In 2020 the music industry continues to be intensely competitive. More music is being streamed for free or at a low-cost and every day, thousands of podcasts, online radio shows and songs are uploaded to the internet.
Back in 2016, for every minute of the day, around 38,052 hours of music was listened to on Spotify. Over the course of the year, this totals up to over 20 billion hours of music being listened on Spotify alone.
For music fans, access to great albums has never been easier. Listeners now have more choice than ever to stream audio using a range of ‘all-you-can-eat’ services such as Spotify, Bandcamp and SoundCloud.
Due to the increased connectivity of the internet and rise in content distribution options for musicians, there has been a shift in the industry from large record conglomerates, to smaller, independent record labels.
What has enabled this fundamental change? Social Media and mass music-streaming platforms.
Social Media platforms have given musicians more control over the distribution of their music and through the use of services such as Bandcamp, many artists now have the option to bypass the industry conventions completely.
In today’s digital music environment, the threat of substitution is high. Artists must not only compete with other contemporary musicians but also with the recorded archives of popular bands such as The Beatles, Michael Jackson or Adele, whose complete back catalogs are easily available to stream online for free.
Retro formats of music storage such as vinyl and even cassettes have begun to make a comeback.
Furthermore, due to the rise in digital music production software such as FL Studio or Ableton music creation is now more accessible than it ever has been before. Because of this, there are now millions of artists, which ultimately leads to more variety and choice listeners.
