The Music Business Turns Into Groundhog Day
Discover more from The Honest Broker
The Music Business Turns Into Groundhog Day
A new consumer survey measures an industry in which "time is standing still"
A new report came out today on the state of contemporary music. But the only thing new is the report. When it comes to the actual music preferred by consumers, old songs are winning every battle. “The more things change,” the study’s authors admit, “the more they seem to be staying the same.”
The Honest Broker is a reader-supported guide to music, books, and culture. Both free and paid subscriptions are available. If you want to support my work, the best way is by taking out a paid subscription.
I first covered this alarming trend back in January, when I published my analysis “Is Old Music Killing New Music?” I won’t repeat what I said in that much-discussed article, but the bottom line was ugly: No matter what metric you picked—streams, downloads, investment dollars, ticket sales, etc.—music consumption was focused increasingly on old songs.
Now we have more information from Coleman Insights, a media research company that periodically surveys consumers about their musical tastes, and the news is even more discouraging. Here’s how they describe the current situation in the summary of their report:
“We have yet to detect any rebound in consumers’ enthusiasm for contemporary music….It still feels like the movie Groundhog Day when it comes to contemporary music, as time feels like it is standing still.”
What exactly does ‘time standing still’ look like in music? Consider the study’s attempt to measure the most popular song right now. Here’s what they found:
But the problem is much bigger than one sentimental song. The entire top ten is mostly unchanged from the last time they surveyed consumers:
No matter how they sliced and diced the data, the story was the same. Here’s the big picture—this chart measures the age of the 100 most popular songs and how it has changed over the course of four years.
I note that this survey only focuses on songs released in the last five years. So we have no way of gauging how even older music might fare. Yet even within this small subset of recent songs, new music is losing its audience.
This lack of interest in new offerings would be troubling in any industry. After all, innovation is the lifeblood of a business. But an obsession with the past is particularly ominous when it comes to music.
Music has long been a leading cultural indicator. Throughout history you could predict societal changes before they happened, simply by studying what songs are climbing the charts. What does it mean when this forward-looking art form unexpectedly turns around and decides it prefers the past?
Surely that is a sign of some broader cultural change that is coming at us. I could speculate on what it might be. On the other hand, we can just wait and find out. And unless this troubling trend reverses—an unlikely development—we certainly will.
The Music Business Turns Into Groundhog Day
I don’t buy the idea that the quality of music has declined. A quick listen to Gioia’s best of lists in the last five years proves my point. It’s more that the passive music consumer isn’t buying what the music industry is selling. So consumers default to what they last liked when they kind of paid attention.
To active listeners, the ones who still read columns and scour Bandcamp, the amount of great music being produced is impossible to keep track of.
A few weeks back, I went to a Journey/Toto concert here in Seattle with about 17,000 people. A very mainstream show. And I remarked that night, as I have very often over the last decade, that I can’t think of a single contemporary artist who is likely to sell 17,000 tickets in 2062. And what of The Rolling Stones, Queen, Elton John, or U2 or others who can sell out 60,000 seat stadiums? There are a lot of reasons why this is happening and we’re all going to agree and disagree about reasons and repercussions. But I think of those days in the 70s when I waited for hours (and some friends waited for days) outside ticket offices to get THOSE tickets for THAT concert. I think there was more ceremony then. It was more of a religious experience.