“We listen to more individual tracks because we’re discovering more music, but that may be leading to more fickle artist/fan relationships And in response, the music industry is mainly sitting there going ‘Shit! How do we get more plays and visibility on streaming services, and how do we crack discovery?’”
“Kids and teens discover music because they want a way to identify themselves.
“They create content that’s very episodic, short-form and very addictive, and they tend to focus on one key community first – YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat or whatever it is. They build up these huge audiences, and along the way, music is getting less important in youth culture.
“Because musicians are trying to spread themselves thin across all these platforms – streaming, social, messaging – and it’s not really working because the audiences are so much less emotionally engaged. There’s a tyranny of choice of music, and slowly but surely our emotional connection to it is being eroded.
“As an artist, it’s not about trying to sell to more people. The trick is to make people give a shit about you: to make them feel something. Those are the people who will keep coming back and streaming your music in the long term.”
