The music is dead, live the music

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Music albums have died and artists are only releasing songs, singers have realized that the big bucks they make in live shows (like Jay Lou who made a fortune), YouTube and Spotify have taken over all of us and rocked the way songs sound: these are the three biggest phenomena that have happened in the music industry over the last decade

Avi Goldberger

10/12/2019

Part 1: Death of the album

In the summer of 2018, American Music Corporation Sony Music announced the signing of Korean PingPong to an international distribution contract. When the announcement came out, most people assumed that if Ping-Pong were Korean, it must be the signature of the current wave of k-pop music. Only Pingpong is really not a k-pop composition. They're not even really musicians. This is a creative studio, responsible for over 4,000 songs and children's stories, which mainly star on YouTube. The sort of thing that the algorithm automatically uploads, after your little ones watch videos like "Daddy Finger" on your smartphone. Of all these 4,000 videos, PingPong also released a not-so-viral hit. This is a video that has been viewed over a billion and a half times and is called "Baby Shark". The video shows family members dancing and singing silly shark dancing. It was this hit that led Sony to seal them.

After the signing, Sony began promoting the video / song and the result was that the 1:36 minute segment got into the top ten of the British parade, where it has been able to march on the hit parade there for 50 weeks. In the United States, too, the song went into Top 40 and Sony even printed it on a vinyl record (!), Which was very quickly sold out. Then, Sony even released a Christmas album for ping pongs. Overall, this stamp is considered a success.

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Baby Shark

The music industry, by definition as an industry, has always sought to make money. But on the way, she also sold us art, through stars, who recorded concept albums and made us dream. How did we descend into the absurd districts of the baby shark?

Sony Music's repertoire includes some of the greatest talents that human history has known - geniuses such as Elvis, Beyonce, Whitney Houston and Bob Dylan. It is painful to see a respectable society go through such a mess, but it is a story that characterizes the state of music and industry today. In the age of apps and viral, everything is kosher. So true, the music industry, by definition as an industry, has always been looking to make money. But on the way, she also sold us art, through stars, who recorded concept albums and made us dream. How did we descend into the absurd districts of the baby shark? That doesn't have to go too far.

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Exactly 10 years ago, as we sat down to summarize the previous decade, the music industry was at its worst point in its history. It was the end of a decade that the high-speed internet penetrated every home and the torrents broke the record companies, which failed to respond correctly. The initiatives of apps like iTunes to sell music online didn't really catch on and people preferred the pirate. True, a decade ago people still bought music, but less and less every year, so the number of albums sold worldwide in 2009 was about half the number of albums sold a decade earlier, in 1999. The record companies closed one by one, including the giant companies. Europe was drained of labels, with German BMG being swallowed by Sony Music and British EMI being foreclosed by a New York bank.

Signed at Sony. Beyonce (Photo: GettyImages)

Beyonce (Photo: GettyImages)

The number of standout albums coming out in the last two months of the current decade is about a third compared to a decade ago and it barely scratches the 20th. Not only that, most of those 20 albums are from past artists with careers that blazed Nientes and even Sixties

On the street level, more and more music stores were closing. Not just international networks like Tower Records or Virgin. The small shops didn't survive either. Their numbers worldwide have been cut by about two-thirds during the first decade of the millennium. Despite this situation, the record companies acted as though the mp3 was never invented and 80 percent of their revenue continued to be from disk sales. To try and create demand, the last two months of 2009 have given us a pretty impressive line up of new albums. These included huge albums by Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Bon Jovi, Brittany Spears, Janet Jackson, Snoop Dogg, Kylie Minogue, Alisha Keys, Robbie Williams, Eminem and Katie Perry. During these two months we counted no less than 60 albums that are considered outstanding. Despite the abundance, it didn't work. Companies and artists have kept going with the album concept over and over, but each year their income has dropped. It was clear that change was needed. A decade later, the album appears to be the biggest victim of this change.

Thus, the number of notable albums released in the last two months of the current decade is about a third compared to a decade ago and it barely scratches the 20th. Not only that, most of these 20 albums are from past artists with careers blazing in Nantes and even Sixties. Who for example? The Who, ELO, Robbie Williams, Celine Dion, Westlife, Coldplay, Ozzy Osborne, Rod Stewart, Beck and Pink Floyd. The album is not just dying. Artists and music companies that previously stood behind him no longer believe it. In its place, in the present age, it is enough to put out one song every few months. Ask what about the urge to create a whole piece, or a concept album? Well, it belongs, apparently, only to the elderly.

Insist on putting out an album. Coldplay (Photo: GettyImages)

Chris Martin Coldplay vocalist in the Super Bowl 2016 (Photo: GettyImages)

"I'm not recording an album," Katy Perry said. "I record songs and get them out and that's how I intend to continue." When the interviewer insisted on figuring out whether or not there would be an album in the future, Perry evaded elegance. "Only if there is a demand," she replied, knowing that a demand for albums - there really isn't

Presumably, young pop artists have also released albums in the current decade, but as the decade progressed, the switch between releasing an album and occasionally publishing individual pieces has intensified. Take singer Katy Perry, for example. The current decade began with the release of "Teenage Dreams" album of 2010. The album sold about 7 million copies (along with its 2012 extended release), much thanks to the hits "California Gurls", "Teenage Dreams", "Fireworks", " ET "," Last Friday Night (TGIF) "and" Part of Me ". All six of those hits came in first place on the American march, in what is considered an unprecedented achievement.
Perry's next album was "Prism" from 2013 and he did well too, with two first place hits ("Roar" and "Drak Horse") and sales of about 4 million copies.

The fall came with the third album of the decade, "Witness," from 2017. Although the hits from "Swish, Swish" and "Chained to the Rhythm" reached platinum in America, the album sold a little less than a million copies. It might have been a huge disappointment, but it was actually a reflection of reality at the time. The numbers may have been low compared to the past, but in 2017 they became a standard. In 2016, for example, the world's best-selling album was Beyonce's "Lemonade," which sold 2 and a half million copies. In 2017, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift's albums sold more than that, but overall, only ten albums worldwide have sold over a million copies this year. "Witness" was really close to that, so it's not that bad.

Although it wasn't considered a failure by current standards, Perry understood where the wind was going. In the two years since, Perry has released six songs, but those who expected them to complete an album received a message from her in the summer that she would stop publishing one. "I'm not recording an album," she said in an interview last July. "I record songs and get them out and that's how I intend to continue." When the interviewer insisted on figuring out whether or not there would be an album in the future, Perry evaded elegance. "Only if there is a demand," she replied, knowing that a demand for albums - there really isn't.

Perry's statement was backed by one of the decade's biggest stars, Taylor Swift. Like Perry, Swift also experienced a dramatic decline in album sales as the decade went on. While each of her albums came in first place on the sales charts, the 1989 success of "Ten", which sold ten million copies, has dropped to just under a million copies sold from her latest album "Lover," released this year. "Excluding single songs?" Taylor responded to Perry's interview. "It's an interesting new art form." A hint of the next?

Stop releasing albums? Taylor Swift (Photo: GettyImages)

Taylor Swift (Photo: GettyImages, Image Processing)

Various car makers stopped producing CD players in 2016, with almost no one found today. This move has resulted in severe damage to disk sales

Even in this decade, which was commercially bad for albums, they were exceptional. Aside from Swift's "1989", Adele also managed to bomb numbers that belonged to the 1990s. Thus, "21" album from 2011 managed to sell an astronomical amount of 31 million copies and "25" from 2015 did not disappoint with 22 million copies. It is important to note that this success of Adele is an exceptional case. Amazingly, she managed to get the older crowd into the stores to buy her album in huge numbers. To do that, the record label that marketed Adele made sure of the remarkable distribution of their albums, which popped up among food shelves in US supermarkets, newsstands, bookstores, cafes and gas stations around the world. All this is accompanied by timing, good marketing and proper hype. How much will Adele's next album sell? Probably a lot less. It will not be because of its decline in popularity, it will be because of the continuing trend of declining album sales that no one is immune to.

So why did the albums stop selling? There are two main reasons for this. One is changing the listening method. Moving from discs to listening to an app, an album has actually become a kind of playlist. And in a playlist - the tendency is to hear only the songs you know, so an entire album becomes unnecessary. The second major reason is related to the fall of the last major anchor of listening to discs - the private vehicle. Various car makers stopped producing CD players in 2016, with almost no one found today. This move has resulted in severe damage to disk sales.

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A brief look at the list of the ten best-selling albums of the decade reveals that only two of the ten came out in the second half. From the era of vehicles without the ability to play discs, that is, the last three years of the decade, there is only one album in the list of ten sellers. This is Ed Sheeran's "Divide," in tenth place.

The top ten albums sold worldwide in the last decade:

1. Adele, "21" (2011, 31 million copies sold)
2. Adele, "25" (2015, 22 million)
3. Eminem, "Recovery" (2010, 10 million)
4. Taylor Swift, "1989" (2014, 10 million)
5. Frozen Soundtrack (2014, 9 Million)
6. Coldplay, "Mylo Xyloto" (2011, 8 million)
7. Ed Sheeran, "X" (2014, 8 million)
8. Katie Perry, "Teenage Dreams" (2010, 7 million)
9.Rihanna, "Loud" (2010, 7 million)
10. Ed Sheeran, "Divide" (2017, 7 million)

Part 2: Live shows are the big bucks

If, in the past, record companies were satisfied with revenue from album sales, in the 360 ​​contract the company also signed the artist to the field of performances, merchandise and any other element related to the artist and that can bring in income such as commercials, product lines

So the album is the big victim of the current decade and it didn't happen. The music industry, especially the American one, is a very strong industry. But this decade, as mentioned, it came at a time of very great economic crisis - one that threatened its existence. The music industry's problem was not born in this millennium. It is a product of three decades, with its biggest competitors - selling exactly the same product to the public, only in a pirate fashion.

In the 1980s, these were fake recordings and in the 1990s the illegal discs. Both of these created tremendous damage to the music industry, but it could deal with them through the law, through persecution and through the release of better quality products. The big problem really started when we got to the 2000s. With the shift to consuming music from files purchased on different apps and sites, the pirate competitor offered the exact same product - for free. The music industry has become powerless. Illegal downloads on the Internet have become such a widespread phenomenon that it could not be stopped. The attempt to compete with them through legal downloads failed, and the record companies began to close one after the other. The situation was so bad that the recorded music industry in the United States shrunk by half in a decade. From an industry that rolls $ 14 billion a year in '99, to an industry of $ 7 billion in 2009. It was clear that something had to change.

The biggest insight of record companies on the path to change has been the recognition that people are no longer willing to pay for music and revenue should come from other sources. One solution was to sign artists on the so-called industry contract 360, a contract that encompasses all of an artist's potential revenue streams. That is, if in the past record companies were satisfied with income from album sales, in the contract 360 the company also signed the artist to the field of performances, merchandise and any other element related to the artist and which can bring income such as advertisements, product lines and more. Total management. The 360 ​​contracts made the record companies an entertainment company and overall were a great success. The main problem with the 360 ​​contracts is that they are only suitable for really great artists - Madonna and Lady Gaggs, who really do cross-country columns, sell tons of t-shirts and spend time in the sky. For the middle tier of pop music, it suited less.

Contract 360 fits her. Lady Gaga (Photo: GettyImages)

Lady Gaga, Anna Wintour (Photo: GettyImages)

An artist like Jennifer Lopez, who performed in Israel this year, in 2018 brought in less than $ 1 million from her recorded music, but more than $ 10 million from her global tour. The big money today is in shows and very few artists who make more than royalty

Despite this, there is no doubt that the field of performances has become the main pillar of music revenue in the current decade and that the creators have flipped. Previously rounds were held to promote album sales whereas today - it's quite the opposite. For example, in the 1980s, Doran Duran was reported to have lost money on her tour rounds. Despite this, the Durans did not stop performing, as it actually led to sales of about 50 million copies, making the band members millionaires. Today, however, an artist such as Jennifer Lopez, who performed this year in Israel, brought in less than $ 1 million from her recorded music in 2018, but more than $ 10 million from her global tour. The big money today is in shows and very few artists who make more than royalty. Even Drake, the world's top revenue earner from royalties in 2018 ($ 21 million added to its sales, sales and rights this year), made more money that year than $ 31 million in performances.

The money from the tour rounds has grown disproportionately in recent years. The BBC reported this month that in 2018 British artists put in double performances than they put in 2007. So it's no surprise that nine of the ten most entertaining performances in history have taken place in the current decade. Aside from Ed Sheeran's "Divide" round, which was the most entertaining round of the decade, the other rounds belonged to past stars such as U2, Ganz & Roses, Rolling Stones, AC / DC and Roger Waters, who proved to be the most entertaining dinosaurs.

From the local aspect - Because shows have become the main pillar of artists' income, we have in the last decade been flooded with overseas performances arriving in Israel. Anyone who does not appear anywhere that allows them will simply earn much less and in Israel will earn a lot of money. This trend is likely to continue. BDS or not BDS The bottom line is that money speaks and anticipates the coming years for the greatest artists in the world to come here.

The big money. Ganz in Israel (Photo: Nimrod Saunders)

Ganz & Roses performing in Israel (Photo: Nimrod Saunders)

Part 3: Rise of apps

After artists got used to getting a few whole bucks to sell their entire disc, the new amounts were not well received. In the beginning, the main fighter against the app was Taylor Swift, who prevented her album "1989" from appearing there when he left

Outside of the 360, the music industry had another solution to return to being profitable: the establishment of free music on the network and collecting royalties on it. Thus, record companies and artists who fought YouTube at the outset, claiming they were infringing on their copyrights, realized that instead of fighting, money could be demanded. The YouTube platform, which was growing, was sold to Google and filled with advertisements - became a gold mine. Songs such as "See You Again" by Wiz Kalifa and Louise Ponzi's "Despacito", for example, have made their creators $ 2 million from YouTube. Along the way, the record companies also put in quite a bit.

After YouTube became a source of income, the record companies also embraced the apps that specialized in streaming music and, by the way, made the downloads irrelevant. It happened because the apps offered the user to listen to all the music in the world, everywhere, without having to download it for free. The main music streaming app, Spotify, was founded in Sweden in 2006. Only five years later, it entered the US market, but its entry was not easy. At the beginning, many artists refused to allow their music to be found in the app, claiming they did not receive proper value from the app. Apps like Spotify pay artists and record companies to stream each song individually. Today, after struggling to raise the royalty, Spotify pays $ 0.00783 for each song streamed. It's a minor amount, which is split between a record label, band members, writers and more. After artists got used to getting a few whole bucks to sell their entire disc, the new amounts were not well received. Early on, the main fighter against the app was Taylor Swift, who prevented her 1989 album from appearing there when he came out. In 2014, when Spotify was still a new player in the US market, it worked for Swift, but now its entire catalog is there.

After Spotify, other similar music streaming apps have emerged, most notable being Apple Music, Amazon HD, Tidal, Dizer and most recently YouTube Music. Despite many competitors, Spotify remains the main player in the game, with around a quarter billion users worldwide. Despite the increasing amount of users on Spotify, the company frequently loses money. Its costs do not match its revenue from subscriptions or advertisements. What holds the company is its huge stock market value and the "good-heartedness" of the major record companies.

Spotify IPO on Wall Street (Photo: AP)

Spotify Wall Street Issue (Photo: AP, AP)

As the record companies' control of what was happening in Spotify intensified, the monster became restrained. The record companies are investigating the Spotify algorithm so deeply that one by one they work to create "perfect" hits

There are three major music companies in the world today - Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music. Together, they control 90 percent of the market and their daily income from Spotify reaches tens of millions of dollars. Rumors say the three companies also hold a substantial percentage of Spotify shares, a rumor that the companies did not deny in the investigation conducted this year in Fortune magazine. The record companies' relationship with Spotify created a problematic situation, which does not allow Spotify to operate independently and promote music according to objective criteria. The feeling is that record companies are doing Spotify at will. They promote those who matter to them, dominate playlists and do not allow independent artists a foothold. Spotify, which these companies are their main supplier, cannot resist.

As the record companies' control of what was happening in Spotify intensified, the monster became restrained. The record companies are investigating the Spotify algorithm so deeply that, one by one, they work to create "perfect" hits. 2019, for example, saw young rapper Lil Nas X's hit "Old Time Road" become the biggest hit in American parade history, with 19 weeks at the top of the parade. This is considered an unprecedented achievement. The previous record, 16 weeks ago, was set 23 years ago by Mariah Carey in the "One Sweet Day" duo with Boys Too Man and the song seemed to hold its record forever. The big difference is that Mariah and the Boyz have reached the feat thanks to crazy singles sales and the incessant play of the song on the radio. Lil Nas X, on the other hand, was helped by repeated manipulations by the record label Sony on the various music apps.

What exactly did Sony do? Every few weeks, the company created a new attraction related to the song, to empower the buzz towards it. Every two weeks the song was changed every other week, a new version was added to it, a new clip or guests and other singers were added to Night Nas Ex, to increase its visibility. All of these sections - they are all different versions of the same song, so the streams of all these different versions were counted together to make the song a huge hit.In comparison, Carrie's "One Sweet Day" came out in only one release. "Old Town Road", on the other hand, has become a section with three different clips and no less than six different interpretations, involving no less than five different artists who have signed his performance.

Examining 30 random huge hits from 2009, compared to 30 huge hits from 2019, reveals that the average length of a hit has been shortened in a decade in 20 seconds from 3:33 minutes to 3:13. This trend seems to be picking up in 2019, with the presence of hits lasting less than three minutes

While Sony played the American parade with their segment, their great competitor, Universal Music, learned the terrain. Their segment, "bad guy" by young singer Billy Elish, waited no less than 9 weeks for second place behind "Old Town." Despite the strength of the "bad guy", he failed to break the Nas Ex segment, mainly because of Sony's manipulations. Universal lost patience at some point and they decided to manipulate their own. They teamed up with "bad guy" the most conceptual singer from Elisha, the company's joker - Justin Bieber. "bad guy" turned a brilliant, kicking section into a nasty leftist duel between Eilish and Bieber. America was amazed. Whatever the case, the dude "bad guy" did the job and dropped "Old Town" from the summit. Justice seemed to have been done, but since the record companies have taken these matters of manipulation so far, the credibility of the American parade and marches in the world in general have declined greatly.

The record companies' focus on individual songs is part of the understanding that the album is dying. The focus on individual songs has also changed how songs are created. In a competitive market with hundreds of millions of songs available in the app, for a song to succeed - it must stand out. To do this, lots of things were done, but in terms of creating two of the most notable things are that more and more songs are starting at their peak. If from the 1950s onwards we got used to a song that usually starts off nicely, goes on to the house and then comes to a chorus, in the current decade we have seen more and more songs that begin directly with their chorus, namely at the peak. Another notable thing that happened - is that the songs have been shortened to wonders, with today we see quite a few huge hits that last two and a half minutes.

Both of these changes are completely cynical and are related to the listening and revenue habits of streaming companies and artists. As for the chorus that is being developed - the reason is that only if at least 30 seconds of a song is played, the streaming services consider it a "tune" for paying royalties or counting for parades. So if you start with the most "strong" section of the song, the likelihood that the listener will move it on is lessened. The reason for shortening songs is that companies and artists receive a royalty per song. It doesn't matter if it's 5:55 minutes, like Kevin's Bohemian Rhapsody or if it's only 2:37 minutes like Old Town Road. That is, the more songs the consumer plays, the royalties received will be higher and if they are shorter, then the likelihood of this increases.

Examining 30 random huge hits from 2009, compared to 30 huge hits from 2019, reveals that the average length of a hit has been shortened in a decade in 20 seconds from 3:33 minutes to 3:13. This trend seems to be declining in 2019, with the presence of hits lasting less than three minutes, such as Lizzo's "Good as Hell" or Ariana Grande's "7 Rings," becoming more and more prevalent.

One must admit that commercially all the new moves of the record companies in relation to their creation and needs - worked. The piracy in music, for the first time in history, is completely eradicated simply because it is no longer needed. Beyond that, after the lows of 2009, every year the recorded music industry's revenue rises every year, with $ 11 billion in revenue this year, with most of its revenues streaming, but those are not the 1999 numbers, but surely in years The twentieth, the music market is steadily growing and in an economically healthy place.

The top ten most played songs on YouTube and Spotify (together) in the last decade:

1. Louise Ponzi, "Despacito" (2017)
2. Ed Shiran, "Shape of You" (2017)
3.Viz Kalifa, "See You Again" (2015)
4.Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, "Uptown Funk" (2014) )
5. Ed Sheeran, "Thinking Out Loud" (2014)
6. Justin Bieber, "Sorry" (2015)
7. Ed Sheeran, "Perfect" (2017)
8.Psy, "Gangam Style" (2012)
9 Major Laser, DJ Snake, and MØ, "Lean On" (2015)
10. The Chainsmoker, "Closer" (2016)