The Success Of Streaming Has Been Great For Some, But Is There A Better Way?
It's tough to recall a time when listening to music — and making it — wasn't completely synonymous with streaming. The idea of filling an iPod up with carefully selected digital files almost feels like a distant memory, though it wasn't that long ago that these kinds of players, and the digital library of songs you built through them, embodied the future of music. (For what it's worth, Apple still sells one.) These days, streaming services offer music fans a tantalizing premise: Instant, limitless access to music from all over the world and across history, for a small monthly fee. Or for free, as long as you're cool with advertisements cutting into the experience.
These days, part of being an artist — from Top 40 superstars to independent bedroom songwriters, the Bad Bunnys and Nobunnys alike — entails throwing oneself professionally and promotionally into these services. "Professionally, streaming has become crucial for the artists I work with, and it's become such a big part of what we do in terms of marketing our campaign and making sure that people know that it's on these streaming platforms," says Katie Garcia, who owns Bayonet Records and does A&R for Secretly Group. "It's crucial nowadays; it's a necessity."
The tantalizing premise of streaming has been a success story in many ways. Industry strategy firm MIDiA Research notes that recorded music revenues ballooned to $18.8 billion last year, a $2.2 billion uptick from 2017 — within that, streaming was up 30% year on year, and climbed to $9.6 billion, in what they describe as "the engine room of growth" for the industry. In a 2018 year-end report, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) touted the fact that "for the third year in a row, double-digit growth was driven primarily by increased revenues from paid subscription services including Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon and others." The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's (IFPI) most recent Global Music Report revealed that in the United States, streaming revenues steadily rose by 33.5% last year. (In 2017, that number was even higher: 50%.)
But, while streaming continues to evolve at a breakneck pace, the system through which artists are
