming chart doesn't move very quick and only certain demographics use it it's very static and certain genres dominate to the point that there are lots of similar sounding songs. You don't get as many exciting battles like we used to (though Jess Glynne vs. Clean Bandit vs Anne Marie is a good 'un this week) and I doubt a 'Somebody That I Used It To Know' or a 'Let It Go' (Passenger) would happen the ways things are right now. They just need it to become less static due to a natural occurance or by another rule change, I notice physical singles are more of a thing again in vinyl shops so it would be a shame if the chart stopped and they became more popular again.

Considering that the chart still has a big part in shaping the Radio 1 Playlist I don't think they'll bin it anytime soon as it's still a key staple to their schedule and they haven't done what they did TOTP in sabotaging the format and putting on a date when no one would listen so unless pure sales completely collapse making compiling it too complicated and too boring for listeners I don't think it'll go anywhere just yet. (they nearly binned it in the early 90s due to low sales so if it didn't go then I doubt they'll stop in the immediate future)

Posted by: Supercell 13th June 2018, 06:18 AM

Just had a look at this Resonate service and its actually very good.

Paying per song you stream with it increasing to the same price as a download over 9 listens and then its free. I doubt this will overtake the streaming giants of Apple and Spotify but if it were ever too or the payment method was adopted, this would be a very good way of measuring streaming towards the chart. As once someone has contributed a full download equivalent it can be exempt from being counted and would have the same affect as ACR on the chart but more gradual without the complicated rules.

As to what will replace streaming I'd like to say I doubt anything will as its hard to see what would, but then again I thought the same with downloads about eight years ago. So I'm sure something will come along but comparing streaming to downloads but I do feel like streaming is reaching its peak and will plateau at some point in the next couple of years. I think the only big boost it will get now is if iTunes were to close.

Finally I can totally see why Radio 1 would drop the chart as tbh. Streaming has made the chart incredibly static and I honestly dont think its incorporation into the chart is really working very well and ACR hasn't fully solved the problem. Furthermore since they brought in ACR, I've personally lost a lot of interest in the chart itself as it doesn't really represent anything anymore, so even though I don't read the Sun I actually tend to follow the official streaming chart more as I find thats more representative of whats actually popular. Annoyingly they dont have a tab on chart runs for the audio streaming chart sadly.

Posted by: danG 13th June 2018, 08:46 AM

Kworb keeps chart runs of the Spotify weekly chart, which closely resembles the official streaming chart

http://kworb.net/spotify/country/gb_weekly.html

you have to click each song individually, and some of the songs that have spent hundreds of weeks in the chart won't have the full chart run available.

Posted by: AcerBen 13th June 2018, 12:46 PM

Though worth pointing out Friday afternoon is a more prominent slot than Sunday. Ratings have gone up a bit since it moved. And the reduction in length of the show was partly down to the chart being slower so playing all 40 records when they barely change week on week is understandable. I don't feel R1 currently want to get rid of it. If they did, they'd have done it already.

Posted by: AcerBen 13th June 2018, 12:47 PM

I'd dispute that Greg didn't care that much - I prefer Scott's more old skool style, but Greg is still a chart fan.

By look of things the show isn't going to 3 hours after all btw.

Posted by: danG 13th June 2018, 01:36 PM

if the show is remaining in its 4:00-5:45 slot are they still replacing Friday Dance Anthems with something else chart related then? do we know what's going on there?

Posted by: Robbie 13th June 2018, 02:10 PM

According to the Radio 1 schedules for Friday it will still be Dance Anthems at 6pm.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl86/2018/06/15

Posted by: Supercell 13th June 2018, 02:12 PM

Oh lovely thanks for that i'll have a gander

Posted by: ben08 13th June 2018, 03:45 PM

If I knew what would replace streaming I would not tell anyone but I would set up a Company to implement the new technology and hopefully become a millionaire.
I can but only dream.

Posted by: Grandwicky 13th June 2018, 09:57 PM

Indeed, listeners are up after moving it and they haven't even shown any vague signs of getting rid of it and why the hell would they? Can anyone really imagine Radio 1 without the chart? (can you imagine Buzzjack without the chart? I certainly wouldn't be here without chart info ) Like I said so much of their playlist is based around it and even though it's never been their most listened to show it is basically what makes it Radio 1. The music industry needs some kind of measurement as to what is currently popular and even though they're trying to adapt to a changing market I can't imagine there being a music industry without it.

Again I don't personally understand how people can say the streaming chart is more relevant than the actual chart considering all the songs I picked in 'What do you think are the five biggest hits of the year?' thread all did a lot better in sales! If anything I feel a lot of songs become hits on streaming after I felt the song had been and gone a long ago like Miss You by Clean Bandit for example but then again you could say the opposite about Feel It Still. It's almost like we need the chart needs to be some kind of combination of the two to appease everyone with the way things are right now