8Sided Blog

a zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream

SoundCloud’s Phoenix Rises

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It wasn’t that long ago that, along with many others, this blog was contemplating the possibility of SoundCloud’s demise. Yesterday it was announced, via an annual report, that SoundCloud just achieved its first profitable quarter. I’ve always rooted for SoundCloud, so I’m happy for the previously troubled company. 

We can guess at multiple factors for this success. Kerry Trainor’s guidance as CEO looks valuable. As he was previously in charge of Vimeo, many hoped he would bring SoundCloud’s focus back to creators after its short attempt to rival other streaming platforms. SoundCloud’s strength and distinction is its creator community. The shift back to those roots under Trainor (helped by the phenomenon of SoundCloud Rap) put the company back on a lot of radars.

SoundCloud’s integrations and partnerships added value to the service, creating more income opportunities and Pro-level subscribers. Distribution via Repost to the likes of Spotify, AI mastering through Landr, and integrations with multiple DJ software partners (including Pioneer, Serato, and Native Instruments) — among other features — offer an attractive proposition for artists. Platforms like Spotify and Apple Music are wary of such integrations, presumably to keep us within their walled gardens. But users love to tie together the multiple apps and services they use, especially when sharing and promoting music. SoundCloud is smart to welcome these third-party collaborators.

In Music Business Weekly, SoundCloud boasts of 250 million tracks on the platform, versus the 70 million-ish songs on Spotify. Of course, these aren’t all polished songs — this number counts all the demos, goof-offs, DJ mixes, spoken content, and sound collages found on SoundCloud. But this brings out another factor for SoundCloud’s renewed success — the pandemic. In the report, SoundCloud says COVID-times have presented “a true mix of tailwinds and headwinds” (perhaps the understatement of the year). It seems advertising income is the central area of uncertainty. In the ‘tailwind’ category, artists and budding artists in lockdown are adding more music than ever to SoundCloud. Subscriptions are on the rise, as are paying users of the Repost distribution service (estimated to number at 80,000 artists this month). 

Time will tell if this profitable quarter is a fluke for SoundCloud. Spotify only recently achieved occasionally profitable quarters, but its finances still hang in the balance. However, I blanch at writing about profits and earnings reports in this blog, especially as a success measure. What’s important to me is the persistence of this vital tool for sound-creators and their communities. SoundCloud remains a piece of the music ecosystem puzzle and a necessary stomping ground for new and emerging artists worldwide.

🔗→ Soundcloud’s Revenues Jumped 37% to $166m in 2019 – and It’s Just Posted Its First Ever Profitable Quarter

Anchor Drop: Add Music To Your Spotify Shows

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I’m usually critical of Spotify, as I was yesterday, but I’m also happy to give credit when it’s due. Utilizing the company’s 2019 purchase of Anchor and its podcast-creation tools, Spotify now allows users to create podcast-like audio programs around the streaming music available on the platform. I say “podcast-like” because these aren’t what we know as podcasts — these aren’t stand-alone shows that play outside of the Spotify ecosystem, nor can one talk over the music or only include music snippets. The new feature, accessible through the Anchor app, allows users to insert their own audio content — assumed, in most cases, to be spoken commentary or conversations — within their shows (i.e., playlists). In other words, you can create a ‘podcast-like’ playlist that contains your song selections with the sound of you chatting about the songs in-between. These playlists are published to Spotify as a ‘show.’

I’ve spoken about the frustrating issues with licensing music for podcasts before. Those problems persist for podcasts, but Spotify’s work-around is a smart option for those who don’t mind their content getting locked to the platform. The pre-existing music licenses already in place with Spotify apply since users are merely adding music to ‘playlists.’ Technically and legally, it’s nothing new for the platform.

This tool opens up many possibilities for music-oriented programs such as Song Exploder-style dissections or celebrity ‘desert island disc’ spotlights. Anchor’s feature has launched with some interesting examples of it in action, such as this program on murder ballads and The Ringer-associated 60 Songs That Explain The ’90s. 

Of course, artists will have no control over where their songs appear, so thick skins are necessary for the inevitable ‘These Songs Suck’ shows. Spotify may also have to deal with commentary of its platform, as I’d like to see the tool used to highlight and explain ‘fake artists‘ and other efforts by labels and production studios that exploit the streamer for quick bucks. 

Here’s a Twitter thread where Anchor co-founder Michael Mignano announces and describes the new tool: 

🔗→ Introducing a brand new way to create in Anchor, with all the music you love
🔗→ Spotify Now Lets You Add Music Tracks to Podcast Shows

Shine a Light

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First off, as previously mentioned, today is ‘Bandcamp Friday’ — the platform is waiving its cut of revenue with 100% going to the artists. Here are some suggestions where you can throw your support today:

  • Pitchfork’s list of labels and artists directing Bandcamp revenue to Black Lives Matter organizations [LINK]
  • A list of black artists, producers, and black-owned labels on Bandcamp [LINK]
  • Resident Advisor’s list compiling both, with an emphasis on electronic music [LINK]
  • If you’re into ambient music, here’s a Reddit thread listing ambient artists of color that could use your support (h/t Terry Grant) [LINK]

Like most of you, I was feeling dispirited and down yesterday. The constant barrage of evidence that this country is falling apart weighs heavily. And the gray skies and rain weren’t helping. I had an interview scheduled in the early afternoon and didn’t know if I was up for it. I was looking for some good news, and anything would do.

Unexpectedly, Warren Ellis provided that bright spot with a shout out on his blog, perhaps in response to my shout-out to his blog on Tuesday. It’s a nice boost to get mentioned under the ‘Isles of Blogging’ tag. I’m proud to inhabit my little beach-side hut.

One thing I learned: Ellis has a lot of readers. There are a lot of new eyes peering at this speck on the web (hello), and I picked up a healthy amount of newsletter subscribers. Shining a light on a fellow toiling soul is one of the best parts of operating in an independent space, whether you’re a band or a novelist or a painter or a blogger. It’s a lovely feeling when you’re the recipient.

I mentioned Ellis’s newsletter — Orbital Operations — only a couple of days ago. It’s something I look forward to each Sunday. One of its regular highlights is the heartfelt words of encouragement closing each email, a needed end-of-week reminder that things eventually will be cool. I’ll shine a little light back by urging you to subscribe.

My interview was with Lawrence Peryer for the Spot Lyte On podcast. I talked about growing up in Central Louisiana, the challenges of finding underground music there, the historical threads of influence that connects musical artists, utopian streaming models, Kraftwerk (of course), and lots of other things. It was freewheeling and fun. Though I think we intended to include music industry shop-talk, there was very little of that. The podcast hits the pod-ways next week. I’ll give you a preview by linking to a record from 1981 that comes up at the end of the discussion: the mind-blowing “Outside Broadcast.”

Side-note: I enjoy gabbing on podcasts. If you’re interested in having me gab on yours then please get in touch.

I also mentioned a podcast interview with Derek Sivers. It’s an episode of Yo Podcast — an uplifting listen that will give your brain a break from the world-on-fire for an hour. Specifically, I mentioned and clumsily explained this part where Derek answers the question: Hendrix or Bowie?

Jimi Hendrix is like Charles Darwin. Darwin, he presents “The Origin of Species” to the world and it blows everybody’s mind. But now the theory of evolution is common knowledge, so to read the book, “The Origin of Species” now, is not so impressive. So Hendrix presents the “Star-Spangled Banner,” full of feedback and more sounds from a guitar than anyone had heard before, and it blows everybody’s mind. But now, every kid in the guitar store can do the same thing. So to hear the original, is not so impressive. I think it’s kind of the same with Stravinsky and the “Rite of Spring,” it’s actually kind of unfair that they’re revolutionary contribution is diminished with time.

But David Bowie is like Josephine Baker, exotic and desirable in their time, and exotic and desirable now. And same thing with Claude Debussy’s music. Like, David Bowie, Josephine Baker, and Claude Debussy, all of them stood outside of the culture. Their art didn’t infiltrate the culture and culture didn’t assimilate or adopt it. And so time doesn’t diminish their allure.

The podcast audio and the transcription are on Derek’s site.

Once again, dawn brings a bluish-gray over Lake Holden this morning = [LINK]

Bandcamp’s Charitable Opportunity for Artists

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This morning, I mentioned that Bandcamp plans to donate its sales revenue to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund this June 19 and every June 19 after that. I failed to mention that tomorrow, June 5, is another one of Bandcamp’s monthly artist-appreciation days, with the platform paying out 100% of sales to its artists and labels.

There are inspiring examples of the two ideas coming together. Many labels, bands, and artists are taking advantage of Bandcamp’s full payment of sales by pledging that amount to civil rights organizations. For example, I received a message from the cool label Music From Memory. Starting tomorrow, the label is donating ‘all profits’ to Black Lives Matter-related organizations for the next two weeks, which includes tomorrow and June 19. An interesting side-note: Music From Memory hails from Amsterdam, not our troubled USA.

Bandcamp is providing a list of labels and artists with special offers for tomorrow’s percentage holiday, including those giving to charities that can help in this time of civil unrest and tragedy. Many artists and labels that aren’t necessarily relying on Bandcamp income understand the power of redirecting this money to worthy causes. I hope Bandcamp keeps running the monthly ‘waiving-our-percentage’ days long after COVID-19. The gesture not only supports artists but also gives those artists a means to publicly support organizations fighting for issues important to them.

Update: Yes, there’s also this to consider.

Empire Building: Vinyl Edition

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The Dallas Morning News:

[Josey Records managing partners Waric] Cameron and [Luke] Sardello say they approached [vinyl pressing plant owner Stan] Getz about buying A&R in July. They’d known him for years, having run dance-music labels of their own in the mid-1990s; like every local label, they had to get their records pressed at A&R, especially since the CD essentially killed the vinyl industry by the early 1990s and the nearest facility is now in faraway Salina, Kansas.

As recently as five years ago, buying a record-pressing facility might have been considered a dreadful investment unless you also had a time machine to go with it. Yet sales of records continue to climb: According to figures provided by the Recording Industry Association of America, more than 13 million LPs were sold in the U.S. alone in 2014. Numbers haven’t been that high since 1990.

“The business of vinyl is an old business model, and it’s the one that has survived everything,” Sardello says. “Vinyl has survived streaming, and not only has it survived, it’s thrived. It’s up 40 percent each year. So what else is there to detract from it? It’s never been easier to access music, and yet vinyl is as strong as it’s been for the last 25 years.”

At the same time, they will begin opening other Josey Records stores: Cameron says he wants to have six to 10 more outlets in the next two years in “major metropolitan areas,” including San Antonio.

“The thought was always vertical integration,” says Sardello, “We started thinking about bands. We started thinking about a label. We started thinking about a studio. We started thinking about more stores and how we can work with bands and labels and go from pressing your records to distributing our records to putting them in our stores to sending your band on a store tour.”

Kudos to these guys, who I’d met on and off back in my DJ’ing days. The lede buried in the main story, but that I highlight above, is the plan to eventually cover the manufacturing, distribution, and retail stages of releases under the company operation. This is the strategy major labels used to dominate in their heyday, so it’s interesting to see an independent upstart take on similar goals. Of course the elephant in the room is that today’s ‘physical product’ climate is much different (despite comparisons), and the majors themselves no longer follow this process – acquiring equity in streaming services, in hopes to somewhat replicate the traditional food chain, seems to be the current major label modus operandi. So it’s a gusty move to pin such high aspirations on a format with an unpredictable shelf-life … vinyl’s extended perseverance is an optimist’s hope. But, as I join in optimistically rooting for vinyl, I’m also rooting for Josey, and we certainly need more gutsy maneuvers like this in the independent music biz. Rock on.