The music download wars hotted up a little more today as Peter Gabriel backed music business We7 announced the release of subscription services and an iPhone application too…
It seems Spotify have gained the lion’s share of press and awareness of late. They did get the subscription-based business model and iPhone capability out first…. but there’s not really that much to choose between these 2 ‘main contenders’ for the digital music crown here in the UK! Go check that out for yourself if you haven’t already!
Main contenders? Well certain parts of the media pitch it that way but both these businesses have some way to go before they can breath easy. Indeed others seem to have slipped into the digital music war background or are they just breathing easier?! A la carte (or pay for a download and keep it) businesses seem popular still…
Both Spotify and We7 offer ad-funded models which we guess are tough to maintain at the moment and the fighting talk from both camps appears to be around offering the music consumer variety and choice - different ways to consume digital music, with adverts, without adverts, download, stream, online, on mobile etc with the next much lauded step being even heavier brand funded music consumption. Already today some car brand have integrated Spotify functionality and content to help them…well…sell you a car!! Is it us or it all getting a bit crazy?
OK - we accept that ad funded music isn’t new. Commercial radio is/was brand-funded music and now that you can programme your own music station that’s great - you can see the benefits BUT where will this journey end? You see when people that are obsessed with money (private equity firms)and people that are obsessed with technology (not music) drive the industry you could argue many (admittedly not all) loose sight of what and why people love music. There is very little investment made in explaining the value of music to people.
It seems so mad, what have these techies done to the music industry?
In one sense they made it so exciting and delivered endless musical choice to music lovers within seconds but FUCK - music just seems to be getting sooo worthless… is that something we want to accept? It’s astonishing that affiliates driving gig ticket sales can grab more per transaction than a reputable online music retailer. And as for the artists…well we’ve all talked that one over and over!
Interestingly if you take away the digerati and media-savvy ‘opinion formers’ many plain simple run of the mill music folk still think iTunes/Amazon etc are easy to use record stores. Delivering high quality downloads (with artwork) that you can keep without worrying about long term subscription commitments or annoying fucking adverts every ten minutes…and those that are skint or lower down the financial ladder for whatever reason are gonna keep ripping their mates music, fact. Share the files, pass em round…you know the score. You don’t need old Napster or any large scale P2P network to do that…even swapping iTunes collections between real friends P.F.B. (pre-Facebook) seems a pretty popular way to get a few thousand songs for free every month or so.
Evolution? We reckon many in music wish time had stood still. We genuinely watch with eager eyes the evolution of both Spotify and We7 - they are great services - and we don’t lay the digital revolution related problems in music at their respective doors…
BUT we shudder to think that one day you’ll be getting the latest boy band tracks with your loaf of bread, easily digested as some microscopic chip, that embeds in your intestines and plays every time you walk past a food store……aaaarrggghhh! If you stop buying our bread we’ll make you listen to this shit EVERY day!
It’s our humble opinion that music (most of it anyway!) deserves better and there might, just might come a day when we realise what we have done to this particular creative process. Let’s talk more about the songs than how you consume them PLEASE.
GYEO