Thread by @future_of_music

Seeing this piece making the rounds, and it makes some provocative claims that deserve scrutiny and investigation of the data. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Let's start by observing that the piece's author @tedgioia is an important and respected voice in music writing, and he's definitely on artists' and audiences' sides.

So if there's some skepticism about the claims made in this piece, it points to problems in the the bigger discourse. (Ted's books are are good and important and you should read/buy them!)

A central claim that the piece makes is "the new music market is actually shrinking--all the growth in the market is coming from old songs." The data cited in support of this is from MRC--you might remember when this company was called Nielsen Soundscan.

The folks at MRC do their best to generate good data, but there are challenges in obtaining complete data--especially for the stuff that happens at the commercial margins and at smaller scales--small independent labels, physical sales at shows.

But even where the data does exist--it's important to investigate what it actually says. MRC does indicate a growing share for catalog. But "catalog" describes anything more than 18 months old.

If you're a young artist who put out your first album in July 2020, by this measure, MRC lumps you in with The Beatles and Dizzy Gillespie.

It's an interesting data point, but the conclusions that you can meaningfully draw from it are somewhat limited because of the binary "new" vs "catalog" distinction. More useful might be a breakdown of consumption with various measures by time.

The author notes that its possible based on this data that people are listening to music from 2 years ago rather than but argues "that fact would still represent a repudiation of the pop-culture industry, which is almost entirely focused on what’s happening right now."

But we simply don't have data to make a comparison between pre-streaming environments and what's happening right now. Interactive streaming uses play count as proxy for value and that represents a big change from physical media.

If we look at historical data from 2002, we basically have sales. We don't have equivalent data about *listening* to compare how much of what consumers were listening at the time to was new vs catalog.

There are important changes in the way interactive streaming allocates value and effectively can monetize back catalog that might otherwise be dormant (because fans had already purchased it a decade ago).

It's likely that this dynamic is driving some of the additional investment and reinvestment in back catalog that we're seeing currently (both on the sound recording and publishing sides). But it's important to put this in context.

When Dylan or Springsteen etc ink publishing deals with big dollar amounts attached, it makes headlines. When non-superstar songwriters sign publishing deals for their new work, no one writes about it, because it's not really news.

We don't actually have data on the relative allocation of investment dollars in artists at different stages of their careers over time, and so we should be cautious about drawing conclusions from what we see from big name artists in a hot market.

Gioia writes "The song catalogs in most demand are by musicians who are in their 70s or 80s (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen) or already dead (David Bowie, James Brown)." But the terms of most publishing deals aren't public so we don't have a firm basis to claim that.

We don't find out what's in most publishing deals (whether future or catalog focused) unless it's commercially advantageous for one of the relevant entities to put out a press release. We don't have a basis to compare Dylan/Springsteen deals to Drake/Taylor Swift deals.

There's also this claim: "the risk of copyright lawsuits is greater than ever before. The risks have increased enormously since the 'Blurred Lines' jury decision of 2015, and the result is that additional cash gets transferred from today’s musicians to old (or deceased) artists."

That's a pretty sweeping claim to drop without offering actual data pointing to a boom in lawsuits. (If someone is tallying court filings, please let us know!)

Even if true, it doesn't necessarily follow that this would be a transfer of money from "new artists" to "old artists." While a copyright lawsuit does require a pre-existing work, new artists can be plaintiffs too (if they can afford counsel).

And even then, it's not in evidence that the overall payouts in copyright infringement lawsuits between songwriters are an economically significant factor in the big picture of how different kinds of creative workers are faring in this marketplace.

Rather than keep going and flagging claims made without supporting evidence, here's why it matters: more and more folks understand that the current music marketplace isn't really working for a whole lot of music creators, but there's still a lot of confusion about the details.

Getting the details right is the only way to get the power analysis right. And getting the power analysis right is the only way to call for the right reforms and changes (whether through public policy or business).

When repeated unchallenged, simple narratives (like "old music is killing new music") can calcify as faulty conventional wisdom, and end up being a real impediment to necessary change.

It's easy to see what's seductive about this narrative. If you see artists making new music struggling to sustain careers and headlines about legacy artists inking big money deals, the contrast is sharp.

If we look instead at both these phenomena as symptomatic of fundamental structural aspects of the currently dominant music listening offerings, we can avoid the pitfall of pitting new music vs old, or smaller DIY musicians against superstars.

Indeed the best proposals for reform out there would end up working to the ultimate advantage of artists with diverse business models and career paths.

Let's finish up with a couple things that the piece got right. First, there are real and urgent challenges faced by artists making new work in this marketplace. Overall growth in streaming revenues isn't of much comfort or relevance to those folks.

Second: we can't simply accept the neoliberal logic that frames changes in listening behavior as evidence of consumer taste. We have to critically interrogate the way power shapes markets and influences consumer choice, with an eye toward cultural diversity as a public good.

Third: we have to look critically at platform power. Gioia is absolutely right to raise broadcast and satellite radio's outsize power in controlling access to audiences.

It's not just because they're risk averse and nostalgic--it's because ownership consolidation has created dysfunction in the market. Too few companies control too many radio stations, and their cookie cutter formats have been bad news for local and diverse music.

Satellite radio in the US is controlled by one company, the monopolist Sirius XM, which also controls the leading digital radio service Pandora.

In a healthy marketplace, digital services could offer an array of alternatives to gatekeeper dynamics, but too often they end up replicating (and in Spotify's case attempting to monetize) gatekeeper power.