Music and Technology have evolved rapidly over the last two decades, giving rise to a plethora of music cultures, genres, sound styles hence giving birth to a new crop of fans & music listeners. These new listeners, according to singer-songwriter-author Thomas Honeyman form the core of Generation Y or The Millennials. And this Generation has influenced music taste to an extent that they are able to shape the realm, bend the curve and single-handedly affect everything about the Music Industry. We take a look at the major factors that influence Music culture today and how the Generation Y plays a pivotal role in influencing Music reception.
More Talk, Less Music
Let’s face it. Artists of today have become more accessible to their fans than ever before. Social media platforms, give one the opportunity to interact directly with the fans, leave a message – get a reply and create a chain of interactive back-and-forth responses. While inherently this seems like a good practice, one must wonder, where is the ‘awe’? Artists of yesteryears, would only be associated with their music, people would have to line up for hours to get a glimpse of them and when they would speak, they would discuss only music. With social media benches, making it almost compulsory to document every thought you might have, even artists take that route in order to connect to their audiences better. “Branding”, “Image”, “PR” are words that would never even be closely related to music a little less than two decades ago, however now, “Image Sales” have become more important than Actual Music sales. Pointed out by Honeyman, there has been a sharp decline of album sales over the years, with festival and performance attendance at a sharp rise. Even Big spending brands such as GUESS, Red Bull and Steve Madden have poured more than $1.34 billion into sponsoring music venues, festivals and tours this year alone as they understand that the current Generation identifies itself to music culture through unified experiences, as opposed to purchasing or downloading an entire album or LP. In response, artists respond to this requirement, sometimes putting their own creative intent, such as producing a dedicated Artist Album, at the backseat. Reportedly, the top 10 highest-earning electronic artists last year cumulatively made just over $240 million; a figure that seems to be increasing exponentially, thanks to enormous brand values of artists.
DAW – Making Music on the Go!
Digital Audio Workstation or DAWs are now a homemade recipe for Professional Audio productions. With the availability of virtual instruments such as pianos, synthesizers, drum machines etc, there is no limit to curating a sound you can concoct in your mind. As the years pass, more user-friendly softwares, plug-ins and technology make music making as a workflow smoother and freeflowing. With cheap and high-quality resources for learning the craft of audio production at one’s fingertips, artists and musicians can compose music without literally having to step out of their bedrooms! When music composition becomes this intuitive, it calls for a more versatile and variety defined soundscape. We see artists from different genres collaborating, bringing their best together to cater to music fans of all styles. As we enter a new era of music culture, the role of DAWs will become more critical than ever before as Live instruments will find a synergy with virtual instruments creating a cross pollination of music styles.
Music Discovery is Easier than Ever Before
With the advent of music sharing platforms such as SoundCloud, MixCloud, YouTube, Spotify and countless others, discovering music has become easier than ever before. The industry “middle-man”, so to speak, has been severed from the equation, as fans can directly listen to previews, at their own leisure and choose to order/purchase the music at the click of the button. This has allowed artists to reduce their dependency on big labels, giving the opportunity for a crop of new labels and studio houses to spring up rapidly. Also, through these music sharing platforms, listeners stumble upon new music and new artists everyday. With the range of music culture increasing so exponentially, the demand for musicians to keep up has also increased profusely. Artists are constantly pushed to come out with new productions, mixes, samples, previews to continuously engage their audiences, or else audiences would just stumble upon another artist. The focus has shifted from listeners waiting for artist’s productions to the roles being switched.
Do-It-Yourself
Music Industry’s biggest names such as Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus are all backed by talented songwriting and production teams, who work tirelessly around the clock in order to ensure consistent production value for their artists. And now, with the pool of resources at our fingertips, such as affordable recording technology, mixing and mastering applications, and sound sharing platforms, allow talented individuals to team up and rival big labels and production houses! While the creative process in music production is still something, that needs true talent, perseverance and tremendous amount of skill, starting-up and sustaining yourself in the industry has become a smoother process than it used to be a couple of years ago.
With the Generation Y dominating all fields of Technology and Development, its clear that their influence has governed all branches of Music industry. As an audience, they push the artists/labels/production teams and as producers, they step up their game by making music-making a process that is far more intuitive and instinctive than ever before. With so much happening within the last decade, it is difficult to predict what trends this industry will follow in the coming years. Guess we’ll have to just wait and watch, won’t we?
Source: EliteDaily
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