What Changed the Music Industry?

People involved in the music industry have an opinion on when and what changed the atmosphere of the business. Some say it was the creation of Microsoft in 1997 and some say it was the creation of Napster in 1999 which was the pioneer to sharing music in MP3 format. Maybe it was even when Apple created the first iPod in 2001, allowing people to listen to music on the go. Or was it actually the act of musicians taking into account that the music industry was in fact changing. These changes forced musicians to be innovative about their art. 

Artist like John Mellencamp who early on noticed that the music industry evolving took action on this. Mellencamp was one of the first recording artists to record a song for a major corporation, producing Out Country for Chevy. Why was this such a big deal? Well because he had to think of a new way to produce his music while still profiting from it. 

These new inventions of ways to listen to music put a halt on the promotion of records unless you were a huge name in the industry. Mellencamp saw what other people didn’t, that being that the normal and the old traditional ways of producing and making music were never going to be the same. 

People in marketing also run into this same problem as those in the music industry. Consumers have so many options of how they can see promoted products. So they can easily avoid the annoying advertisements. Now marketing professionals have to think of other ways to get their product noticed just like artists. 

One main way musicians have adapted to this is by being very interactive with fans through social media. By generating followers through social media and engaging with them makes more of a personal connection which in the end can help advertise for concerts or merchandise. Love or hate them, the social media influencers or people who have a large audience on the web have an upper hand when promoting their products.

There’s was new app called Challenged, allowing users to make daily challenges with friends and celebrities focusing on social awareness. This new startup app got involved with celebrity Nash Grier, who has a total of 28.7 million followers on social media (and growing) and the app ended up being in the top 20 lifestyle apps in just a few months. This all segways into how you place your product.

Whatever your point of view on the new ways of digital- music streaming, you may want to get on board with it. Some artists are now even giving their music our for free, like Radiohead and U2. In 2007, Radiohead released In Rainbows for free, asking fans to pay for what they thought their download was worth. And in 2014, U2’s album Songs of Innocence was automatically downlaoded to every iTunes user for free to listen to. The idea of course is to get the music into the hands of the customers first before it is illegally streamed elsewhere or before it is available on other music services like Pandora. It allows artists to provide a particular experience with the consumer, ultimately controlling their view.

On the other hand for businesses, traditional ways of promotion like commercials are slowly but surely losing effectiveness. With less and less TV viewers and people avoiding commercials with the new addition to ad blockers it makes it that much harder for companies to get their product out there and in front of people. Instead business should start to take into consideration creative ways to where the consumers are headed. Again this being the idea of product placement.

Another new way musicians are taking control of their product is by maximizing their distribution of their product all over the internet such as Spotify, Pandora, and even podcasts. All though musicians don't necessarily make a lot of money from these services, it gives small bands or artists an opportunity to potentially be introduced by millions of users all over the world who would not normally listen to their music. The most important thing is to get ones product infront of the customer so that they become aware of their music. And as for podcasts, there are over 1 billion podcasts subscribers tuning in everyday. 

All in all, with the evolving industry it makes marketers be more creative. It keeps those involved in the music industry or marketing companies on their toes.  Always being able to adapt to the new changes and coming up with new ideas for ones product to be noticed is a major key in todays fast changing society. 

By McKenna Marchant