MBW’s Stat Of The Week is a series in which we highlight a single data point that deserves the attention of the global music industry. Stat Of the Week is backed by Cinq Music Group, a technology-focused record label, distribution and rights management company.
It was inevitable, but it’s no less noticeable: about 100,000 new tracks are now uploaded to music streaming platforms every day.
Here’s what two of the most influential figures in modern music say: Universal Music Group [2,845 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/universal-music-group/”>CEO and Chairman of Universal Music Group, Sir Lucian Grainge [455 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/people/sir-lucian-grainge/”>Sir Lucian Graingeand the outgoing CEO of Warner Music Group [2,205 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/access-industries/warner-music-group/”>Warner Music Group, Steve Cooper [167 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/people/steve-cooper/”>Steve Cooper.
That’s what Grainge said at the Music Matters conference in Singapore on September 27 100,000 Tracks would now be “added to music platforms every day”.
He argued that this massive amount of music, plus additional “related content” on social platforms, makes it increasingly difficult for artists to reach sizable audiences online.
Therefore, Grainge says, record labels — with their ability to market, promote, and develop artists — are becoming increasingly important to musicians’ careers.
Steve Cooper said on September 12th at the Goldman Sachs Communicopia event: “Today, about any day of the week 100,000 Music tracks are uploaded to SoundCloud [396 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/soundcloud/”>SoundCloud, Spotify [2,949 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/spotify/”>Spotify, Apple [1,005 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/apple/”>Apple, [and] soon.
“The complexity of being able to separate your own music from the rest 99,999 Tracks uploaded that day is incredibly complex [and] incredibly difficult.”
Cooper suggested that the advent of Web3 platforms would increase this complexity for artists because of the “interactivity required to popularize and retain a creator [them] prominent”.
The WMG executive added, “Most developers don’t have the capital, skills, [or] the know-how to do all of that and be successful.” As such, Warner sees Web3 as a “tremendous opportunity” to further assert its role in helping artists get noticed, Cooper said.
“Today, every day of the week, around 100,000 songs are streamed across SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple, [and] soon.”
Steve Cooper, Warner Music Group
This confirmation of 100,000 titles per day The number comes just 18 months after Spotify (in February 2021) announced the end 60,000 Tracks per day were uploaded to its platform.
That 60,000 Milestone passed almost two years after Spotify announced it to investors (in April 2019). “Almost 40,000” Tracks were added to its service every 24 hours.
Previously, in the first half of 2018, Spotify said so 20,000 Tracks were uploaded to its platform every day.
Put these stats in perspective: From 2018 to 2022, the volume of tracks uploaded to Spotify et al daily has multiplied by five.
This information is only arriving as one major streaming service – apple music [1,036 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/apple/apple-music/”>Apple Music – confirmed that the total number of tracks on its platform has now been exceeded 100 million.
That number was itself up from 70 million less than two years ago.
Announcing the 100 million milestone this week, Apple’s global head of editorial said, Rachel Neumansaid, “Today, anywhere in the world, in 167 countries and regions, on Apple Music, any artist of any type can write and record a song and release it worldwide.
“Every day, over 20,000 singers and songwriters contribute new songs to Apple Music—songs that make our catalog even better than it was the day before.”
(An interesting side note: If we’re to believe Lucian Grainge and Steve Cooper’s 100,000-day statistic — and they both run public companies, so we’ll go ahead — that would mean both the 20,000 singer/songwriters Apple named were loading an average of five tracks a day high.)
Obviously this 100 million The stat won’t be unique to Apple Music: the recent rapid growth in volume of music uploads has been fueled by the indie distribution sector, where companies pride themselves on the number of services (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music [169 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/youtube/youtube-music/”>YouTube Music, Amazon Music [237 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/amazon/amazon-music/”>Amazon Music etc.) that they can deliver music to at once.
The question is, is Rachel Newman’s statement really true? Do 100,000 New tracks streaming to Apple Music every 24 hours actually make the catalog “even better than the day before”?
Or are they actually just making it bigger, more overwhelming, and less manageable?
Are they really just diluting the good stuff more and more – and making it harder and harder to find?
Hundred million tracks, if all those tracks were balanced to 3 minutes each you would need about 571 years listen to them one after the other – without sleep.
This is obviously impossible in one lifetime. Or actually in five lifetimes. So who actually benefits from this ever-changing swamp of music?
Indie artist distributors like DistroKid [59 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/distrokid/”>DistroKid and TuneCore [174 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/believe/tunecore/”>TuneCore, of course, takes a fee from every DIY artist whose music they upload to streaming platforms, so there’s a financial gain for them Company (DistoKid was not valued at $1.3 billion for nothing.)
But 100 million tracks is better for audience than, say, 20 million? (Especially considering that statistically some 80% of all tracks on Spotify have fewer than 50 monthly listeners. And that, according to a senior insider at a major record label, “almost everyone knows the Music wasn’t even heard”?)
Is it better for platforms like loss-making Spotify, whose spending on cloud-based storage and hosting of its digital music catalog continues to rise?
(In FY2021, Spotify spent an additional amount, according to an annual SEC filing 33 million euros year-over-year in “Information Technology Expense,” primarily due to an “increase in our use of cloud computing services.”)
And is it better for streaming services’ honest partners – artists and labels alike – who upload the best music they can in the simple hope of finding an audience to enjoy it? (Dinosaur!)
Surely we all live in hope that companies like Spotify and Apple Music will develop (or buy) sophisticated technology that will prevent dangerous and/or hateful content from ever reaching the ears of young users.
But what about basic quality control?
How sure can we be that a significant majority of the tracks under the 100,000 which are now being uploaded daily are not – in the words of Sony Music Group [237 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/sony/sony-music-group/”>Sony Music Group Chairman, Rob Stringer [174 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/people/rob-stringer/”>Rob Stringer – just “Flotsam”?
By which he essentially means stack upon stack of 30-second “sleep” or “sound effects” tracks designed solely to play the pro-rated royalty payout system favored by the music industry’s biggest digital players?
So: 100,000 tracks per day. Above 100 million total tracks.
We are far, far away from “1,000 songs in your pocket”. But maybe not for the better.
Cinq Music Group’s repertoire has won Grammy Awards, dozens of Gold and Platinum RIAA certifications, and numerous #1 chart positions on a variety of Billboard charts. His repertoire includes heavyweights like Bad Bunny, Janet Jackson, Daddy Yankee, TI, Sean Kingston, Anuel and hundreds more.music business worldwide
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