8Sided Blog

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

Why Streaming is the Future of DJ’ing

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Download sales are in a free-fall as acceptance of music streaming continues to grow. If you’re in the dance music industry, you might feel some immunity (at least for now) as DJs are your primary customers. And DJs have to download, right? They still need the digital files on a USB, or a CD if they’re (ahem) old school. Well …

Complete Music Update:

Dance music download platform Beatport has acquired Pulselocker, the DJ-centric streaming service that ceased operations late last year.

Pulselocker allowed DJs to access music to include in their sets. It integrated with various DJ software and hardware systems, worked offline, and reported usage back to rights owners. As a result of the deal, Beatport plans to utilise Pulselocker’s patented technology within its own planned streaming service later this year.

Coverage of this acquisition has noted that Beatport previously attempted a streaming service and failed. But it’s easy to see that the plan here is much different. While Beatport’s earlier streaming ambition was to be like a dance music Spotify, the Pulselocker acquisition promises something new: a subscription streaming service for DJs.

I remember once terrifying a DJ friend of mine with the prediction of a ‘Wi-Fi CDJ’ that would access the DJ’s library from the cloud. The result is not that much different than inserting a USB, really — the DJ would be found scrolling through song titles on the CDJ’s screen and queuing selected tracks for play. It made sense for this prediction to be subscription-based, and for the DJ to be able to organize the catalog with folders and tags beforehand using an app. There would also be an offline element in case the network connection got spotty. My friend was worried as this alternate future killed dance music’s market for downloads.

But the last market flying the flag of paid downloads isn’t as healthy as we’d like to believe. DJs are a tribal group, bonding tightly over music and club life. The thought of piracy may not ever enter their minds but sending MP3 copies of a dozen hot tracks to a DJ buddy is an acceptable notion. The dance music world is also rooted in an often desperate promo culture, with labels sending links to free downloads of the latest release to hundreds (sometimes thousands) of tastemakers in one go. Don’t get me wrong — many DJs are still buying downloads, but many others are incentivized not to.


The streaming DJ set-up is disruptive and offers an alternative. The convenience of instantly adding to one’s library transforms copying and sharing amongst DJs into recommending. And I can also see promo services doing deals with Beatport or other streaming-for-DJ services, allowing private ‘lockers’ of pre-release music accessible only through invitation.

There is an issue of bandwidth and audio quality. Discerning DJs prefer the uncompromised quality of a WAV or AIFF audio format, which means large file sizes. But bandwidth and speed are always getting better, and I can imagine these futuristic CDJs utilizing a cellular network in addition to Wi-Fi internet, or can be reliably wired in by ethernet or other systems. There’s also the offline option, and I guess that libraries would be downloaded ahead of time into temporary onboard memory – or transferred to a USB for backup – in case of network failure. If this all works as planned then why even play MP3s? The DJ has the preferable WAV or AIFF option at her fingertips (or, likely, a future lossless format devised for streaming DJs) so why settle for inferior sonics? The overall sound of clubland improves.

For labels and self-releasing artists, the available data will be mind-blowing. Theoretically one could check stats on a Monday morning to see how many times a track got played over the weekend, in what cities, and maybe even — if these future CDJs are geo-located — what clubs. There’s also a payment to labels per play which might mirror Spotify’s subscription model (though I hope Beatport considers adopting a subscriber share model). At first, this may seem a severe downgrade from download income, but when one considers the decline in shared MP3s and the potential monetization of promos (not to mention the improved potential for discovery), then things get a little rosier.

Another factor making a difference is the conceivable ease of reporting venue play for performance royalty collection. Ideally, I’d like to see the streaming service or even the CDJ itself automatically report the set list to performance rights organizations. If that doesn’t happen, then the DJ or venue can easily output a list of the songs played during a set for online submission. This innovation, coupled with the advent of audio fingerprint technology in play identification (already being tested in a handful of countries such as Germany and the UK), helps solve the longstanding problem of inaccurate distribution of venue-related performance royalty. Historically, a nightclub’s yearly license payment to a performing rights organization (such as BMI and ASCAP) goes to an assumed pool of top-tier artists, no matter the music policy of the club. These technological solutions would radically change the landscape, and non-mainstream clubs could finally see their mandatory licensing fees going to underground artists. So, in the near future, a dance music producer could find direct income from DJ play via streaming subscriptions and venue performance royalty.

It’s inevitable that DJs will use streaming or cloud-based services as their ‘record crates’ (well, save for the vinyl hold-outs — like me). DJs are not strangers to disruption, having transitioned from 12”s to CDs to USB sticks to laptops in just over thirty years. But this is the big one, changing how we select, promo, discover, collect, play, and monetize. The art of DJ’ing responds to the technology so it will be interesting to see how this next step affects the DJs, their ingenuity, and the sounds they play.

The Endurance of Hype Machine

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Technical.ly Brooklyn:

The Greenpoint-based Hype Machine is a website that conglomerates music blogs and forms music charts out of what the blogs are covering. The more blogs are writing about a particular song, the higher it is on the Hype Machine’s Popular chart. As music blogs tend to be on the early adopter side of the industry, the songs you hear on the Hype Machine’s popular playlist are unlikely to be those you hear on the radio, or Spotify for that matter.



The site grew to become a place where tastemakers would go to hear new music, and, thus, a critical part of the music industry. In 2008, Billboard described the Hype Machine as “One of today’s most groundbreaking online music services … emerging as a juggernaut of growing influence.”



But the world moves on. Where Hype Machine was well-positioned in the new universe of music blogs, the industry has continued changing. People still write and follow music blogs, to be sure, but not as they once did, when Vampire Weekend went from unknown to indie kings off the strength of blog buzz.



“It definitely changed the type of blogs that are out there, it’s way more professional [now],” said Volodkin. “And that’s another thing I’m thinking about, too. If we don’t have blogs in the same way we did what are some other ways we can accommodate?”



It may surprise you how popular the aged (in internet years) Hype Machine is among young starting-out independent artists. Getting massive blog notice and thus moving up the Hype Machine chart is a strategic priority among the SoundCloud set, even more so than Spotify plays and Pitchfork reviews. As the article alludes, it’s one of the last outlets for breaking emerging / unsigned artists. However, the purity of the process has been tainted by pay-for-play blogs and repost channels, and many young artists have no problem ponying up for a blog placement.

Facebook’s inevitable foray into music streaming could harness some of Hype Machine’s approach by utilizing social media shares, posts, and mentions to build its own automated music charts (much like Hype Machine presently does with its Twitter chart). Integrating a streaming service with an already vibrant social media community has innovative potential and, somehow, is uncharted territory.

2017: ‘The Start of Something Big’

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Brian Eno:

This is the start of something big. It will involve engagement: not just tweets and likes and swipes, but thoughtful and creative social and political action too. It will involve realising that some things we’ve taken for granted – some semblance of truth in reporting, for example – can no longer be expected for free. If we want good reporting and good analysis, we’ll have to pay for it. That means MONEY: direct financial support for the publications and websites struggling to tell the non-corporate, non-establishment side of the story. In the same way if we want happy and creative children we need to take charge of education, not leave it to ideologues and bottom-liners. If we want social generosity, then we must pay our taxes and get rid of our tax havens. And if we want thoughtful politicians, we should stop supporting merely charismatic ones.



Inequality eats away at the heart of a society, breeding disdain, resentment, envy, suspicion, bullying, arrogance and callousness. If we want any decent kind of future we have to push away from that, and I think we’re starting to.



There’s so much to do, so many possibilities. 2017 should be a surprising year.

David Bowie’s Music Industry Future Vision

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The Week:

{David} Bowie’s capacity for groundbreaking even extended into the arena of economics. In 1997, he pioneered the idea of using his future royalty payments as backing for financial securities that could be sold on the markets to investors. The so-called “Bowie bonds” themselves didn’t work out too well. But the idea of turning the streams of royalty payments from intellectual property rights into a financial security took off in film rights, comic strips, pharmaceuticals, restaurant franchises, and more. Such oddball securities now make up 21 percent of the U.S. market for asset-backed insurance.



But what’s even more interesting is why Bowie cooked up this idea. In 2002, in the heyday of Napster and the free file-sharing craze, Bowie told The New York Times he thought the entire business model of the music industry was collapsing. Fourteen years later, things did not pan out as dramatically as Bowie predicted — but he got the basic thrust right.



David Bowie in The New York Times, 2002:

”I don’t even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don’t think it’s going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way,” he said. ”The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing.”



”Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity,” he added. ”So it’s like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You’d better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that’s really the only unique situation that’s going to be left. It’s terribly exciting. But on the other hand it doesn’t matter if you think it’s exciting or not; it’s what’s going to happen.”

2015: This Is A Recap

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I admit, I do like end-of-year ‘best of’ lists.

I’ve used my work – and being immersed in client music – as an excuse not to listen to much new music. I’d bashfully tell people “I’m actually a bit out of touch” when a new release or band was mentioned. These past few months I’ve aimed to change this, in part by training myself to listen to music while working (for me, it’s a practiced skill to not get distracted by music). Then, armed with a handful of ‘Best of 2015’ album lists and an Apple Music subscription I made a truncated journey through the year in album releases. And I’ve been loving it. Here are some of the lists I’ve been consulting:

FACT’s 50 Best Albums of 2015
The Quietus Albums Of 2015
Bleep’s Best of 2015 (good re-issues + compilations sections here, too)
NPR Music’s 10 Favorite Electronic Albums Of 2015

There are other lists bookmarked that I’ll be hitting, but this is what I have covered so far. What have I found? That I really like these albums:

Colleen – Captain of None (Thrill Jockey)
– My most exciting discovery. This album is fantastic and otherworldly.
Floating Points – Elaenia (Luaka Bop)
– I think I’m a little late on Floating Points but this album was an impressive introduction. The 10+ minute “Silhouettes (I, II & III)” is a stunner.
Four Tet – Morning/Evening (Text Records)
– Fout Tet has obviously been on my radar, but not much of his output has grabbed me quite like this two song album.
Cliff Martinez – The Knick, Season 2 (Original Series Soundtrack) (Milan Entertainment)
– I actually haven’t seen this on any ‘best of’ lists yet, but Martinez’s work on The Knick (also recommended) is among his most compelling. My current favorite ‘gotta focus on this tedious computer task’ soundtrack.
Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood, and the Rajasthan Express – Junun (Nonesuch Records)
– There’s not a whole lot on this to differentiate it from purely an Indian / world music album, but it’s still a great one. Greenwood’s input isn’t always obvious, but when his influence is apparent – like on the rapturous “Roked” – it’s the kind of fusion that really piques my attention.

As you may have noticed, spacey and somewhat laid-back electronic music is what’s turning me on at the time of making this list. Though, on the grungy shoegaze tip, “Firehead” by Infinity Girl rocked my boat repeatedly since its release a few months back. Their album’s not bad, either, though I’m not sold on the band name.

I’m continuing this adventure of listening to new music and going through ‘best of’ lists so mine above is hardly complete. I’ll continue to practice my ‘listen while working’ skill in 2016 so next year’s list should be more of a corker.

When it comes to movies, it is interesting that my two favorite films of 2015 were not movies per se, but are in fact BBC produced documentaries. Adam Curtis’s Bitter Lake blew my mind in January and continues to do so … I watched it for the fourth or fifth time last week. Its content is eye-opening and incendiary, but Curtis’s use of visuals (the bulk being found footage, mostly discarded, from BBC News’s Afghanistan coverage) and music is revolutionary. And then there’s Atomic – Living In Dread And Promise, commissioned as part of BBC’s Storyville series. With help from a moody soundtrack by Mogwai, Mark Cousins (known for his expansive and essential The Story of Film: An Odyssey) has crafted a sort of meditation on life in the nuclear age. Like Bitter Lake, this film is made up of found footage juxtaposed to give additional meaning and emotion, and is narration-free, at least verbally.

Of the handful of ‘real’ movies I saw in 2015, I loved Paul Thomas Anderson’s divisive Inherent Vice most of all, and I discovered profound meaning where I know many others found complete nonsense. I can dig it. Mad Max: Fury Road is the only other movie I saw multiple times, which puts it in odd company with Bitter Lake. If I’m feeling down I just imagine I’m the guy whose job it was to mash up all those automobiles. Ex Machina was fine stuff, though I wasn’t as nuts about it as others were. Fantastic score by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow and composer Ben Salisbury, too. The End Of The Tour gave me a lot to think about and used Eno’s “The Big Ship” in a wonderful way. And I believe Mommy is technically a 2014 film, but it opened in the US in January and it’s a definite favorite. 26 year old director Xavier Dolan is responsible for one of the most moving and heartbreaking sequences I’ve ever seen in a narrative film … that one towards the end, and you definitely know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen Mommy.

Unlike music, which I listened to more of this year (though mainly in the past couple months), I usually watch a whole lot of movies. But this year I consumed a lot less – as I worked a whole lot more – so I’m sure there’s a bunch left out, and a bunch of 2015 winners I’ll see later on that would’ve made it up there. But I know that’s everyone’s story.

As for me, 2015 brought on a lot of professional changes that don’t feel confined to this year as they are ongoing. I’m in the middle of planning a new creative project that I’m quite excited about, but it probably won’t see a launch until the middle of 2016. I’m also opening up 8D Industries a bit more to provide ‘virtual assistant for the music industry’ services, helping with things like contract management, music publishing organization, royalty calculation, web site administration, and so on. More news on this soon. 8DPromo continues to develop into an increasingly efficient promotions machine with a fine group of labels on board. 8DSync looks to expand with new catalog and site features added early in the new year. It seems my plate is full.

So, indeed, here’s to 2016. {glass clink} I’m anti-resolution, but making new friends and connections is paramount in this coming year. If there’s a way you think we might be able to work together, or if you just want to reach out with a ‘hello’, question, and/or comment then please do so. Let’s make things happen.

The Crisis Of Proliferation

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BBC:

In 1976, a French polymath called Jacques Attali wrote a book that predicted this crisis with astonishing accuracy. It was called Noise: The Political Economy of Music and he called the coming turmoil the “crisis of proliferation”. Soon we would all have so much recorded music it would cease to have any value, he said.



Music, money and power were all tightly interlinked, he wrote, and had a fractious relationship stretching back through history.



Powerful people had often used music to try and control people. In the 9th Century, for example, the emperor Charlemagne had imposed by force the practice of Gregorian chant “to forge the cultural and political unity of his kingdom”. Much later, the arrival of capitalism and the pop charts gave moguls the chance to use music to extract large amounts of money from people. But at the same time, music can be used to subvert power, and undermine the status quo. Rock and roll in 1950s America, for example, helped to sweep away a raft of conservative social mores.



This tension led Attali to conclude that industry executives could not control the way we bought and sold music forever. As we became flooded with more music than we could ever listen to, he argued, the model would eventually collapse.


The article goes on to talk about the economically predictive nature of the music industry and how Pirate Bay has started distributing 3D printed objects. There’s some pessimism (not applicable to live musicians) that I don’t necessarily agree with, but this sort of future-thinking is always welcome brain food.

The Creative Apocalypse That Wasn’t

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The New York Times Magazine:

Thanks to its legal troubles, Napster itself ended up being much less important as a business than as an omen, a preview of coming destructions. Its short, troubled life signaled a fundamental rearrangement in the way we discover, consume and (most importantly) pay for creative work. In the 15 years since, many artists and commentators have come to believe that (this) promised apocalypse is now upon us — that the digital economy, in which information not only wants to be free but for all practical purposes is free, ultimately means that ‘‘the diverse voices of the artists will disappear,’’ because musicians and writers and filmmakers can no longer make a living.



It seems logical to critics that we will end up in a world in which no one has an economic incentive to follow creative passions. The thrust of this argument is simple and bleak: that the digital economy creates a kind of structural impossibility that art will make money in the future. The world of professional creativity, the critics fear, will soon be swallowed by the profusion of amateurs, or the collapse of prices in an age of infinite and instant reproduction will cheapen art so that no one will be able to quit their day jobs to make it — or both.



(The artists’) financial fate turns out to be much harder to measure, but I endeavored to try. Taking 1999 as my starting point — the year both Napster and Google took off — I plumbed as many data sources as I could to answer this one question: How is today’s creative class faring compared with its predecessor a decade and a half ago? The answer isn’t simple, and the data provides ammunition for conflicting points of view. It turns out that (pessimists were) incontrovertibly correct on one point: Napster did pose a grave threat to the economic value that consumers placed on recorded music. And yet the creative apocalypse (we were) warned of has failed to arrive. Writers, performers, directors and even musicians report their economic fortunes to be similar to those of their counterparts 15 years ago, and in many cases they have improved. Against all odds, the voices of the artists seem to be louder than ever.


This article is a must-read, and not just for its refreshingly optimistic tone about the economic changes in our creative culture. I had to hold back on quoting more from it above as almost every paragraph is fascinating. The author looks at not just the music industry but also the state of film and literature and determines what those in the trenches have suspected: things aren’t necessarily rosy for the legacy media companies, but are looking good for individual creators who know how to ride the landscape. Gee, it’s almost like someone out there has been purposefully controlling the narrative, pushing ‘doom and gloom’ stories for all artists who embrace this democratization through technology.

Also touched on in the article is how there are now so many more opportunities for musicians and content creators to make income on their work. Chris Anderson’s ‘Long Tail’ may not have fully realized, but indeed there are multiple avenues of artist income available now that didn’t exist even 15 years ago. On top of this, the crumbling of the traditional distribution model – which is the source of anxiety for all these big media companies – and the dramatically reduced costs for creating new media open up unlimited possibilities. It’s the punk rock dream come true.

Related, and also recommended, is this latest episode of the Mac Power Users podcast where the hosts chat with songwriter Jonathan Mann about how he makes a living by recording a song a day. Most of the podcast is a lot of technical talk, but the really interesting section starts around 1:08:00 where Mann gets into the business of what he does. Basically none of this would have been possible for him a couple years ago.

Update: The Future Of Music Coalition has some crticisms, and I have a few more thoughts.