[rchaud]

> A peculiar phenomenon will emerge—listeners will have favorite new songs, but not know (or care) about the name of the artist.

I imagine this has already happened. There is no mystique with artists and bands anymore, as they're all posting their daily minutiae online like everyone else.

Streaming networks' emphasis on playlists in effect created a bottomless pit of fragmented content, much like what FB and IG do with algorithmic feeds. Songs are heard in isolation, jammed in between two similar-sounding songs that come before and after. It's hard to care about an artist when they're one small thumbnail amid a sea of other thumbnails queued up to play next.

It has led to a situation where artists make music that's playlist-friendly, because that's where they have a chance of being heard.

The same way in which people write words on the Internet to match what users type into search engines.

[sage76]

But if that were true, live music revenues would be down, since people wouldn't care much about who is performing.

[saaaaaam]

Not so much - to steal from marketing, recorded music is a top of funnel acquisition activity. Live performance is bottom of funnel conversion.

And, in fact, there are plenty of folk who go to live music events because they want to be at a live music event, not caring too much about who is performing. This is particularly true at the bottom end of the market: go to any show in a major city in a 200 - 400 cap venue and you'll have an audience of people many of whom are more interested in instagramming and being able to tell their friends that they "saw this really cool band in this totally underground venue".

[sage76]

But if people are willing to spend $600 on tickets to Taylor Swift or Drake or whoever, but not on unknown artists, then obviously there is some brand recognition going on right?

Not to mention, some artists can sell out stadiums but most cannot.

[saaaaaam]

Yes. This is my point. Recorded music is top of funnel. Other stuff that drives people to that conversion moment where they buy the $600 ticket for the live show. An artist brand is part of that “stuff in between”.

[sage76]

Gotcha.

So the funnel must be having a way steeper dropoff than in the CD era?

Far more music being released but getting people to come listen to it live being very hard?

I read this article which seems to support that hypothesis : https://towardsdatascience.com/hot-or-not-analyzing-60-years...

It talks about there being fewer artists on the charts, and "a reality where there are a few artists releasing a ton of music — most of it doesn’t last, but the songs that do stick, stay for long".

[saaaaaam]

Lower barriers to entry mean there’s more music than ever before. In the CD era getting music out to an audience was complex and expensive. Write a song. Go into a studio with an engineer. Record on tape. Multitrack. Mix. Master. Press discs. Get them into shops. Get someone to write about them. Get some radio play.

Now you can write and record in an iPhone and build an audience on SoundCloud. Will that audience come to a live show? Almost certainly not.

I used to book bands and promote shows. People would push artists to me based on “they have loads of Facebook fans…” which normally equalled no ticket sales.

What sells tickets? Major investment by labels and live promoters - and longevity. Artists don’t sell out global arena tours overnight.

The music needs to stick but the artists need to stick - and their partners need to stick.

[rchaud]

Isn't that exactly how festivals work? There are 1-2 headliners that are well known, and 20 other obscure bands to fill out the weekend. You can buy a ticket for a day, but you can't only buy a ticket for a particular performance.

[sage76]

So if the premise is correct, festivals would be making a bigger % of live music revenues?

[rchaud]

Tours by mega-bands like U2, Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Rolling Stones, etc. can cover 50+ cities and make hundreds of millions. The combined revenue they generate probably dwarfs festivals. But festivals happen annually and those tours do not.