Streaming Independence: New Apps Look to Draw Listeners Toward Music Far Below the Radar
The globally beloved Game of Thrones is a series focused on the ever-shifting power and politics of a small number of queenly and kingly people. Through birthright or attrition they oversee a vast population of indigent subjects whom they never really concern themselves with (outside of worrying over the violence those subjects could inflict on them en masse).
The audience never hears from these subjects or their lives. They impact nothing of importance. They may as well not exist — in fact they don’t, outside of about three scenes. It’s a good metaphor — though far too late to board the hype train — for how the world works.Look at the front page of any streaming service and a parallel is evident — medium-to-high popularity artists, of which there’s very few, are front-loaded. Hi DJ Khaled! Hi Katy Perry! Hi The Beatles! (Wait seriously?) It’s not that independent artists aren’t in there, back behind the blackout curtain of the search bar, but they certainly aren’t visible.
This year, the 50 most-streamed songs accounted for 4.75 percent of all listening on services like Spotify, according to Nielsen Music. Now, 4.75 percent may like a small percentage, but that’s just 50 songs. Spotify has a catalog, behind that blackout curtain, with 35 million of those.
Source: Billboard