The economics of streaming is changing pop songs

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/10/05/the-economics-of-streaming-is-changing-pop-songs

by RachelF • 7 years ago

51 14 7 years ago

neonate• 7 years ago

toastal• 7 years ago

Thanks. Between my screen cut in half for cookies accepting (with no decline) and an immediate paywall, I was going to skip this.

billsmithaustin• 7 years ago

Reminds me of how long songs used to be trimmed to fit on a 45rpm record.

codeulike• 7 years ago

That 40 second intro to Where The Streets Have No Name that the article mentions was probably only on the album version and not the single, I'll wager. Songs that wanted to be played on the radio a lot also had to get to the point quickly.

pnongrata• 7 years ago

And finish before people lost interest too.

tjansen• 7 years ago

The article describes what used to be called a 'radio mix' or 'radio edit': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_edit

The only difference is that today it is less common to have several mixes of the same song (which mostly existed to fill singles) and people will often stream the album version, so everything is a radio mix today.

wil421• 7 years ago

I used to notice radio songs would be played slightly faster than the CD or an MP3 ripped from the CD I downloaded. Sometimes I woundnt like the slower tempo of certain songs. Now that I steam a lot I don’t notice it. Maybe the streaming services play the radio edits or, as you said, it’s much less common.

lbotos• 7 years ago

No, radio stations would pitch up songs (play them faster/make them more "upbeat") to get more ad time: http://pulsemusic.proboards.com/thread/58007

You'll know the difference between a radio edit and the "original" because one will be ~3-4 minutes and the other can be somewhere from 4-9 minutes for the DJs to mix with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUjE9H8QlA4 - 3:51

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN2Q62uMew0 - 7:22

jihadjihad• 7 years ago

By my count, 11 of the 27 songs on the "Beatles 1" album start with the chorus. Granted, in those days a short and sweet single was the goal so you had to cut to the chase. Seems like history is merely repeating itself

ssttoo2• 7 years ago

“User-centric system” is when I listen only to a small indie band whole month, they get all of my $9.99. As opposed to the current state where the chart toppers get 9.98 and my indie favourite gets 0.01. But

Spotify’s former director of economics thinks it neglected to account for higher administrative costs

I don’t get it. How are admin costs higher if you simply change the formula? To a simpler one IMO.

zck• 7 years ago

I don't know if they're higher administrative costs, but it requires more trust in Spotify.

In the constant stream revenue model, you take the total revenue Spotify is paying out to artists, and divide it by the total number of streams, and that's the cost per stream. Multiply that by the number of streams an artist had, and that's how much money they get. You only have to trust three numbers from Spotify, and two of them are global numbers, so other people will look into them.

In the stream cost per user revenue model, you do that _for each user_, and then sum up each artist's revenue. That's a whole lot of math to be done. Now, computers can do that, but auditing this will be far more complicated.

ssttoo2• 7 years ago

Thank you, makes sense. I was wrong that the per-user is simpler. Yet, it’s only fair. I wouldn’t buy a Rihanna album, in the old physical model, why would she get get my money in the new one? And it’s probably very likely they already have the userId -> songId logs for recommendations and such

wwarner• 7 years ago

The article surprised me. I was forming an opinion that streaming has the opposite effect. When I work at my coworking office, they play a continuous stream of indie rock aimed at adults. Muted guitars, raspy whispers, for well adjusted Nirvana fans. It's like an algorithm found the balance between muzak and the sex pistols.

The economics of streaming is changing pop songs

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