Welcome to version 2.0 of our series Behind the Blogs, in which we interview the bloggers and thinkers who are following the music business changes that affect us all.
Everybody knows the music business is changing, and everybody knows that things move especially quickly in the digital world. So it stands to reason, then, that the digital music business must move really, really quickly, right?
According to Andrea Leonelli, the founder of the Digital Music Trends podcast, it's even faster than that:
“You can go from thinking, 'This is the future,' and then the next day, you have to change your mind completely," Leonelli says.
Luckily for his listeners, Digital Music Trends is broadcast weekly via Soundcloud, and whether the topic of conversation is interactivity, the cloud, piracy, China, social media, or anything else, the information and insights are cutting edge.
Why did you decide to start DMT? Basically, I started the podcast in April, 2009, and I'd had the idea for quite some time, actually. I had the idea at PopKomm in 2008, and there I had the idea that I was following all of these tech podcasts for quite a while, and I thought about how there is nothing in the music tech industry that's equivalent to those shows. So although I realized it was quite a niche concept that wouldn't appeal to a lot of people, I thought “whatever." And because there's nothing like it, I was very lucky in that I was able to get really great interviews with a lot people that I don't think I should've been able to get near to. But it worked out.
You cover such a wide swath of the digital space—China, interactivity, the cloud, piracy—how do you get yourself acquainted with all of these fields? How do you prepare for these conversations? In the months where I start researching the fields and researching the guests, you kind of start specializing in some fields that seem to recur more and more. Like, for example, I ended up doing loads of features on companies that do interactive music applications, like MXP4, or Music Mine, and these were all companies that were working around the concept of remixing music that already exists, or working with samples of music so that users can create their own experience. You kind of end up specializing by proxy, because you end up interviewing so many people that work in the same field. You get to the point where you have an overview of the scene, but when you start it's a little bit harder.
Because when you get into a field like piracy, for example, you do all the research and so forth and look at all the news pieces that have come out in the last 12 months or so, so you can understand what the situation is, and try and keep ahead of the curve; it's so easy to fall into the same stereotypes of companies suing people and things like that, but the situation is quite complex. It's trying to be up to speed, but also get the guests to talk as much as possible about their experience, because at the end of the day, my job is to get the questions, and hopefully the guests will have interesting responses! [laughs] That's the important thing.
There's been this huge proliferation of tools in the last couple years, and if they're so inclined, artists can handle their promotions, distribution, social media presence and presentation, and even find collaborators and partners online. But there also seems to be this literacy gap between how most people use the Internet—basic e-mail, YouTube and Facebook, etc—and the rate at which this stuff is coming out and developing. Do you think it's going to take a while for artists and their fans to get used to using these things regularly?
There are very many types of artists, there are digital-forward artists who maybe listen to my show to figure out what is a cool company to try and work with or an up-and-coming service they may want to try, but it is a complete jungle out there as far as services are concerned. If only you look at the number of companies who allow you to sell your music online, for example, or do digital distribution, or allow you to sell your merchandise, or book gigs, the way your band is run, there's countless applications, and that's kind of the main aim of the show. On the one side, you have the business people, or people who have start-ups, or people who are thinking of building a start-up and are kind of interested in the field.
But I think there are also a lot of musicians who are trying to find their feet and understand what the latest trends are. Because if you don't read publications every day and if you don't keep up with what's going on, it's very easy to end up going with a company you heard of six or eight or twelve months ago, and they maybe now are not on the cutting edge anymore. So you'll have gone with a company that's already past its prime. Bands, I think want to experiment with this kind of stuff, but it's very hard to navigate these fields sometimes, and I think the trend we're seeing at the moment—we're seeing it with Soundcloud, Songkick, and more—are operating on an open API basis, meaning they actually want to collaborate with one another. So musicians who are not digitally versed can be confused by this situation where every single service has its own log-in, and a specific set of tools and you have to implement them correctly, and you have to keep following up to build the following that you've acquired through this one service. But I think when we get to the stage where all of them can operate on a single piece of software, for example, and the bands can manage more easily, I think that's when the widespread adoption will take place. Because right now there's way too much happening.
How long do you think it'll be before that happens? Do you see a particular player or actor that might ascend to that level? I think it's going to be hard, because there are companies that are integrating various platforms, but there are parts or aspects of the functionality in these platforms that are being held back by the providers. Because every service has got a premium, or an up-sell, most services online, anyway, and so, although they want to collaborate with other companies, they want to try and keep the most relevant parts of the service to themselves, so that people can access their materials from many places, but they still have to go to that page in order to change anything or muck around with it.
I'm not sure there's going to be one player that breaks out and brings all of these services together. It's not as easy as it is, for example, with social media; we've seen loads of players come in allowing you to update your Facebook, your Twitter, your LinkedIn, Foursquare, all at the same time. And that's tricky in itself, but it's a lot easier to do because it doesn't involve content, it doesn't involve copyright, it doesn't involve a number of things that are essential to music. And so, for music I think it's going to be fragmented for quite a while, from the creators' point of view. I just hope that, from the consumers' point of view, these things are going to be available from one or two or three different platforms, but not 20, because otherwise the fans are just going to get bored with them.
One final question: how has your view of the music industry changed since you started this podcast? Has it at all? Do you simply feel better educated? Or has it affected the way you view things?
Well, when I started, the digital landscape, only a year and a half ago, was very different. And a lot of players were just starting out—Soundcloud launched officially at the end of 2008, Spotify has been a pretty recent development—and the landscape has changed completely since I first started even thinking about the show. And I think that's been really fascinating for me, because I had a music industry background, but not a huge expertise in digital distribution or licensing or the way those things worked. And it's been fascinating to see how the attitudes have changed from month to month, even at the record labels.
For example, I was completely astounded by the explosion of cloud services over the last six months. Because, you know, cloud music wasn't something that was much of a big deal in the last year or so, but things like Lala, and Spotify and Pandora have taken off, and now cloud streaming has exploded. There are so many companies that are running a myriad of different business models that are all trying to grab a piece of this cloud cake. The funny thing is, apart from those streaming services that are well established now, no one is quite sure whether people want to either upload their entire music collections into a cloud or stream everything.
For example, in the UK, Carphone Warehouse, which is basically a mobile phone shop, they just founded a subscription scheme where people pay £30 a month, and Carphone Warehouse has a big server in the cloud where they hold millions of tracks. And they digitally cross-check what they have on your library with what they have on their database, and basically you can access the tracks from your library that they have in their database from wherever you are for that £30 fee. That's quite an interesting idea for someone who's geeky about digital music, but I'm not sure it's quite as compelling for someone else. There's no proof that there's going to be a huge public uptake in something like that. People seem to want both the music that they love and the music that they don't know about, so the idea that they're going to limit themselves to a music locker where you only have the stuff that you own, I'm not so sure people are going to be enthusiastic about that.
Aside from cloud music, there's been so many developments, the piracy thing, the three strikes rule you mentioned, it's been like a virus. It went from France to Canada, it brushed New Zealand and Australia, and seeing the development of all these things, week by week and month by month, is a privilege. Because you need to be up to speed every week, and that's kind of made me realize the complexity of the digital landscape, and appreciate the work that some startups do a lot more. Because it's incredibly hard to get licenses, and you need to do so much to get permission from the labels, so any company that can produce a platform that has major label music on it deserves a round of applause.
So people are just going to have to tune into your podcast to stay abreast of it!
For a better sense of just how much has happened to the digital music space, check out the Digital Music Trends blog for in-depth recaps and transcripts of each podcast.
Everybody knows the music business is changing, and everybody knows that things move especially quickly in the digital world. So it stands to reason, then, that the digital music business must move really, really quickly, right?
According to Andrea Leonelli, the founder of the Digital Music Trends podcast, it's even faster than that:
“You can go from thinking, 'This is the future,' and then the next day, you have to change your mind completely," Leonelli says.
Luckily for his listeners, Digital Music Trends is broadcast weekly via Soundcloud, and whether the topic of conversation is interactivity, the cloud, piracy, China, social media, or anything else, the information and insights are cutting edge.
Why did you decide to start DMT? Basically, I started the podcast in April, 2009, and I'd had the idea for quite some time, actually. I had the idea at PopKomm in 2008, and there I had the idea that I was following all of these tech podcasts for quite a while, and I thought about how there is nothing in the music tech industry that's equivalent to those shows. So although I realized it was quite a niche concept that wouldn't appeal to a lot of people, I thought “whatever." And because there's nothing like it, I was very lucky in that I was able to get really great interviews with a lot people that I don't think I should've been able to get near to. But it worked out.
You cover such a wide swath of the digital space—China, interactivity, the cloud, piracy—how do you get yourself acquainted with all of these fields? How do you prepare for these conversations? In the months where I start researching the fields and researching the guests, you kind of start specializing in some fields that seem to recur more and more. Like, for example, I ended up doing loads of features on companies that do interactive music applications, like MXP4, or Music Mine, and these were all companies that were working around the concept of remixing music that already exists, or working with samples of music so that users can create their own experience. You kind of end up specializing by proxy, because you end up interviewing so many people that work in the same field. You get to the point where you have an overview of the scene, but when you start it's a little bit harder.
Because when you get into a field like piracy, for example, you do all the research and so forth and look at all the news pieces that have come out in the last 12 months or so, so you can understand what the situation is, and try and keep ahead of the curve; it's so easy to fall into the same stereotypes of companies suing people and things like that, but the situation is quite complex. It's trying to be up to speed, but also get the guests to talk as much as possible about their experience, because at the end of the day, my job is to get the questions, and hopefully the guests will have interesting responses! [laughs] That's the important thing.
There's been this huge proliferation of tools in the last couple years, and if they're so inclined, artists can handle their promotions, distribution, social media presence and presentation, and even find collaborators and partners online. But there also seems to be this literacy gap between how most people use the Internet—basic e-mail, YouTube and Facebook, etc—and the rate at which this stuff is coming out and developing. Do you think it's going to take a while for artists and their fans to get used to using these things regularly?
There are very many types of artists, there are digital-forward artists who maybe listen to my show to figure out what is a cool company to try and work with or an up-and-coming service they may want to try, but it is a complete jungle out there as far as services are concerned. If only you look at the number of companies who allow you to sell your music online, for example, or do digital distribution, or allow you to sell your merchandise, or book gigs, the way your band is run, there's countless applications, and that's kind of the main aim of the show. On the one side, you have the business people, or people who have start-ups, or people who are thinking of building a start-up and are kind of interested in the field.
But I think there are also a lot of musicians who are trying to find their feet and understand what the latest trends are. Because if you don't read publications every day and if you don't keep up with what's going on, it's very easy to end up going with a company you heard of six or eight or twelve months ago, and they maybe now are not on the cutting edge anymore. So you'll have gone with a company that's already past its prime. Bands, I think want to experiment with this kind of stuff, but it's very hard to navigate these fields sometimes, and I think the trend we're seeing at the moment—we're seeing it with Soundcloud, Songkick, and more—are operating on an open API basis, meaning they actually want to collaborate with one another. So musicians who are not digitally versed can be confused by this situation where every single service has its own log-in, and a specific set of tools and you have to implement them correctly, and you have to keep following up to build the following that you've acquired through this one service. But I think when we get to the stage where all of them can operate on a single piece of software, for example, and the bands can manage more easily, I think that's when the widespread adoption will take place. Because right now there's way too much happening.
How long do you think it'll be before that happens? Do you see a particular player or actor that might ascend to that level? I think it's going to be hard, because there are companies that are integrating various platforms, but there are parts or aspects of the functionality in these platforms that are being held back by the providers. Because every service has got a premium, or an up-sell, most services online, anyway, and so, although they want to collaborate with other companies, they want to try and keep the most relevant parts of the service to themselves, so that people can access their materials from many places, but they still have to go to that page in order to change anything or muck around with it.
I'm not sure there's going to be one player that breaks out and brings all of these services together. It's not as easy as it is, for example, with social media; we've seen loads of players come in allowing you to update your Facebook, your Twitter, your LinkedIn, Foursquare, all at the same time. And that's tricky in itself, but it's a lot easier to do because it doesn't involve content, it doesn't involve copyright, it doesn't involve a number of things that are essential to music. And so, for music I think it's going to be fragmented for quite a while, from the creators' point of view. I just hope that, from the consumers' point of view, these things are going to be available from one or two or three different platforms, but not 20, because otherwise the fans are just going to get bored with them.
One final question: how has your view of the music industry changed since you started this podcast? Has it at all? Do you simply feel better educated? Or has it affected the way you view things?
Well, when I started, the digital landscape, only a year and a half ago, was very different. And a lot of players were just starting out—Soundcloud launched officially at the end of 2008, Spotify has been a pretty recent development—and the landscape has changed completely since I first started even thinking about the show. And I think that's been really fascinating for me, because I had a music industry background, but not a huge expertise in digital distribution or licensing or the way those things worked. And it's been fascinating to see how the attitudes have changed from month to month, even at the record labels.
For example, I was completely astounded by the explosion of cloud services over the last six months. Because, you know, cloud music wasn't something that was much of a big deal in the last year or so, but things like Lala, and Spotify and Pandora have taken off, and now cloud streaming has exploded. There are so many companies that are running a myriad of different business models that are all trying to grab a piece of this cloud cake. The funny thing is, apart from those streaming services that are well established now, no one is quite sure whether people want to either upload their entire music collections into a cloud or stream everything.
For example, in the UK, Carphone Warehouse, which is basically a mobile phone shop, they just founded a subscription scheme where people pay £30 a month, and Carphone Warehouse has a big server in the cloud where they hold millions of tracks. And they digitally cross-check what they have on your library with what they have on their database, and basically you can access the tracks from your library that they have in their database from wherever you are for that £30 fee. That's quite an interesting idea for someone who's geeky about digital music, but I'm not sure it's quite as compelling for someone else. There's no proof that there's going to be a huge public uptake in something like that. People seem to want both the music that they love and the music that they don't know about, so the idea that they're going to limit themselves to a music locker where you only have the stuff that you own, I'm not so sure people are going to be enthusiastic about that.
Aside from cloud music, there's been so many developments, the piracy thing, the three strikes rule you mentioned, it's been like a virus. It went from France to Canada, it brushed New Zealand and Australia, and seeing the development of all these things, week by week and month by month, is a privilege. Because you need to be up to speed every week, and that's kind of made me realize the complexity of the digital landscape, and appreciate the work that some startups do a lot more. Because it's incredibly hard to get licenses, and you need to do so much to get permission from the labels, so any company that can produce a platform that has major label music on it deserves a round of applause.
So people are just going to have to tune into your podcast to stay abreast of it!
For a better sense of just how much has happened to the digital music space, check out the Digital Music Trends blog for in-depth recaps and transcripts of each podcast.
