Good music isn’t dead, it’s just not the priority.

I saw a post today from UnitedMasters which highlighted the current on going plight in the music industry. The post read: “Both artist and labels are at the mercy of social media algorithms”. To combat this issue, UnitedMasters offered a solution of telling artist to focus on building communities on social media platforms like Instagram , Snapchat, and TikTok and then funnel those fans back to the streaming platforms. While I agree with that tactic, I believe it only solves half the problem, here’s why:

As an artist I find music to be severely undervalued these days. It’s been commodified and diluted in similar ways to the era of Ringtone raps where music’s primary function was to sell phones and not itself or the artist. Music morphed into an add-on item in the checkout isle of a grocery store and I fear we may be there again.

The problem with UnitedMaster’s solution of building community on social media platforms to promote and share music is that—music is not the primary focus on social media platforms. It’s is an auxiliary item to whatever content is being shared and promoted.

Still, music streaming platforms like Spotify , Apple Music, TIDAL , and Amazon Music continue to lose users/listeners to social media platforms because, these platforms are not traditionally community focused and make it very difficult for artist and listeners to connect directly.

If these streaming platforms want to continue to thrive, some big changes need to happen in both their philosophies and platform capabilities to cultivate community building on their platform.

Music streaming platforms like SoundCloud and Audiomack seem to understand this philosophy of community building and as a result have become the last remaining platforms for true algorithmic music discoverability by giving listeners and artist direct access to each other to build communities.

On SoundCloud for example, listeners can leave a time stamped comment on an audio track as it plays highlighting the specific part of the song they like and why. Artist can then reply directly to that comment or message the listener directly on SoundCloud's’ direct messaging feature; which they can then slowly use to build a community. Unfortunately, this community building feature is not highlighted nearly enough as the true value of a streaming platforms like SoundCloud and Audiomack.

My suggestion to these music streaming platforms who want to take back share from social media platforms in music is — Highlight and invest the community building capabilities within your platform. Then, empower and encourage the artist and the listener to communicate and share with each other. When people are able to communicate efficiently and share moments together, listeners and artist are likely spend more time on your platform and allow you to collect more insightful data to make better decisions about the music you serve up through your algorithms.

I think what these platforms will find in the process is an untapped well of talented artist and listeners who see music as essential rather than an add-on item in the checkout isle of a grocery store.

Sincerely,

The Artist and The Listener